A Meaningful Life Amidst a Pluralism of Cultures and Values: John Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism As a Philosophical and Cultural Project (Value Inquiry Book / Central European Value Studies, 391) 9004515585, 9789004515581

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A Meaningful Life amidst a Pluralism of Cultures and Values

Value Inquiry Book Series Founding Editor Robert Ginsberg Managing Editor J.D. Mininger

volume 391

Central European Value Studies Edited by Vasil Gluchman (University of Prešov, Slovakia) Affiliate Editors Jaap van Brakel (University of Louvain) Eckhard Herych (University of Mainz) Assistant Editors Arnold Burms (Belgium) –​Herman Parret (Belgium) –​B.A.C. Saunders (Belgium) –​Frans De Wachter (Belgium) –​Anindita Balslev (Denmark) –​ Lars-​Henrik Schmidt (Denmark) –​Dieter Birnbacher (Germany) –​Stephan Grätzel (Germany) –​Thomas Seebohm (Germany) –​Olaf Wiegand (Germany) –​Alex Burri (Switzerland) –​Henri Lauener (Switzerland) The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​vibs and brill.com/​cevs

A Meaningful Life amidst a Pluralism of Cultures and Values John Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism as a Philosophical and Cultural Project

By

Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Photo by Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński (2022). The Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data is available online at https://​cata​log​.loc​.gov lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2023025918

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 0929-​8 436 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 1558-​1 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​6 8005-​0 (e-​book) Copyright 2023 by Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-​use and/​or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents  Preface ix  Acknowledgments xvii  Abbreviations xix  Introduction Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism: Philosophical Background and Cultural Aspirations 1 1  American Pragmatism as a Cultural Project 1 2  What Is Stoic Pragmatism? 6 3  Santayana’s Thought as an Inspiration 11 4  John Lachs as a Stoic Pragmatist 16 5  Lachs on American Culture and Its Universalist Aspirations 22 6  Modern Stoicism and the Growing Relevance of Stoic Ethics in Contemporary Culture 24 7  Methodological Concerns 29 8  Current Status of Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism Scholarship 30 1  Diagnosis 33 1  Introductory Remarks on Different Meanings of “Culture” and “Value” 34 2  What Does “Contemporary Western Culture” Mean? 36 3  The Contingency of Ideas of Who We Are 41 4  The Internet and the Digital Revolution 44 5  Pluralism of Values 47 6  Cultural Diversity 48 7  A Possible Cost We Pay for Our Comfort 51 8  What Does This Diagnosis Tell Us about Thoughtless Individualism and the Risk of Meaningless Lives? 59 2  Agency 64 1  Dignity 65 2  Humanism and Primitive Naturalism 66 3  Women and “Stoic Feminism” 70 4  The Agent’s Limited Autonomy 71 5  The Widening Circles of Concern (Oikeiôsis) 77 6  Fortitude and Physical Disability 79 7  Finitude 81

vi Contents 8  A Good Life, a Happy Life, a Successful Life, a Meaningful Life: How to Assess Them and What Is the Difference? 84 3  Appropriate Actions 89 1  Approaching Wisdom as an Appropriate Set of Actions 90 2  The Good Enough: between Meliorism and Perfectionism 92 3  An Agent’s Attitude towards Life 95 4  Appropriate Non-​actions: the Rat Race and the Consumer’s Fallacy 98 5  Dichotomy of Control and Immunity to Maltreatment as a Life Strategy 101 6  The Meaningful Life as a Lifelong Project: Vision, Mission (on Values), Happiness (Eudaimonia) 103 7  Philosophy as a Guide to Life Amidst a Pluralism of Cultures and Values 108 8  Toleration and the Virtue of Leaving Others Alone 111 9  What to Do during the Pandemic? 113 4  Activities, Spirituality, and Self-​Therapy 117 1  Activities and the Fallacy of Separation 118 2  The Meaningful Moments of the Present 120 3  Joy 123 4  Self-​Therapy 125 5  A Transcendence-​in-​Experience Spirituality 127 6  Is Religion Irrelevant? 130 5  A Meaningful Life as a Collective Culture Project 133 1  The Meaningful Life as a Meliorative Contribution to Collective Culture 133 2  Humanistic Rhetoric 136 3  Teaching as a Cultural Project: Positive Pluralism, Appropriate Choices, and Role Models 138 4  Practicing Philosophy as Cultural Criticism: Cultural Relativism, Cosmopolitanism, Pluralism of Cultural Perfections, and Culture Wars 145 5  Cultural Immortality or Cultural Afterlife as a Form of Secular Immortality 156 6  Digital Culture 158 1  Digital-​Culture Public Intellectual 159

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2  d c’s 90-​9-​1 Rule and Public Intellectuals as Superusers (within Their Circles of Concern) 161 3  Public Intellectuals’ Courage to Teach Possibilities and to Confront Hate Speech 164 4  Images, Visuality, and the Aestheticization of Ethical Content 167 5  The Main Thesis 169 6  Selected Practices for Stoic Pragmatists’ Visual Presence in Digital Culture 169 7  Side Effects: Methodological Reliability of Aestheticization and Visualization in Question 175 8  Humanization of Cyberspace 177 7  Possible Criticisms 180 1  Is Stoic Pragmatism Needed at All? 180 2  Is There Any Target Audience for sp? 183 3  Is Not sp Internally Split? 185 4  Does sp Promote Virtue Ethics or Utilitarian Ethics? 187 5  Is Not sp’s Eclecticism and Questionable Doctrinal Purity Its Weakest Point? 189 6  Is Not sp about a Slave Mentality, an Escapism into a Passive Comfort Zone Resulting in Cultural Impotence? Where Is the Transformative and Melioristic Activism in sp? 190 7  Is Politics Indifferent? Does Not sp Avoid Politics by Having No Political Agenda? 191 8  Is Not sp Silent about Current Identity and Cultural Diversity Policies? 193 9  Eastern European Stoic Pragmatist Perspective on Diversity Policies 194 10  Is apa’s Criticism of “Emotional Stoicism” Justified? 198 11  Any Future Developments for sp? Is Not sp’s Humanism Dysfunctional in the Time of Posthumanism and Transhumanism? 199  Conclusion 202  Addendum 205  Bibliography 207  Index 219

Preface One of the first ideas that came to my mind when I began considering writing a book on John Lachs, was how could I square it with George Santayana (1863–​ 1952), the Spanish-​American philosopher and cultural critic, whom I had studied extensively during my post-​Ph.D. years. Lachs’s abundant clarifications and penetrating interpretations of Santayana’s works have always been an interesting challenge for me. While reading his books and articles, it appeared to me that Lachs was an intriguing thinker in his own right, apart from his studies of Santayana. He had many other, original things to say. When he finally coined the term stoic pragmatism (henceforth sp) for his mature philosophical position, I thought it a good idea to give it more scrutiny. In a previously edited book of mine, John Lachs’s Practical Philosophy: Critical Essays on His Thought with Replies and Bibliography (Skowroński 2018, henceforth jlpp), I gathered together pieces on Lachs’s scholarly output, authored by international scholars predominantly from a philosophical perspective, especially the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism. Interestingly enough, Lachs more and more, in recent years, has been criticizing pragmatism for what he views is its insufficiency in carrying out its important social, public, educational, and cultural functions outside of academia. The present book focuses exclusively on his idea of stoic pragmatism as expressed in his book Stoic Pragmatism (2012), buttressed by other material scattered throughout his writings. I want to develop his efforts into a broader perspective. I see stoic pragmatism as a cultural project, rather than merely philosophical reflections stemming from an individual position, although his original idea has a pronounced philosophical pedigree. By studying stoic pragmatism and its practical roles, I maintain that one gathers from the trajectory of Lachs’s work the ideas of a meaningful life, a good life, and a life of quality. He weaves them into a thread of insights as to the multifarious ways people view the world, the pluralism of values, and the incommensurability of oppositional ethical positions in a culturally diverse world. Why I have chosen these insights is the second reason why I wanted to write this book. There is a growing concern about a meaningful life these days among people who live amidst different contexts of cultural diversity, be it the American melting pot, the union of European nations, the multiculturally globalized environment, the multiformity of feverish neo-​tribalism, the hectic mess of promoted lifestyles on the Internet, the atmosphere of social polarization accelerated by social media, the streams of fashionable bubbles of opinion driving ignorant attitudes towards the covid pandemic, as well

x Preface as conflicting takes on the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. What interests me most of all is the possibility of the melioration of an individual’s life within the parameters of available resources, against the odds, or rather in spite of the odds (economic or political conditions, for example). I try to see the pluralism of cultures, values, norms, and lifestyles as enriching and empowering. This may not be that easy, because we live in an age of globalization, and we confront opposed ways of living and thinking on a regular basis. Distinct lifestyles and traditions force us to consider that perhaps the values underpinning “our” lifestyles or “our” traditions, whatever they may be, could be undermined and exposed to unwonted revisions and influence. The appearance of other perspectives, equal in importance to “ours,” sparks disorientation and concern in many quarters. The rapidity and extent of the cultural transformations that many of us experience today, especially in countries like my own, heighten the disorientation. Lachs, an American with a Hungarian background, and a joint Canadian/​ American education, possesses a culturally diverse perspective as did his intellectual hero, Santayana. Stoic pragmatism encases his pluralistic approach and his multicultural experience in dealing with the problem of a meaningful life, and I want to expand these aspects, along with the intercultural background, that are the centerpiece of my book. It seems to me that our (Lachs’s and mine) Central/​East-​European postcommunist sensibility sculpts us into a similar mold. First, to have experienced what it means to have very little is a surefire experience leading to an appreciation of what the wealthy, liberal West can offer, even during aleatory crises. Second, this appreciation needs to be accompanied by a knowledge supporting a learning how to use this wealth and liberty intelligently and in an enjoyable manner, rather than lamenting about not having more. I am, as many Central/​East Europeans from my generation also are, sensitive to this fact. Having parents who survived wwii and having spent over a third of my life under a totalitarian regime in my native Poland, including martial law imposed by the military junta in the 1980s, and living most of that time in a city (Opole) that is located between two former Nazi concentration camps (Auschwitz to the east and Gross Rosen to the west) compels me to be even more grateful for the relative freedom and prosperity that I and my compatriots now enjoy. This attitude corresponds to what Santayana, an iconic figure for both of us, claimed about human existence, and I quote here a short passage from Lachs’s book George Santayana: “The ultimate futility of it all stands as but an insignificant terminal point that is unable to rob us of what we have. If we think of the world as our host, there is no reason to stop the feast because the time will come when we will have overstayed our welcome” (gs 17). I admit that I am also sensitive in another sense, one that links

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me with Lachs (and Santayana) even more so, especially since Lachs himself experienced the reality of Communist Hungary in his childhood. I grew up in a complex Communist reality. Having only a vague idea of what “Western culture” meant, I, during my teenage and university student years, was sure that it was impossible to suffer frustration, anger, or a sense of a meaningless life if one lived in the bounteous, democratic West. “West” meant “paradise” to me and to my generation of Central/​East Europeans. Only thoughtless people, I then thought, could complain while having access to all the goods and services they wanted. And even more problematic was that they had access to so many things they did not need, as has happened in Western societies in recent decades with hyper-​consumption! With time, my country became relatively wealthy, free, secure, and democratic. Most of my compatriots earned enough to obtain what they wanted, and I was happy to observe their salaries (and mine) ballooning and the political, economic, and social situation improving to the most stable state ever in Poland’s history. Nevertheless, their happiness and sense of a meaningful life did not augment proportionately. They had been striving to have access to more material goods and services in order to become happy, but despite having more their happiness was incomplete and, frequently, converted into a frustration at not having more. This version of the Easterlin paradox, practically experienced, is one of the main lessons that I have learned from the transition of my country from communist Eastern to capitalist Western. This book has as its social background this story and my firsthand observations that took place in the social, economic, and political processes that framed this transition. I am quite certain that Lachs understands this problematic aspect of the capitalist West perfectly well—​after all he claimed that “improvements in the standard of living leave us more comfortable but not more happy” (im 35–​36)—​as would have Santayana who, as an outsider, happened to witness late nineteenth century capitalism in New England. An integral part of my experience in this respect is the view of the West that my numerous international non-​Western students have expressed to me on so many occasions in my university classes. Apart from my meaningful contacts with students that I was happy to have in the West, that is, in the US, Spain, and Germany, tremendously influential on my views have been the thoughts of students I teach on a regular basis at the University of Opole, which is one of Poland’s most internationalized universities. These students come predominantly from non-​Western countries and regions: Ukraine, Turkey, the Middle East, Central Asia, China, Latin America, and Africa. Many of them seem to have problems with understanding why we, Westerners, do not appreciate what we have and why we complain so much about the social arrangements

xii Preface that they only dream of having in their own countries. I am very grateful to those students for their eye-​opening comments and exchanges. The lack of appreciation for what we, Westerners, have available, is one of the primary sticking points of my philosophical reflections on contemporary Western culture. I cannot hide the fact that my interest in Stoicism, apart from my interest in Santayana and American pragmatism, is also an important reason why I wanted to write this book. Many years ago, I dedicated my ma. thesis and, later, my Ph.D. dissertation to Henryk Elzenberg (1887–​1967), a Polish philosopher of Jewish origin educated in Switzerland and France (Ph.D. at the Sorbonne). He was a modern stoic who tried to read historical Stoicism, especially its late Roman version, through the lens of a philosophy of values and proposed a concept of culture that would be based on value-​oriented actions and activities. In my first scholarly paper published in English, I tried to point out some common points in Elzenberg and Santayana in viewing values as an important point of reference in their works (Skowroński 2003). Recently, I have become interested in quite a number of scholarly books dedicated to resuscitating the historical Stoic ethics, devoid of Stoic metaphysics, and transposing their insights into contemporary contexts. Honestly, I am surprised by the popularity of this intellectual and cultural trend, frequently called new stoicism or modern stoicism (e.g., Stockdale 1993, Irvine 2009, 2019; Morris 2004, Mazur 2014, Holiday 2016, Brouwer 2018 [2014], Becker 2017 [1998], Pigliucci 2017, Williams 2019, Stankiewicz 2020), and even more surprised to see how suffused with pragmatist tenets modern stoicism is. Although I have some reservations about claims (e.g., McLynn 2010 [2009]) that historical Stoicism was a primitive Roman version of American pragmatism, I refer to such claims in the book since they widen and enrich the panoramic view of stoic pragmatism. As a matter of fact, I think it would be great to see if stoic pragmatism could become a sort of common platform for both pragmatism (especially in its Jamesian version) and stoicism (modern). I have no reason to believe that Lachs has ever heard of modern stoicism, but I am sure that his intention was to wed American pragmatism with Roman Stoicism, since they have many important things in common despite their significant and obvious discrepancies. The final reason why I wanted to write this book occurred to me just when the coronavirus pandemic (covid) appeared, and the first global lockdown was initiated in March 2020. I set to work about that time, and I quickly realized that the proposal that sp carries with it may be, at least to some individuals, a response to this type of crisis. The stoic attitude towards trouble and the pragmatist way of looking at what is available to elevate the quality of living

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against the odds, can both be important tools in maintaining mental health and, additionally, in contributing to the cultural scene as a whole. Stoic pragmatism, as a sort of therapy or self-​therapy, as the ancient Stoics saw it, can be, indeed, an example of practical philosophy helping people in general. More tragically, in the final month of writing this book (February 2022), a new menacing convulsion occurred: a new war, this time launched by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fortunately, thousands of nato troops, mainly from the US, arrived in my country to help prevent an unmanageable escalation of the conflict. The importance of a stoic pragmatist attitude in the face of contingency and the unpredictability of events, appeared to me as a necessity. Before I could pragmatically help or contribute to anything, I had to keep stoically my mind as sane and rational as possible, especially by sharing sanity and rationality with those closest to me, my family and friends, and then helping those others whom I could help. Witnessing vulnerable masses of Ukrainian refugees in Poland and watching their plight (traveling with them multiple times on train journeys), ninety percent of whom were women with children, was such a moving experience that it has become a point of reference for me in assessing cultural issues, and part of this experience is articulated in this book. Let me add that the choice of the specific subject matter for the book—​ stoic pragmatism rather than John Lachs’s philosophy—​excludes a biographical nature and a presentation of Lachs’s thought as such. Let me make this clear: the present project, despite the fact that it brings into play all of Lachs’s published books and numerous articles, is not an intellectual biography of Lachs and does not include a well-​balanced, definitive view of all his ideas throughout his life. Nor does it include criticism of his ideas by other scholars, although one of the chapters (the last one) is dedicated to a critical examination of stoic pragmatism as presented in this volume, which is a very different story. Also, I do not put a premium on an historical approach, as Lachs himself did not, and no reconstructive effort will be done to compare historical Stoicism to the main claims of twentieth and twenty-​first century pragmatism. Accordingly, this book does not have an historical perspective. Despite references, here and there, to historical Stoicism and to scholarly studies about the Stoics, it does not treat Stoicism in Western philosophy historically, and the same applies to pragmatism. Instead, I basically want to show that sp is a promising tool in dealing with the problem of a meaningful life amidst diverse cultures, and a pluralism of values, viewed from our contemporary Western perspective. The present book has two distinct methodological parts. In the “Introduction” I focus on the figure of Lachs, on his idea of sp, and on the background of this idea. In the chapters that follow the “Introduction” I do something different.

xiv Preface I depart from a scholarly position of studying Lachs’s ideas and, instead, assume the perspective of a stoic pragmatist myself, interpreting and assessing the problems of contemporary culture and the role of an individual agent in it from the viewpoint of stoic pragmatism. I leave behind Lachs’s thought on the whole. Instead, I use the material that constitutes the substance of sp, as a tool to interpret, complement, develop, and enlarge it, and I hash out cultural issues through the lens of an updated version of sp, hoping that I do not stray too far away from Lachs’s original intentions. What do I claim is the book’s originality? The four obvious contributive originalities are: 1) The first book on the thought of John Lachs. 2) The first book on stoic pragmatism (apart from Lachs’s). 3) A new contribution to pragmatism scholarship. 4) A new contribution to the new/​modern stoicism. The response to the question immediately above is found in the following two claims, additional originalities with more in-​depth explications. 5) As Lachs for the most part only outlined stoic pragmatism, there are numerous tenets contained in the idea, so to speak, that need to be complemented. For example, in the area of culture, including digital culture. In my focus on cultural issues, rather than the exclusively philosophical, I try to provide scrutiny, criticism, and development. I reformulate inconsistencies, supplement the material discussed, propose new vistas, embrace new contexts, and discuss possible future developments. I introduce an interest in digital culture, something that Lachs did not explore (cf. Lachs 1985) in any kind of extensive or probing manner. The electronic, digital age and its dynamics are relatively recent things, and difficult to breach satisfactorily by traditional (or not so traditional, being scholars who simply are more at home with book and paper) humanists of a relatively older generation. Lachs’s reflections about the role of tools in Intermediate Man, published thirty years ago, do not and could not include much insight into the roles of fb, yt, ig, Twitter and others, although there are some relevant thoughts concerning our contemporary situation involving digital tools and their prevalence in human life. I must admit that Lachs’s recent activity on the Internet (videos of his lectures and interviews) makes him, by that fact itself, a digital-​culture public intellectual, and I devote Chapter 6 to championing this type of career as a suggestive antidote to the growing role of vacuous, mindless cyberspace in our lives. Also, in many places of the book, I square sp with the contexts of the recent covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, something that Lachs has not been able to do given his age and condition. All of these contemporary realities (that is, digital

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culture, the pandemic, the war) can be significantly clarified and illuminated by taking to heart Lachs’s original idea. 6) The originality of the book lies in its attempt to locate and explore and assess Lachs’s stoic pragmatism in the cultural arena. I redirect the orientation into a cultural project, rather than keep it sequestered in philosophical introspection. In a sense, Lachs initiated the move by pointing out the limitedness of academic philosophy, and arguing that philosophical ideas should be promoted and discussed outside of academia. I propose an even wider approach and insist on sp having a cultural function, not only a philosophical legitimacy. This has been significantly developed in the book. Interestingly enough, these and other considerations have forced me to think of how best to characterize the relationship between my view of stoic pragmatism and Lachs’s. Perhaps the following captures it well: I am an extension of Lachs’s insights and philosophy, yet I tender an independent view of stoic pragmatism that develops its own discourses when considered in the contexts of culture, digitality, along with the most recent challenging threats of the coronavirus pandemic (covid) and risings tensions with armed conflict in the European theater. Additionally, to better formulate my claims I refer, directly or indirectly, to sources that Lachs did not tap. Most importantly new/​modern stoicism and the figures who have studied historical Stoicism and have shown us facets of its teaching in a new light: Bertrand Russell, Pierre Hadot, Martha Nussbaum, Anthony Kenny, and Henryk Elzenberg. My book is not an introduction to the philosophy of John Lachs. Instead, it stems from Lachs’s idea of stoic pragmatism and proposes more novel, wider, cultural perspectives. A general sketch of the chapters that follow the “Introduction” is as follows. Chapter 1, “Diagnosis,” is an attempt to present the condition of contemporary culture in the West as seen through the lens of stoic pragmatism. It reflects, among many other things, that despite the most developed social security system and highest levels of education ever established in history for a majority of a population (in Western nations), for many people living a good and meaningful life seems to be a questionable, unresolved issue. It is not by accident that the chapter title includes a medical term. Lachs falls in line with the Stoics in proposing philosophy as something like a self-​therapeutic tool, which I will discuss later on in the book. Chapter 2, “Agency,” focuses on compelling us to realize the importance of the potential of the individual agent in making life (more) meaningful. This potential is already recognized by Western moral thought. I assert the dignity of all humans and tie in constitutional charters, for example, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with which sp’s ideas are quite consonant. Chapter 3, “Appropriate Actions,” is devoted to thinking about the practice of making life meaningful according to the general

xvi Preface line of argumentation that wisdom, knowledge, and self-​knowledge are basic and useful tools. It also shows that it is pragmatic to employ the stoic dichotomy of control tactics in intending to thrive within areas that we, individual agents, have more control over rather than risk (emotional) failures and initiate unrealistic projects and efforts over which we have little control. Chapter 4, “Activities, Spirituality, and Self-​Therapy,” identifies those types of acts that elevate particular moments of everyday life into something extraordinary and fulfilling. By pausing for a while and emancipating the humdrum from the drudge of the habitual into the status of the unusual or the beautiful, we can indulge in a technique that heightens our sense of living cost-​free. Chapter 5, “A Meaningful Life as a Collective Culture Project,” discusses the link between the individual agent’s strife to make life more meaningful and contributing to culture understood collectively. Chapter 6, “Digital Culture,” proposes a practical response that stoic pragmatists might offer in the face of the present informational, technological revolution, especially in the context of education and promoting good practices to a greater swath of audiences. The final chapter, “Possible Criticisms,” wrestles with possible doubts and questions regarding the version of stoic pragmatism that is presented in this volume and tries to supply honest answers to this criticism. The book concludes with some final thoughts and my recommended reading in the hope that it could be edifying. These chapters have been written in the hope that sp can somehow be an interesting contribution to the cultural landscape and an alternative way of viewing and absorbing contemporary cultural diversity. Most importantly, however, I would like build on Lachs’s hope about the viable development of his original project: “The details of a fully developed philosophy of stoic pragmatism have yet to be worked out” (sp 143). This book is a humble attempt to, at least partially, meet this challenge.

Acknowledgments First and foremost, I thank my friends and colleagues of the Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum, e.V.: its patron, John Lachs, for many years of stimulating exchanges; its chair, Maja Niestrój, for her constant encouragement to write about stoic pragmatism; its textual editor, Dr. Charles Padrón (formerly John Lachs’s doctoral student), for his unreserved readiness to offer his priceless help with textual and editorial issues for the present volume; its Conversaciones y polémicas Project Manager, Dr. Carlos Climent Durán, for innumerable discussions, and Dr. Farhad Bazyan, our filmmaking editor, for his inspired suggestions. I thank my friends and colleagues from The Santayana Society, especially its current president, Dr. Richard Rubin, and its former President, Dr. Herman Saatkamp (formerly John Lachs’s doctoral student), for many rewarding exchanges throughout the years. Great thanks go out to Dr. Daniel Moreno Moreno, ies Zaragoza and co-​ editor of Limbo: Boletín internacional de estudios sobre Santayana, for his intellectual companionship. It was through our frequent correspondence that some of my ideas became crystalized. I thank professors Ángel Faerna of the Universidad Castilla-​La Mancha, Toledo and Julio Soeane of the Universidad Álcala de Henares, for hosting me on numerous Erasmus visits there; some ideas for the present volume came up during my classes with Spanish students there. I thank Dr. Antonio Lastra and my friends from La Torre del Virrey. During many sessions with them I developed some ideas for the present volume. I thank David Wallis, Cambridge, England, for our stimulating exchanges. I also thank my colleagues from the University of Opole. I hope that the present volume will contribute to the discussions held at the Department of Studies on Culture and Religion, of which I am proud to be a member. Last but not least: my special thanks to my fiancée for inspiration, talks, and criticism. The present volume contains references, revised short fragments or modified longer fragments from the following, previously published texts (I thank the publishers for their permissions to use the published materials): “John Lachs’s Relativism in Philosophical Education as Seen from a Practical Perspective.” In: John Lachs’s Practical Philosophy: Critical Essays on His Thought with Replies and Bibliography. Leiden-​Boston: Brill/​Rodopi, 2018, pp. 59–​73.

xviii Acknowledgments “Philosophy in Digital Culture: Images and the Aestheticization of the Public Intellectual’s Narratives.” Eidos: A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2020, vol. 4. no. 1, pp. 23–​37. “Santayana as a Stoic Pragmatist in John Lachs’s Interpretation.” Overheard in Seville: Bulletin of the Santayana Society, 2020, No. 38, pp. 109–​123. “Stoic Pragmatist Ethics in a Time of Pandemic.” Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe), 2021, pp. 82–​91. “Cultural Diversity and Clashing Narratives about National Culture: A Central European Stoic Pragmatist Perspective.” Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe), 2022, pp. 212–​220. “Spirituality and Religion in Stoic Pragmatism.” Volume edited by Wolfgang Kaltenbacher, dedicated to Professor Ludwig Nagl, Böhlau-​Verlag, Vienna (to be published in 2023). “The Individual and the Community in Stoic Pragmatism.” Ruch Filozoficzny, 2022, vol. 4, pp. 49–​65. “Many Paths of a Common Plan? Rosa Maria Calcaterra on American and European Pragmatism,” in: Esperienza, contingenza, valori. Saggi in onore di Rosa M. Calcaterra. Macerata, Quodlibet 2020, pp. 191–​194. In some passages of the first section of the “Introduction,” I refer to material that was published in my book, Values, Valuations, and Axiological Norms in Richard Rorty’s Neopragmatism. Studies, Polemics, Interpretations. Lanham-​ Boulder-​ New York-​ London: Lexington Books (The Rowman & Littlefield Group), 2015. Also, in one paragraph of the “Preface,” and in some places in “Chapter 1,” I refer to other pieces, especially “Lachs’ The Cost of Comfort in Light of Stoic Pragmatism” (2020), that were, in different forms, previously published on my blog at www​.chri​ssko​wron​ski​.com​.

newgenprepdf

Abbreviations sp dc

Stoic pragmatism (idea) Digital culture (idea)



Lachs’s Books (Details in Bibliography)

afsl cc ci fl gs im jlpp ll M mp poml rpl sp tr U

Animal Faith and Spiritual Life. Lachs, ed., 1967b The Cost of Comfort. Lachs 2019 Community of Individuals. Lachs 2003 Freedom and Limits. Lachs 2014 George Santayana. Lachs 1988 Intermediate Man. Lachs 1981 John Lachs’s Practical Philosophy. Skowroński, ed., 2018 In Love with Life. Lachs 1998 Meddling. Lachs 2014 Mind and Philosophers. Lachs 1987 Physical Order and Moral Liberty. John Lachs and Shirley Lachs, eds., 1969 The Relevance of Philosophy to Life. Lachs 1995 Stoic Pragmatism. Lachs 2012 Thinking in the Ruins. Michael Hodges and John Lachs, eds., 2000 The University. Lachs 2022 (Unpublished Manuscript)

Introduction

Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism: Philosophical Background and Cultural Aspirations

The present chapter has a methodologically different character from all the others, and this is the reason why it has the form of an introduction to the principal text, which the following chapters embody. It discusses the very tool, that is, stoic pragmatism, by means of which the topic of the present book will be dealt with. In other words, it is about stoic pragmatism, whereas the other chapters use stoic pragmatism in order to view and interpret problems of meaningfulness, diversity, and pluralism in cultural contexts. This introduction outlines the background and inspirations behind John Lachs’s idea of stoic pragmatism, its main features, and its significance in the time of a revival of Stoic themes in recent years (the so-​called modern stoicism). Lachs’s basic idea is this: by bringing together the pragmatist and Stoic traditions at a common point, namely, the melioration of public life by the betterment of individual lives, stoic pragmatism aspires to transcend the methodological limitations imposed by current, theory-​oriented academic philosophy. As a consequence of this, sp discusses practical philosophy, hoping to inspire ideas and suggestions that will also appeal to more general audiences about what a good and meaningful life is, and, in this way, accomplishing philosophy’s wider, public, and cultural mission. 1

American Pragmatism as a Cultural Project

American pragmatism is seen by many commentators as predominantly a philosophical movement. Yet one of its specific traits has always been to move beyond academic philosophy departments in order that the pragmatist philosopher is able to become, among other things, an “interpreter of the problems of American people” (Royce 2005 [1911], 211). From its very beginning up to and including its most recent versions, such as neopragmatism and feminist pragmatism, it has dealt not only with philosophical issues, but also served as an articulation of American culture during moments of its evolution. There is some justification in claiming, then, that its founder, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–​1914) was a son of the New England culture of his time (Nubiola 2009, 5); that William James’s “form of pragmatism was indeed a form of Americanism in philosophy” (Royce 2005 [1911], 218); and that one of its most famous recent

© Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004680050_002

2 Introduction representatives, Richard Rorty (1931–​2007), put forward “a renewed expression of the meliorism which characterizes the cultural tradition of the United States” (Calcaterra 2014, 94). From this perspective, it is possible to view the classical American pragmatists as figures who skillfully converted some American themes into philosophical ideas in such a way that the reader studying the texts of, say, William James (1842–​1910), John Dewey (1859–​1952), and Josiah Royce (1855–​1916), learns something significant about the United States and the universal or global aspirations of American culture, apart from the merely philosophical problems that they debated. I pay special attention to these three figures not only because they belong to the most influential representatives of this American movement. I refer to them because they—​or, more precisely, some parts of their outputs—​have been substantially inspirational for John Lachs (1934–​) in putting forth the idea of stoic pragmatism. I take this idea on board in this book. What does the phrase “pragmatism as a cultural project” refer to? Royce, who was James’s colleague at Harvard, claimed, among other things, that in James’s thought “certain characteristic aspects of our national civilization have found their voice”; that his philosophy of life was “an expression of the better spirit of our people,” and to support his claims, Royce referred to the main features that defined American culture of that time. Specifically, he claimed that James belonged to the age that witnessed the rapid transformation of American society after the Civil War on the one hand, and on the other, the territorial expansion, economic growth, immigration, and urgency to redefine America’s ideals “to retain its moral integrity, and yet to become a world power” (Royce 2005 [1911], 207, 219, 211). Something remarkably similar—​that pragmatism expressed philosophically the undercurrents of American culture and society—​can be seen in George Santayana (1863–​1952) who, being Spanish by birth and American by education, perceived American culture as if from the outside. He saw the then American culture as an important point of reference for the classical American pragmatists: James (with whom he worked for many years at Harvard), Royce (who was his Ph.D. adviser and later a colleague at Harvard), and Dewey (with whom he held famous exchanges via published texts). Santayana claimed that Dewey’s philosophy “genuinely represents the mind of the vast mass of native, sanguine, enterprising Americans,” that he “inherits the Puritan conscience, grown duly practical, democratic, and positivistic”; and that he “accepts industrial society and scientific technique as the field where true philosophy may be cultivated and tested” (Santayana 1968 [1953], 130). This aspect of Santayana’s relation to America was addressed by Rorty in the following way: Santayana “was able to laugh at us [Americans] without despising us,” and “he saw us as

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one more great empire in the long parade. His genial hope was that we might enjoy the imperium while we held it” (Rorty 1980, 228). Rorty himself openly confirmed that the American cultural background was a vivid inspiration for some pragmatists. He wrote explicitly that “James and Dewey deliberately and self-​consciously related their philosophical doctrines to the country of which they were prominent citizens” and that James and Dewey “took America seriously; both reflected on the world-​historical significance of their country” (Rorty 1999, 25). Rorty himself took Dewey’s humanistic concept of democracy most seriously and understood it as his own source for philosophical and ethical inspiration. He claimed that in Dewey, as in Walt Whitman before, the term “democracy” and the term “America” signify a new understanding of what the term “human” may mean; essentially, hued by secular, co-​operational, progressive, and consensual qualities (Rorty 1998, 18). Another leading pragmatist, Richard Bernstein (1932–​2022), confirms that “what Rorty most deeply responds to in Dewey is his conviction that human agency can always make a difference in bringing about a more humane and just society.” Bernstein adds in the same place that “Dewey (and Rorty) combined the sharpest criticism of the failures of America to live up to its professed ideals with pride in the democratic promise of America” (Bernstein 2003, 125). Small wonder then that in multicultural America the role of the individual agent, amidst cultural diversity, was even considered by pragmatist philosophers. After all, it was pragmatism that discussed the role of human agency in having an impact on the amelioration of democratic culture, long before multicultural issues became omnipresent on the global agenda. Royce, born in California and a witness to the making of the United States in the last decades of the nineteenth century, paid special attention to the notion that “individualistic communities are almost universally, and paradoxically enough, communities that are extremely cruel to individuals” (Royce 2005 [1898], 202). He converted this remark to apply to a particular context: “The individual who, by public action or utterance, rises above the general level in California, is subject to a kind of attack which strong men frequently enjoy, but which even the stranger finds on occasion peculiarly merciless” (ibid.). One of the explanations for this is a break with the original culture and a sense of the necessity of self-​reliance in a new milieu: “That absence of concern for a man’s antecedents (…), contributes to this very mercilessness” (ibid.). James exposed the diversity and pluralism of his humanist approach as a tool that more effectively deals with what he calls “the reality”: “Ethically the pluralistic form of it takes for me a stronger hold on reality than any other philosophy I know of—​it being essentially a social philosophy, a philosophy of ‘co’” (James 1977 [1905], 304). James formulated the question about the role of

4 Introduction the individual in society in a concise way and in a humanist tone: “Our problem is, What are the causes that make communities change from generation to generation?”—​and answered it tersely: “I shall reply to this problem. The difference is due to the accumulated influences of individuals, of their examples, their initiatives, and their decisions” (James 1947 [1880], 166). Dewey was also profoundly saturated with the idea of humanism. He contributed to the Humanist Manifesto (1933), and in “What Humanism Means to Me” he writes the following: “At all events, what Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contradiction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good” (Dewey 1984 [1930], 266). Interestingly enough, Dewey’s humanistic approach was, on various occasions, labeled as religious humanism (Rockefeller 2009, section 2), even though his was also the position of anthropocentrism and the rejection of a divine pattern to be followed as well as the supra-​natural intervention to be looked for. As it is, such an open declaration of a religious humanism on the one hand and, on the other, a no less open declaration of secularism, secularization, anthropocentrism, naturalism, democracy, among other concepts, could have enjoyed much more understanding within an American cultural context—​traditionally more variegated and pluralistic—​and much less understanding capable by the European mind, especially during Dewey’s own time. I write about all of this to vindicate the view that one of the resources for American pragmatists is, sometimes open and sometimes hidden, the background of American culture. This background, like pragmatism itself, betrays its reservation as to the static and frozen metaphysical concepts that have been so typical of the classical European tradition since the Greek metaphysicians. The pragmatists look at democracy, and the ethics of democracy, as the best hope for the practical development of sociopolitical life in American contexts, and as the most effective set of material conditions for individuals to grow up with as full-​fledged human beings. Also, optimism as the belief in the sense of amelioration against all odds, along with the conviction about possibilities for human beings, and trust of oneself, are fundamental issues in pragmatism. And last but not least, the practical philosophy. What I have in mind here is the working, and reworking, over and over again, of more and more elaborated theories of democracy, humanism, individualism, and similar themes that have been seen as superfluous if they could not be practically applicable to social conditions, or if they could not facilitate the implementation of democratic ideas into the practice of life. For example, with regard to education, this is linked with seeing books, texts, ideas, and concepts predominantly as tools to be used for moral growth and development: both individual and communal. All of these features constitute a set of typically American themes that

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the pragmatists (and proto-​pragmatists like Ralph Waldo Emerson) took on willingly. Not only the themes but also the way of talking about the themes is at stake here. Patrick K. Dooley and Sergio Franzese, each separately, pay attention to the warlike and heroic vocabulary James uses in some of his ethical works and suggest that it manifests “the motifs of the American age of energy” (Franzese 2008, 160). Dooley writes about “the extent to which a cultural endowment of concepts, issues and problems provided a matrix for intellectuals and public figures,” and goes on to show that James “extolled the value of the strenuous mood” at the same time when “Theodore Roosevelt celebrated the benefits of the strenuous life” (Dooley 2001, 162). Other heroic activities were highlighted from the 1890s up to 1900 in the United States. Indeed, James, in his well-​known and influential texts employed a rhetoric that well suited the spirit of activity, progress, and success that was so typical for the America of a free-​ market economy. In “The Energies of Men,” James linked this ethics of energy and progress with the political aims of the nation and the educational character of its schools. He writes that “a man who energizes below his normal maximum fails by just so much to profit by his chance at life; and that a nation filled with such men is inferior to a nation run at higher pressure. The problem is, then, how can men be trained up to their most useful pitch of energy?” (James 1977 [1906], 673). Even more so, when addressing his questions to the international arena, he showed the universalist ambitions of pragmatism and American culture: “And how can nations make such training most accessible to all their sons and daughters. This, after all, is only the general problem of education, formulated in slightly different terms” (ibid.). At the same time, democracy and the practical implementation of democratic ideals in the practice of sociopolitical life had been one of the fundamental projects for American pragmatists, especially Dewey. A leading American neopragmatist, Hilary Putnam (1926–​2016), for whom Dewey is a philosophical hero, interpreted Dewey’s philosophical and epistemological writings as being intricately connected with his views on the role that democratic institutions should play in contemporary society. Putnam writes that Dewey’s “purely epistemological writings cannot be understood apart from that concern. That concern is with the meaning and future of democracy” (Putnam 2011 [1990], 330). This includes the role of vocabulary, along with the practical attitude that is articulated by this vocabulary. Putnam defines himself by taking on the vocabulary of Deweyan democracy, and in this he sees the best available way to deal with problems of political liberty and, we can suspect, of economic and cultural issues as well. He writes that “democracy is not just a form of social life among other workable forms of social life; it is the precondition for the full

6 Introduction application of intelligence to the solution of social problems. The notions from Dewey’s vocabulary that I have employed are, of course, intelligence (…) and problem solving” (Putnam 2011 [1990], 331). Such types of claims may cause different sorts of reactions, and there are commentators who indicate a sort of imperial tone in the pragmatist rhetoric, at least in some of its most influential representatives. Paulo Margutti took a look at Dewey’s message from his non-​Western cultural perspective and claimed that Dewey uses in his democratic philosophy the American cultural background in which expansion and success are axiomatic. Margutti writes that “under the guise of universality” Dewey articulates “the particularism of Western modern imperial view of the world” and sees “modern Western culture as the goal towards which all other cultures should direct their respective historical evolutions” (Margutti 2013, 80). All the themes that have just been discussed constitute, along with many others, the tone and character of the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism and John Lachs’s thought is a part of this tradition. 2

What Is Stoic Pragmatism?

The term stoic pragmatism (sp) was coined by the Hungarian-​American philosopher John Lachs (2014 [2005], 2012 [sp], 2014a, Skowroński 2018 [jlpp]), for a theory and practice of the good life in individual, social, and cultural contexts. sp has two main philosophical sources of inspiration. The first is American pragmatism, especially James, Dewey, Royce, and also Santayana—​whose links with pragmatism are detectable on some points. The second is the philosophy of Stoicism, especially the ethics of the Roman Stoics: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, who, in some places, “is indistinguishable from a pragmatist” (sp 47), and Cicero who, fundamentally, was more of a sympathizer with Stoicism and an elaborate articulator of its ideas rather than an authentic Stoic philosopher. In his own writings, Lachs reduces the whole tradition of Stoic philosophy to its later, Roman version in which, as in the pragmatism of James and Dewey, metaphysics was less pronounced than ethics: “The heart of stoicism is its ethics, not its metaphysics or epistemology” (Lachs 2014a, 203). Despite many unquestionable discrepancies between these two important, yet historically distant, philosophical traditions, an effort to “enrich and complete each other” finds its justification in providing “a better attitude to life than either of the two views alone” (sp 42). As a result, “Stoic pragmatists believe that intelligent effort can make life longer and better. At the same time, they

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acknowledge human limits and show themselves ready to surrender gracefully when all efforts at amelioration fail” (Lachs 2014a, 206). Lachs hopes that if we pragmatically interpret some of the Stoic ideas (which are also Hellenistic on some points) that refer to the good and meaningful life, and practically weave them into our own contemporary contexts, it may appear that they can help us recognize our sense of agency in a more effective way, and this in order to increase our sense of the quality of our lives. For example, “the most notable feature of pragmatists is their commitment to bring life under intelligent and effective human control” (sp 44), and it does not differ that much from the Stoics, at least in employing a rational selection of things and actions that allows them self-​control and becoming self-​ sufficient. This corresponds to the idea of Lawrence Becker (1939–​2018), one of the principal figures of the modern stoicism movement (of which I write below), who indicates that, for modern stoicism, rational agency “is a defining feature of mature human consciousness” (Becker 2017 [1998], 13), and his claim overlaps with Lachs’s on this point. This project also has social and cultural dimensions, since one of the basic presuppositions of sp is that the betterment of individual circumstances and the quality of individual lives are also ways to ameliorate social and cultural life. sp is an open project in the sense that it pursues factual improvement in the quality of life for living individuals, rather than a new theory about such improvement. It hopes to do so by showing, explaining, and encouraging more exemplary attitudes towards life among various audiences, despite divergent cultural norms and clashing values. sp abandons “the research/​discovery paradigm of philosophy” as “wrongheaded and unproductive” (sp 21), and focuses on the expansion of philosophy beyond the practices of academic circles out into the open public. Lachs has reservations about the power of philosophy that analytical and scientific method-​oriented pragmatists, such as Charles S. Peirce recommended in the past, and that Nicolas Rescher (the so-​called cognitive pragmatism) does presently. As Lachs writes: “I am too close to silent people, to the nonverbal nonintellectuals who constitute the bulk of humankind, not to know the places where the stream of words dries up in the sands of feeling or the mountains of actions” (sp 184–​5). Instead, stoic pragmatists should be instrumental in giving (and justifying) the patterns and strategies of the good life, be they individual, social, or cultural. They do not, nor cannot, solve problems in a scientific or political manner. Stoic pragmatism does not nor cannot solve the problem of any given pandemic, yet it can help us think about what to do during difficult times. For example, by studying reliable medical sources and applying the knowledge about the pandemic into our individual practices, if possible.

8 Introduction More generally, it is fundamentally impossible to overcome problems that are out of our reach; however, we can optimize our efforts amidst what is possible, according to Santayana’s more general claim that “survival is something impossible: but it is possible to have lived and died well” (Santayana 1995 [1951], 210). sp should promote philosophy understood as a guide to life for those of many different audiences, rather than as a methodologically coherent set of theories for a limited circle of experts, as analytical philosophy tends to do, or as a form of ideology, as neo-​Marxist schools tend to practice these days. There are even places (especially in rpl) in which Lachs employs, as did the Stoics, the analogy between medicine (treatment of the body) and philosophy (treatment of the soul). On the other hand, the present hyper-​professionalization of science-​oriented pragmatism that makes philosophy look abstract and superfluous to the general public is Lachs’s target of criticism, and appears to be the principal reason why he pitches his ideas to wider audiences. In this way, sp can be seen, at least partially, as a result of Lachs’s critical assessment of American pragmatism. Especially, since it was pragmatism that initially represented a transformative model of doing philosophy, and a practical amelioration for a society and its culture. However, it has failed to achieve its realization by becoming entangled in meticulous analyses of abstract puzzles. Having been unable to offer an adequate attitude to life, it needs “a stoic correction” (sp 56) that would make pragmatism more practically action-​oriented and more widely audience-​oriented. Although Lachs declares that “I am not in any simple sense a pragmatist,” he openly admits that he has “a growing appreciation and sympathy for many aspects of the pragmatic way of dealing with philosophical (and human) problems” (ci 2). The presence of philosophical ideas amidst a wider cultural ambience, as in a sociopolitical sense, must be a part of this sympathy and, as a result, his concern about its very conditions and about the hopes that pragmatism can offer, are championed. Despite praxis being considered as the central theme in pragmatism it is, in fact, the idea of praxis or the theory of praxis that is discussed most profoundly in the pragmatist camp. Despite James’s moral message to awaken the “energies of men,” and Dewey’s appeal to deal with the problems of people rather than those of philosophers (cf. Dewey 1980 [1917], 46), a large part of the work that pragmatists take on deals with exchanging views among professors and candidates for professorship within academic institutions about theoretical issues. This combination of theorizing and elitism has resulted in abstract hairsplitting presented in a sophisticated argot, hardly understood by anyone outside of academia, and having little impact on the cultural world at large. Correspondingly, if members of the public would need or hope for

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anything from philosophers at all, it is not new theories rendered into technical language about problems that most outside of academia would see as unimportant. One fallout of this is that we witness a growing chasm between pragmatist philosophy and the wider audiences for whom philosophers and their work appear as both abstract and irrelevant. It is not the fault of these audiences, but rather that of philosophers themselves, because they seem not to care or have forgotten that “philosophy becomes marginalized only when it distances itself from the problems of life” (ci 11). Rorty, famously, expressed the same type of concern in the context of first-​rate analytic philosophers who have dominated philosophy departments, yet remain “busy solving problems which no nonphilosopher recognizes as problems: problems which hook up with nothing outside the discipline.” Equally, “what goes on in Anglophone philosophy departments has become largely invisible to the rest of the academy, and thus to the culture as a whole” (Rorty 1998, 129). A growing invisibility of pragmatist philosophy in the cultural arena that lies outside of the contemporary philosophy departments is one of the basic incentives for Lachs to talk about sp at all. Having stated this, we must admit that the professionalization of philosophy would not merit much criticism if it could deliver tangible, practical applications to the sphere of cultural life. Dedication to philosophical tasks would be as easily explainable as the results of, say, medical research. The need for medical research, even those efforts performed by exceedingly small groups of specialists who employ hermeneutic jargon, is easily explainable to anybody who requires, in a real-​life sense, medical treatment now or at some later date. In other words, the professionalization of philosophy would not be so problematic if its results were understood by everyone else, not just philosophers who arrive at them. The lack of convertible gains of supposedly excellent outcomes of philosophical research, in epistemology for example, for the betterment of the human condition, may suggest either the futility or the inconclusiveness of the research. Lachs disregards this type of effort almost dismissively: “To this day, philosophers have not faced up to the fact that their philosophical efforts have failed to contribute even a small fragment to the sum of human knowledge. Worse, there is not a single philosophical proposition that commands universal assent in the field” (sp 14). In this sense, pragmatism resembles those philosophical schools that pragmatists themselves have and still do criticize for impracticality and abstract speculation. Pragmatists most often fail when they narrow their efforts to constructing theories and performing scientific-​like analyses even when they deal with praxis. James and Dewey seem to be exceptions to this for Lachs, and not without some justification; after all James read Marcus Aurelius and

10 Introduction even appreciated Stoic teachings at some points, as we learn from one of his letters: “The stoic feeling of being a sentinel obeying orders without knowing the General’s plans is a noble one” (Skrupskelis and Berkeley 1995, 250). Still, most of the pragmatist output these days plunges into a science-​oriented methodology and hardly appeals to wider audiences. For example, in elevating the sense of the quality of life and what its significance actually is. In opposition to engaging in philosophy in this way, many Greek philosophical schools were practice-​oriented in a practical manner, not merely by discussing the problems of praxis but practicing and championing practical attitudes towards life. Stoicism, like some other Greek schools (the Cynics, the Sophists, the Cyrenaics, the Epicureans, and even the Sceptics), can be exemplary and refreshing, occurring at this very moment in history. Viewed thus, the possible misleading and problematic term of stoic pragmatism (Pinkas 2018b, 153–​165) may appear as just that, problematic to an academic audience. Professional philosophers may, indeed, have problems in understanding why these two seemingly different philosophies have been united to produce sp which, in the final analysis, contains relatively little of both. This target audience (academics), however, is the one that Lachs criticizes most by accusing them of “over-​intellectualization” (sp 70) and invisibility on the wider cultural screen. His profound hope is to appeal to much wider and much more variegated audiences who are not paralyzed by theoretical incoherencies, yet who possess philosophical and cultural needs, and it is for these audiences that sp can and should be informative. “Informative” here meaning more stimulating and providing sound guidance, rather than teaching anybody the differences between philosophical schools and ideas: “My interest was not in historical comparisons or ideological purity, but in pursuing actions that enrich the large facts of human life and strains of reflection that illuminate them. In this light, calling my view stoic pragmatism is not misleading, even though it doesn’t put in play every feature, and only the features, of the two fused views” (jlpp 166). Does sp have a methodology, or it is ready to give up the rigor of academic requirements? sp aspires to offer ways to deepen reflection and broaden imagination, according to the claim that “if science yields refrigerators and the Salk vaccine, philosophy should give us the tools for wisdom and an improving public mind” (fl 227). It is wisdom and the improving of the public mind that are the main “products” that sp can offer. At the same time, sp relinquishes academic rigor by abandoning “an odd sort of essentialism” (ci 155) in favor of descriptions of “sound practices,” an account of “largely unintellectualized attitudes,” and “normative recommendations for actions” (sp 71), so as to show the human condition in a variety of common forms. The methodology of stoic

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pragmatism does not follow a scientific discovery paradigm because “pragmatism is an anti-​essentialist view” (sp 62). An unquestionable solution to its “real” character can hardly be secured. Does sp disrespect academic teaching, then? No, it does not seem to do so. sp aims for a practical application of various forms of educational effort, short-​ term and long-​standing, in the context of human development and personal self-​fulfillment as a way a given individual can thrive in society, something that Aristotle, the Stoics, and other ancients called eudaimonia. This should be the principal goal of education, not merely professional training, since “the function of education is to enable people to live longer and better lives” (fl 426). Here pragmatist meliorism—​in Dewey’s definition, “the specific conditions which exist at one moment, be they comparatively bad or comparatively good, in any event may be bettered” (Dewey 1988 [1920], 181–​82)—​meets, at least partially, the Hellenistic idea of self-​fulfilment by homing in on perfection. In sp progress takes place when given human beings are able to use circumstances, be they technological, economic, cultural, political or any other, to flourish in a richer, better, fuller, and more qualitative manner, having a definite goal that allows each of them to live a decent and meaningful life. Economic progress and a higher gdp do not amount to progress in human self-​realization, although they substantially may contribute or condition it, and here sp would find itself somewhere between the Stoics’ áskêsis (exercises performed to make us better) on the one hand and, on the other, the pragmatists who usually appreciate the fruits of a free-​market economy. 3

Santayana’s Thought as an Inspiration

Santayana, despite employing some Stoic and pragmatist themes in his work, never defined himself as a stoic or a pragmatist and had reservations about both. Nevertheless, I have reasons to suspect that Santayana was one of the protagonists, if not the primary one, about whom Lachs was concerned with while developing his ideas. To be sure, Lachs has called him “a pragmatist of sorts” (gs 18), “a pragmatist” (ci 155–​166), “in certain respects a pragmatist” (sp 62), a “proto-​pragmatist” (ibid., 28), “in clear sympathy with pragmatism (ibid., 143),” and finally a “stoic-​pragmatist” (Lachs 2014a). He claims that Santayana “has an almost stoic commitment to facing the facts with all the equanimity a finite mind can muster” (gs 16). Although he admits that including Santayana into the ranks of the stoic pragmatists is not entirely accurate or unproblematic, yet by doing so it “reveals important tendencies in his thought” (Lachs 2014a, 206). Santayana’s “stoic calm in the face of the spectacle of life

12 Introduction and death, along with his interest in a harmonious and self-​improving life of reason, brings him close to stoic pragmatism” (sp 143), as do his attempts to “develop a just understanding of life” and his seeking how “to calm the human soul” (sp 156). Again, though I think that Santayana is a major inspiration for Lachs’s idea of sp, and also that Santayana’s output is sometimes a direct, and at other times indirect source for sp, I would like to subject it to some scrutiny. My argumentation for this claim goes something like this. Throughout his intellectual life, ever since his graduate studies, including his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, Lachs has been preoccupied with Santayana, his “first love in philosophy” (sp 2), to such a degree that he became one of the most accomplished experts of Santayana’s thought. He has authored George Santayana (1988), On Santayana (2006); co-​authored Thinking in the Ruins: Wittgenstein and Santayana on Contingency (2000); edited Animal Faith and Spiritual Life: Unpublished and Uncollected Works on George Santayana with Critical Essays on His Thought (1967); co-​edited Physical Order and Moral Liberty: Previously Unpublished Essays on George Santayana (1969), not to mention his numerous papers, presentations, and lectures on Santayana. He has openly admitted that Santayana’s Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923) “became a part of my life” (sp 183), that Dewey and Santayana were for him the “dominant influences” (rpl xv), and that the latter “taught me that the ultimate issue in philosophy and in everyday life is the health of one’s soul” (sp 185). To confirm this claim about Lachs’s dependence on Santayana’s ideas about the health of one’s soul, I will give an example of their corresponding views. In the opening part of Santayana’s The Life of Reason we read that the apparent chaos around a given human being can be interpreted “in proportion as the order in himself is confirmed and extended,” and while growing up and maturing, the chaos around us is reduced due to our interpretative abilities; however, if we fail to achieve it, “consciousness is wholly confused; the world it envisages seems consequently a chaos” (Santayana 1998 [1905–​6], 3). Practically the same message is rendered by Lachs in a similar wording: “Harmony in one’s view of things is an expression of internal order and prosperity: when we have no inner unity, the views we adopt abound in contradictions, discord, violence. Beliefs are effects here and not causes: since lack of belief in a theory did not cause our inner chaos, belief in one can never hope to cure it” (Lachs 1967a, 52). Lachs’s motivation has been, however, not just to merely interpret and expound on Santayana; in many places he attempts to “develop and enlarge” Santayana’s thought, as is the case of Santayana’s moral philosophy in the context of his ontology (afsl 351). As already mentioned, Lachs has confessed that the idea of sp has been within him for a long time, and that “perhaps from the first, a defining feature of my thought” (sp 23). As we probe into his bibliography (Padrón 2018,

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323–​339), we can see that 1964 was the year when he published his two first articles devoted entirely to Santayana, and it is the same year in which he published his first text written in the spirit of his stoic pragmatism (“To Have and To Be”). These two “strands” in his intellectual activity continued up and through “Santayana as Pragmatist” (2003), in which he interpreted Santayana from a pragmatist perspective, until finally his book Stoic Pragmatism (2012), and his 2014 paper “Was Santayana a Stoic Pragmatist?” were published, and even further on, afterwards (Skowroński 2020a). I have no hard scholarly evidence to claim that Lachs has been developing the idea in a parallel fashion to his scholarship on Santayana, or that he has intellectually kneaded Santayana into whatever form that could be used in order to support his arguments for sp, or that sp is a sort of continuation of Santayana’s thought. I would like, however, to reflect for a moment on Santayana’s relationship to sp. Santayana’s philosophy, taken as a whole, cannot be interpreted as essentially stoic, although in some places, as in his ethics, Lachs himself states that “Santayana’s imperative is identical with that of the Stoics” (afsl 340) and that “Santayana’s response to contingency reminds us of the stoics” (tr 11). Santayana himself, despite including some stoic traits (of which I write below) never indicated that Stoic authors were an important source of inspiration for his thought, as was the case with the pre-​Socratics, Plato, Lucretius, and Spinoza. To be sure, Spinoza’s philosophy was inspired by the Stoics to such a degree that Leibniz accused him of heading a new sect of Stoics (Miller 2009), yet this is quite another story. It is probably with regards to ontology (monist or dualist? naturalistic or pantheistic?) that would be the most difficult area for his interpreters to reach agreement concerning the possible links between Stoicism, Spinoza, and Santayana. For example, if we were wont to accept Lachs’s view that the Stoics and Santayana share a “robust naturalism” (Lachs 2014a, 204), we would have to agree about some interpretative presupposition as to, for example, the factual role of pneuma and deorum providentia in the thinking of particular Roman Stoics. On the other hand, if we follow the most contemporary interpretations (the so-​called modern stoicism, to which I refer frequently in this book) and take a look at the term “stoic” as predominantly an ethical term with little reference to its original, ancient theological metaphysics, along with its basic notions (logos, cosmos, pneuma, telos, palingenesia, sympatheia, providentia, fatum), we could be justified in considering Lachs correct in taking Santayana on board. I mean, there are some elements of Stoic doctrines, or the Hellenistic ideas appropriated by the Stoics into their doctrines that seem comparable to Santayana’s, and as if appropriated by sp via Santayana’s thought. These are the following: áskêsis (comparable to Santayana’s understanding of philosophy

14 Introduction as spiritual exercises or a way of life), apathy (apatheia), ataraxia (that is convertible, at least on some points, into Santayana’s ethics of detachment), dignitas (“dignity” being a term frequently used by Santayana in axiological contexts, as did the later Stoics, juxtaposing dignitas vs. pretium); oikeiôsis (close to Santayana’s claim about openness to other ways of life, but keeping one’s own as the center) and kosmopolitēs, akin to Santayana’s cosmopolitanism, one that Herman Saatkamp interprets literally as Santayana being a “citizen of the world” (Saatkamp 2011). Additionally, there are also some other possible concepts in common like psyche, for example. Santayana viewed it as advisable to follow the Stoics “who made the psyche material” and to use it for an “inward ground of experience” (poml 129). Santayana was in no way a full-​fledged pragmatist and Lachs would agree with this claim. Santayana’s understanding of democracy, liberalism, and the betterment of social institutions, separates him pronouncedly from almost all American pragmatists. His ontology and scholastic categories differentiate him even more. The Spanish, Latin, and Catholic elements in his thought have led some scholars to label him a “Spanish philosopher,” and to view him as part of a Spanish cultural tradition no less than an American one (cf. Skowroński 2007, c­ hapters 1 and 7). Regardless, Santayana shares, at least to some degree, a few basic claims that pragmatists like James and Dewey have espoused: naturalism, pluralism, relativism, perspectivism, secularism, toleration, activity, freedom, individualism, humanism, and non-​cognitivism. Some of these and others “bear remarkable resemblance” to James and Dewey (ci 155) and even to Royce (cf. sp 144–​158). Additionally, Lachs considers Santayana and Royce both as a common source for sp with their ideas of the specious present, eternity, truth, and their “understandings of the ontological isolation of individuals in a large and largely alien world” (sp 155). It is the philosophy of life, in the epicenter of which is a reflection about the good life and its (philosophy’s) practical application, not merely theoretical deliberation, that makes Santayana most like the Roman Stoics. In “Santayana as a Stoic Pragmatist” we read a condensed comparison between the Roman Stoics and Santayana regarding the practical approach to life: A central point of Marcus Aurelius’ reflection was to enable others to choose well and to control their emotions. … there is no denying that Epictetus’s thought aims at instructing people in how to live well. Similarly, Santayana would have considered his writings of little value if they had captured the ontology of the world but established little relation to the daily decisions of perplexed human beings. lachs 2014a, 203

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At the vital center of sp, which is the good life, Santayana can be exemplary. Yet perhaps not entirely exemplary due to his solitary lifestyle (not at all reliable for those who want to know more about Santayana from family contexts). Rather, he is one who shows us that it is possible to work out one’s own attitude towards life and make it meaningful. sp insists that philosophers do not practice philosophy by merely talking, teaching, and writing about practicality, but rather by engaging themselves in specific social happenings. For example, by making their own lives exemplary, by being public intellectuals, by being effective and impactful in education, being heard in political disputes, being helpful to those who face tough existential dilemmas, moral crucibles, or an array of bioethical choices, and, perhaps most importantly, by being courageous in fulfilling these roles. Santayana, like the Stoics (and many others in history) cannot, I think, be accused of not being courageous in creating and making known his views against the intellectual fashions that dominated and were influential in his own age. Santayana was a model in exemplifying the process of creating a meaningful life as a singular task for each of us. And this with an awareness of our own self-​limitations. He quite exquisitely exemplifies an archetype of a meaningful life. sp assumes the naturalistic scope of life. This implies that a posthumous life is excluded from serious deliberation, in line with Santayana’s idea that “the central task of philosophy” is “an exploration of the nature of the good life” (gs 14). And here we have another “stoic correction” to pragmatism. Pragmatism lacks, Lachs claims, sound reflection on death and dying, whereas for the Stoics and for Santayana the finality of human existence is one of their central themes (Lachs 2014a, 204). It is central to our lives, in the sense of giving us a practical perspective, and also boundaries to our individual lives. It is as if life were a journey within certain limitations of time, and a robust sense that beyond the finish line (our mortality), there is little of importance. This also includes the attitude toward possessions, which is the problem, more and more, in hyper-​consumption societies. Both the Stoics and Santayana are similarly resolute about our plausible enslavement by material goods, as in the case of hyper-​consumerism. Santayana’s “practice of living out of a suitcase and avoiding burdensome attachments is clearly in line with what stoics recommend” (Lachs 2014a, 204). The term “possession” can also mean something less obvious than consumption, and that is our increasing dependence on powerful institutions regulating social life. The sense of a good and meaningful life has for many people been circumscribed, by making us too dependent on external factors: social institutions, public communication, images, news, etc., the functioning of which we have scant control over. Institutions of various kinds have a tremendous impact upon our lives, but we do not have much impact

16 Introduction upon the dynamics and character of these institutions. It is exactly this sense of the limitedness of our agency that causes us to be less complacent, despite the opulent conditions of life all around us. Here, sp’s main motif stresses that philosophy should be seen more as a guide to life and renders Santayana close to the Stoics’ (and other ancient schools’) ideas of ataraxia or tranquility (or un-​disturbedness), and, in some sense, to pragmatists like James. 4

John Lachs as a Stoic Pragmatist

Something substantial must have occurred in Lachs’s intellectual life around 2003. It was then when he published a paper entitled “Improving Life,” in which he discredited the Stoic position, as he did later in some of his texts (e.g., ll 26). On initial reading of the paper nothing in it betrays his later stoic pragmatist stance. Instead, he briefly quotes Epictetus’s The Encheiridion (The Handbook in English translation) to illustrate his claim that the Stoic control over desires can be attained by very few, and the effort to do so would cost us, normal ordinary people, far too much. For example, an indifference to pain could cause an indifference to other preferences and feelings. He goes even further in his criticism: “Stoics hardly live at all: they despair of our ability to improve the human lot, abandon all hope, and satisfy themselves with changes to their attitudes even when the drive for objective changes would succeed” (ci 61–​62). How striking, then (and honest?), is his claim expressed ten years later, that it was “only recently that I managed to characterize my attitude to life as that of a stoic pragmatist” (sp 1). Yet, on closer inspection, there is something stoic already in that text: a reservation towards a pragmatist manner of solving problems and a strong recognition of human limitations. The tone in which he expresses these ideas stands in contrast to the optimistic tone of the classical pragmatists in the central aspects of their message, which is the role of philosophy and science in efforts to ameliorate life in a more definite way: “Difficult problems have no grand solutions,” he writes, and “relinquishing the hope for more decisive and more permanent betterment of our condition leaves a living wound in the human soul” (ci 71). Where does such a non-​pragmatic and even non-​American conclusion come from? Was it a strain of disappointment with American pragmatism and the practical results of its mission, as I have suggested above? Or, perhaps, there are indeed permanents stoic traits in his attitude that would be good to tease out and see to what extent, if at all, they constitute his outlook, even if not openly embraced in his academic writings?

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At the same time, it should be recalled that Lachs is not a scholar of Stoicism, as he is of Santayana and American pragmatism. He has not written any academic works on Stoicism, and his knowledge is once removed from the original texts. There are only two sources he quotes or refers to in his Stoic Pragmatism: Nicholas White’s English translation of Epictetus’s Enchiridion (White 1983) and Moses Hadas’s English translation of Seneca’s selected writings (Hadas 1958). To be sure, he has put forward a good reason to draw on classical thought: “The classical formulations of philosophical problems strike me as helpful and easily adapted to the current conditions of life. Their language enables us to engage in a dialogue across the ages with some of the finest minds of the human race” (mp 3). This cannot be the exclusive reason as to why he focused on the Stoic slice of our philosophical heritage. Perhaps, his kinship to Stoicism has a more personal link, so to speak. This being from his personal experience (when in Hungary as a child, for example), rather than as a result from his studying Stoic philosophy as such? Let me explain the probability of this option. It seems to me that although Lachs cannot be characterized as a full-​fledged stoic at any one stage of his life, some permanent stoic traits can be discerned in his attitude. This seems plausible, independent of his evolving views about historical Stoicism. These traits had appeared earlier in his life than the pragmatist influences that he experienced while in North America. At an early age, in his native Hungary, he experienced “gratuitous violence and sudden death” during wwii and then in subsequent years under Communist rule. As a ten-​ year-​old boy, he thought about “the evanescence of life and the uncontrollability of fortune” (sp 182). After the move to Canada with his family, studying philosophy seemed almost predetermined. Ultimate, preponderant themes preoccupied him, for example: “God, the meaning of life, and the right comportment toward death” (sp 182). These themes have been recurring in his philosophical writings throughout his life. A stoic pragmatist attitude towards life, at least in part, was responsible for tingeing his “decisions at crucial points in life” (sp 1). This reveals that it was not only theoretical. Stoic themes are not merely parts of his theoretical positions—​they inform them. Even more so, he writes, he recognized that the virtues of Stoicism are “closely connected with aging” (jlpp 212). This establishes that an older person tends to appreciate more the attitude towards life that Stoicism evokes and inspires, at least on some issues. Curiously enough, this inadvertently leads to following the steps of Santayana, who once admitted in his later years that “I have ultimately become a sort of hermit, not from fear or horror of mankind, but by sheer preference for peace and obscurity” (Santayana 1986, 422).

18 Introduction The following themes can be found in Lachs’s œuvre, and all of them will be developed in greater length throughout the book. The good life and philosophy as a guide to life. These two constant themes are unfluctuating in his texts and in his public engagements as a lecturer. His emphasis on the role of philosophy as a guide to life culminates in calling it a “historical mission” (jlpp xxvi). Philosophy should be instrumental in helping people to establish a practical guide as to how to live well. This should be the predominant contribution of philosophy and philosophers to the humanities and the greater culture at large. In this sense, philosophy (along with the liberal arts, the humanities, and the social sciences, at least in part) should revert back to its Hellenistic roots, which means securing a definite practical dimension, rather than exclusively a theoretical and speculative one. For example, in claiming that abstract moralizing is worse than committing moral errors (cf. rpl 188), he not only criticizes the vague and imprecise character of most philosophical debates as such, but also some philosophers’ ignorance as to the primary purpose of philosophy, which is to provide examples of the good life. Also, the purposes of living in meaningful ways. He even claims that ethical deliberations, such as those on happiness, should be converted into something more practical, and “it may be advantageous to cease all discussion of happiness and focus on the notion of the happy man” (fl 128). As I understand it, he is not criticizing the reflection on, for example, happiness, but he does entertain reservations about leaving the discussion at a theoretical stage and not trying to convert its results into a practical one, thereby displaying to a reading audience something more significant: suggestions for standards of practically living well. His focus on practical philosophy is determining, and as I have already mentioned while discussing stoic pragmatism, his reservations about theoretical philosophy, especially ethical theory, go very deep. Self-​control. The very first lines of Epictetus’s Handbook claim a working division into what we can control and what we cannot, the former being the proper area for our engagements, our ambitions, and our self-​realization. Lachs is unwavering about the positive role of self-​control in many contexts of a good and meaningful life. For example, in the context of hyper-​consumption in wealthy countries. While discussing the problem of the “rat race,” he warns against becoming voluntarily “merciless masters, driving themselves as one drives slaves into whatever activity seems needed to attain their goods” (ll 41). In many other places, he uses terminology that seems very similar to Epictetus: “Yet it may be important to remind ourselves that one can be a slave to oneself no less, and sometimes more inescapably, than one can be a slave to others” (im 53). In the contexts of culture and social life, he recommends bearing in mind a similar division of what we can control and what we

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cannot: “The best strategy with social standards may well be to observe them where we must, but to stretch them where we can” (ll 66). Lachs has devoted much attention to bioethical problems. One of these is his acceptance of suicide and assisted suicide when we find ourselves out of control over our lives to such a degree that any hope for a decent life has been lost, and this loss has a medical justification: “A generous reading of human freedom leaves it open for adults to finish the book of life at any time they desire” (fl 471). Joy. One could view Lachs’s philosophy as being more Epicurean than Stoic when reading that joy “is a central element of my worldview” (jlpp 212) and numerous other fragments to this effect in his texts. And those who can remember that joy (chara) is one of the good feelings (eupatheia) that the Stoic sage may experience on a regular basis, will understand that the following Lachsian claim is not in contradiction with Stoic teaching: “My conviction continues to be that worries about dying should not interfere with enjoyment of a good breakfast” (jlpp 212). There are numerous instances where Lachs’s recommendation is to show us how to cultivate our joyful appreciation of life around us. Even in the moments when we realize we are getting older and some of our actions need to be abandoned due to aging, we do not have to be afraid; even then, “doing what we must can itself be a joyous celebration of control over self and of our connectedness” (ll 35). Values. As illustrated in various parts of this book, I sympathize with axiological interpretations of late Stoic philosophy; these interpretations (e.g., H. Elzenberg 1922) refer to the Stoic (especially Seneca’s) division of values (repeated by Kant in Groundwork, 4:434) into those that are useful and those that are priceless. In certain instances of Lachs’s thought, for example in his analyses of actions and activities, I can see a similar division. Actions are realized in reference to a goal and that is why they are useful; yet activities can also focus on themselves, without reference to the goals they may realize: “We can at least occasionally short-​circuit the mediating function of our actions and enjoy immediacy with our goals. When this occurs our acts are valued but not for what they yield. This places them in the category of what is useless but, because of its intrinsic value, also priceless” (im 44). Philosophy as therapy of the soul. Lachs’s philosophical message also involves something that the Stoic and Hellenistic tradition called a therapy for the soul. Indeed, his texts are full of comparisons to medicine as well as replete with the usage of medical language, including analogies, examples, contrasts, and metaphors taken from the medical world (especially in rpl, e.g., 3–​4). And they refer not so much to theoretical issues, but capture medical practices that are important, variegated, and close to life. For example, it is doctors and nurses in regular hospitals who “are in daily contact with the richness of the actual” (ci 47)

20 Introduction rather than intellectuals who labor in a somewhat uniform and monocultural academia. Apart from this, Lachs pays attention to the role of desires and emotions in rendering our lives more controlled by us and free: “Our bondage is due to our desires” (im 26), and the therapeutical possibilities that allow us philosophical reflection on desires and emotions can be very helpful indeed. Philosopher as sage. Aiming at wisdom is a philosopher’s vocation. More so than developing a new theory. And a philosopher’s “lifestyle” should be one of aspiring to some form of perfection or excellence in practice: “What philosophers do must be exemplary” (fl 394). This means, among other things, giving others glimpses of a good life in practice, and this especially matters in education. In contradistinction to those teachers of philosophy who treat philosophy as “enabling those who have never profited from its enriching wisdom to profit by telling others about it” (ibid., 391), he highlights those teachers who experience in their own lives philosophical ideas of the good life. Despite the many democratic accents in Lachs’s texts, there are some old-​Greece aristocratic elements as to the role of philosophers: “Philosophers ought to know better, speak better, and act better” (Lachs 2015, 7). Cosmopolitanism. In some instances of Lachs’s articulations of what the Stoics called oikeíôsis (circles of concern, self-​appropriation, self-​acceptance), I find strongly connected with kosmopolitēs. In his In Love with Life: Reflections on the Joy of Living and Why We Hate to Die, a book written fourteen years before his stoic pragmatism received its fuller expression in sp, I can descry interesting ways of saying what the Stoics wanted to say. I do not claim that Lachs followed the Stoics on oikeiôsis or circles of concern, instead, I suppose, this is an accidental similarity that comes not from Lachs’s studying the Stoics, but rather from his affinity or kinship to their teachings on this very point. Namely, the idea of oikeíôsis (most famously pronounced by Hierocles) says that my interests and social engagement should move outwards, from my individual self to my family, then, if possible, to my fellow citizens, and then finally to my fellow human beings. The metaphor of a stone thrown into the water and creating waves, smaller and smaller, yet spiraling out to the farther regions of the pond, illustrates the direction my energy should go out into public, social, and cultural life. Lachs makes this picture more social, pragmatist, normative, and even sees this “expansion of ego-​boundaries” as “an aim of civilization” (ll 35): But the history of civilization coincides precisely with the gradual expansion of the boundaries of the self. We have learned to see first others close to us, then anonymous members of our group, eventually our enemies, and finally, in a halting way, the multitude of strangers that

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constitute humankind as somehow vitally involved in who we are. Only such extended ego-​boundaries can explain why industrial nations offer helping hands when disaster strikes on the other side of the globe. We can see self-​interest as the source of foreign aid, of peacekeeping missions, and of humanitarian help only if we think in terms of such an enlarged notion of self. ll 33–​34

Transcendence. Lachs’s juvenile faith—​profound enough to think of entering the ministry—​was devastated by his student-​class reading of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In a word, he lost his persuasive powers to talk about God whose existence he was not able to demonstrate (sp 183). However, this did not end his deliberations on divinity and transcendence in a variety of forms. They never did parallel the original Stoic concepts of pneuma and cosmos, or a rational divinity. His longing for transcendence ended up in his attempt to fuse it with naturalism, according to which “the world is one and all its parts have access to all the others” (sp 73). Or, perhaps, it might be better to employ the term primitive naturalism (sp 72–​80) in order to extend and envelop a more basic, existential, and practical reference for this term. This goes beyond mere academic and theoretical naturalism. At the same time, his naturalism does not prevent him from underscoring the role of a transcendence-​in-​experience spirituality or “an embrace of whatever there is that, though imprisoned in the moment, touches eternity” (sp 39). Death is a part of the architecture of living and Lachs has criticized pragmatism (cf. fl 377) for neglecting, if not outright banning, the problem of death from its priorities. Death is the natural end of our personal stories. It should be a personal task for all of us to know that we have definite limits and limitations, and that we have an ability to appreciate this wisdom at moments before we are unable to do so any longer. By enumerating these points, I do not want to give the impression that Lachs is more of a stoic than a pragmatist. I am merely indicating, briefly, some of the historically Stoic traits that appear throughout his œuvre without forgetting for an instant, however, that the principal “idiom” of his philosophical and cultural expression is in the tradition of classical American pragmatism. For Lachs, its primary figures are William James and John Dewey, and their most compelling ideas are ontological, cognitive, anthropological, and social. Also, through this “American idiom” he reads the works of his philosophical hero, Santayana, whom he frequently has called a pragmatist, has always called American, and through whom he has assessed American culture.

22 Introduction 5

Lachs on American Culture and Its Universalist Aspirations

Lachs, as well as Santayana, has a bifocal perspective on America. That is to say, both as insider and as outsider, due to his European origins. He is predominantly an American thinker, possessing, as nearly all the American pragmatists, an appreciative approach toward America understood as embodying the best achievable social, political, and cultural projects that, despite shortcomings and flaws, sets or should set the standards for others. For example, and here going against his philosophical hero Santayana, he explains her commercial dimension as being driven not by Americans’ sense of greed, but rather by their ethos of work: “Yet the love of business that Santayana thought was the ruling passion of America is a love of what is to come as a result of our efforts. This passion makes it difficult under current circumstances to separate the comfort we enjoy from the endless labor that makes it possible” (sp 36). A similar admiration, often hidden and discreet, we can see in his texts dedicated to American culture and American social life. I illustrate this claim with the following example. It concerns the same text, published in three slightly different versions on three separate occasions, with two tellingly different titles, exposing two things at the same time. First of all, it betrays Lachs’s admiration for American culture with its pluralism, diversity, and toleration and, secondly, his appropriation of its universalist character with a conviction that America should set standards and give hope to other cultures, nations, and states. The text, whose final title is “Understanding America” (Lachs 2009), and also appeared in sp –​as a subsection in Chapter 4 (sp 158–​170)–​was previously entitled “From Enemies to Peaceful Neighbors” (Lachs 2008). It focuses on why immigrants coming from different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds more or less peacefully coexist in the US. For example, Hindus and Muslims, as well as Israelis and Palestinians, might have had to brutally fight against each other back in their native lands in which open conflicts are still unresolved; yet, while in the US, these groups coexist more or less peacefully side by side. Writing about the Bosnian war and the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s, the atrocities whose causes and scale were inadequately understood by many in the West, he puts forward his view about more peaceful relations in America. Namely, that there is a striking difference in social behavior between the Old World and the New, in favor of the latter, and he gives us two main reasons why: America’s prosperity and English liberty, a term used by Santayana in his characterization of American culture and society (I will comment on it more below). Lachs calls its economic system “a mighty engine of persuasion” (Lachs 2009, 154–​155) and appreciates the advanced material conditions that have

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been developed which, more often than not, convert themselves into a force protecting and serving non-​material aims, like moral responsibility. For example, having a house may translate into creating better conditions for your family; saving money may be converted into providing your children with a better education. And this prevails despite numerous examples showing an irresponsible waste of money by some unaccountable individuals, or simply by people who do not know and do not understand America. To illustrate his claim, he recalls his compatriots who, having escaped from the Soviet military intervention in Hungary’s revolt in 1956, were disappointed with and nonplussed as to the capitalist economic structure in the US or the rigors of employment they encountered there. However, very soon “they were taking trips to Bermuda, saving money for houses and working their hearts out to get promoted” (Lachs 2008, 6). Lachs provides other arguments to support his claim that American life, probably more effectively than other countries, offers “rewards to the industrious,” and most of the immigrants can experience that by adopting this way of life in which they can flourish (ibid., 7). As a result, they can alter their original frame of mind of persecuting their compatriots for reasons that could be still relevant back in their native lands, deprived of this ameliorative ambience. In other words, it is the terrible conditions within their own countries that facilitate, if not actually foment, brutal acts of violence—​something the American culture has been able to overcome successfully. How has America been able to do it? One of the reasons is that she has taken on a future-​oriented and ameliorative approach to life, rather than one that is past-​oriented and retaliatory. This mode of sociocultural life has been philosophically articulated by American pragmatism, and all three pragmatists whom Lachs considers to be (at least partially) stoic pragmatists (Dewey, James, and Royce), wed amelioration with hope so as to open up future-​ oriented activities towards improvements. Characteristically, relatively few of his arguments refer to exclusively American themes, and he employs a universalist tone, as to be, once again, reflective of his conviction that American philosophy and American culture in general (should) set standards for the whole world. Towards this end, he writes, a united Europe, together with its growing prosperity and lessening of border restrictions, “offers the possibility of another America” (Lachs 2008, 8). Another way, not that different, of explaining contemporary America’s relative success is Santayana’s own interpretation presented in his Character and Opinion in the United States with Reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and Academic Life in America (1920). In this interpretation, one of the key factors that needs to be understood is the type of freedom that Americans have embraced. As opposed to absolutistic traditions prevalent in the Old

24 Introduction World, the New World is saturated with what Santayana designates English liberty, and what Lachs characterizes as a type of freedom that relies on negotiation, compromise, cooperative endeavor, trust, and an enveloping optimistic, tolerant dimension. Countries that have not evolved this type of freedom and stick to uncompromising absolute liberty, risk suffering from various sorts of conflict for the “right” interpretation of what many leaders think of as dogmatically correct and infinitely valid, even when, as in most dramatic cases, human lives are at stake. Although the struggle for an absolute right can generate beautiful moments of enthusiasm, heroism, and virtues that cannot be exercised in more liberal conditions, its “energy and its values are contingent, passing phases in the life of nature” so that its “victories are temporary” (Lachs 2009, 152). Lachs concludes that English liberty is “the ethos of American society” (ibid., 153) and the immigrants who arrive to the US are most often than not “infected” by its spirit, so after some time they get accustomed and shed their native references, their woes and demons. Lachs appropriates universalist discourse, but does not limit himself to writing exclusively about American themes. His narrative on many issues transcends American culture. For example, when he discusses the issue of intellectuals’ courage, the examples he provides seem to be universal heroes: Zeno of Elea, Gandhi, Russian scientists, Albert Schweitzer, and Martin Luther King Jr. (ci 5), rather than predominantly American ones. 6

Modern Stoicism and the Growing Relevance of Stoic Ethics in Contemporary Culture

There must be something exceptional in Stoic ethics. It is as if there were an invariable lode of wisdom within the orientation that has stood the test of time. It has had a continuing relevance long after its classic representatives have died, and long after their ideas reappeared in medieval Christianity (in which Seneca was widely known and commented on), the Renaissance (neo-​ stoicism) and later on (Spinoza). In the modern age it has been inspirational even when deprived of some of its original metaphysical ingredients, such as cosmology, teleology, and pantheistic theology. To be sure, there has been a debate whether “Stoic ethics can stand on its own feet” (Brouwer 2018 [2014]), that is, without its reference to physics and metaphysics. Yet it is its practical ethics that has gained so much interest among contemporary scholars (and popular non-​scholar authors and bloggers). For example, a leading Polish philosopher of culture, Henryk Elzenberg (1887–​1967), dedicated his entire professional life to updating Stoicism in

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order for it could become an integral part of contemporary culture. His basic assumption was, and this assumption he wanted to project retrospectively into the Roman Stoics (Elzenberg 1922), that the substance of culture consists of objectively valuable judgments, deeds, actions, and states of things by which individuals can become morally nobler. And morally noble individuals make for better institutions and a saner public life in general. He partitioned this assumption, according to Seneca’s division of values in his Letters (lxxi, 33; lxxxix, 15), into what has dignity (dignitas) and what has a price or value (pretium), and makes a normative claim from this division, and projects this into life-​orientation purposes. Namely, the realization of values that have dignity give meaning to our lives; by being objective in the sense of not agent-​ dependent, they constitute a better or a higher part of culture. And by having a perfective character they show various degrees of excellence. Accordingly, reaching higher levels of moral conduct are worthy aims attainable by individuals. In this way, our engaged attempts to corporealize these noble values give meaning to individual lives and enrich culture at the same time. Stated differently, we can have a valuable life by realizing (or at least trying to realize) worthy qualities (dignitas) and this realization is itself a valuable part of cultural life. It does not entail that everyone, by doing whatever one does, participates in culture in the sense of this term. What most people in fact do, he writes, is participate and contribute to a sort of technology of comfortable living by realizing values (pretium) that are instrumental or utilitarian in order to achieve satisfaction and comfort. However, limiting our efforts only to realizing values that have instrumental significance, may turn out to be dangerous for us (and for culture in general) because such efforts may not translate into a meaningful life. It is only our intentions and factual corporealization, at least partially, of dignified values that make our lives nobler. Each good and each beauty retains a degree of excellence, and we are tasked culturally to contribute either by promoting, cultivating, or developing them, or by manifesting new possibilities for achieving them. It is not the final achievement, excellence, that deserves being called the meaningful and/​or the cultural; sometimes, one’s intention to achieve is enough, especially when conditions for the realization of anything valuable can be exceptionally unfriendly, like the Socratic dedication to seek truth against all odds. Despite this, values have a power and capacity to endow our lives with meaning. By realizing them we gain at least a modicum of meaningfulness. We do not have to realize them if we are not able to. Elzenberg, in this way, tries to respond to the question as to whether an unsuccessful realization of a valuable state of affairs has any meaning. The answer is affirmative. Even

26 Introduction though the aim is not realized, the worth of a person wanting to realize it has augmented. And although it is neither Elzenberg’s nor the Stoics’ language, one can claim that we instrumentalize values that maintain dignitas by using them to provide us meaning for our activities and, perhaps, for our lives. Aiming at a noble purpose is itself noble, at least in the same way as mere willingness to participate in culture renders us cultural, at least to some degree. Reaching a final stage of perfection is not only not possible but also not needed. What is needed is to make life meaningful, and at least to attempt to do noble things, given one’s skills and competences. The intentional facet seems to be no less important than the result. Recent decades have not been that much different in appreciating Stoic themes. The work of such eminent scholars as Pierre Hadot (1995 [1988]) and Martha Nussbaum (1994, 2002) has elevated many Stoic themes to a new level and, in all probability, given way to more recent developments. Also, there have been other scholarly studies (e.g., Irvine 2009, 2019; Morris 2004, Mazur 2014, Brouwer 2018 [2014], Holiday 2016, Becker 2017 [1998], Pigliucci 2017, Williams 2019, Stankiewicz 2020) that have taken the name of new stoicism or modern stoicism. One of the principal figures of this movement, Lawrence Becker, interprets Stoic themes from a contemporary perspective as if Stoicism has had a continuous history up to the very present, and that some of its themes have developed according to ongoing developments in physics, logic, and ethics (Becker 2017 [1998], xii–​x iii). Some elements of Stoic ethics have been incorporated into different contemporary contexts that lie outside of academia: business, coaching, leadership, mental hygiene, psychology, and many other enterprises offered by means of a variety of platforms. The numerous blogs, podcasts, clips, and websites dedicated to Stoicism that can be found on the Internet testify to this. The question arises how one can adapt Stoic teaching into contexts of our present situation, scantily metaphysical and with so much of it secularized and commercialized. Becker answers that a part of Stoic ethics, in opposition to Stoic cosmology and theology, can easily be accommodated to lives nowadays, if “appropriately restated.” He even claims that “Stoic virtue ethics could have remained largely the same” as would the idea of “living in accord with nature” and other central doctrines of historical Stoicism (ibid., xiii). Interestingly enough, there have also been attempts to confront and even, on some points, merge Stoicism with the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism in recent years. Frank McLynn (2010 [2009]) in his biography of Marcus Aurelius, writes about Marcus’s pragmatic approach to public works, and in general takes Stoicism as a primitive version of pragmatism. Ethically speaking, he claims, “Stoicism was a primitive form of pragmatism, in that one

Introduction

27

knew in advance that the value of duty would always overrule that of pleasure, and strenuous virtue that of lazy indolence or apathy” (McLynn, xv). From the political angle, he describes Marcus as a “political pragmatist” (ibid., 184) and offers a more general comparison: “Pragmatism in the U.S.A. functions as an ideological ‘support’ for the social and political system, just as Stoicism did in Roman society. … Stoicism and pragmatism are both ‘imperial’ ideologies, both suited to world powers at the moment of their greatest dominance” (ibid., xiv–​x v). Another link between pragmatism and Stoicism, this time in the context of humanism, we receive from Randall Auxier, who writes the following: Rorty is a humanist in the sense that one might apply the term to Cicero, Seneca, and Epictetus, the eloquent humanists; or to Pico della Mirandola and Montaigne, the wise humanists; or to Emerson and Dewey, the prudent humanists. Here we see how the cardinal virtues of rhetoric—​ eloquence, wisdom, and prudence—​may be called upon to enclose a space for a style of humanism, or as Rorty might say: what stoic humanism was to the first group of thinkers, and Renaissance humanism was to the second group, pragmatism, as a kind of humanism, was and is to the third. And Rorty, not bereft of eloquence or wisdom, belongs most comfortably among the prudent humanists. Yet, each group displays in some degree the virtues of the others; none of the virtues can stand alone. auxier 2010, xix

Let me just add that humanism is one of the trajectories that will be discussed in this book with the conviction that it is, indeed, one of the strongest links between these two philosophical and cultural traditions. Massimo Pigliucci, one of the central figures of modern stoicism, points out the pragmatism of the historical Stoics in their teaching concerning the management of emotions. Such teaching is used by the modern stoics as an important message to the contemporary world: “Little is more pragmatic than learning to manage anger, anxiety, and loneliness, three major plagues of modern life” (Pigliucci 2017, 172). On the other hand, Scott Stroud sees some rhetorical impetus of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations in William James and claims that James’s “moral claims in front of popular audiences can be better understood if we see it in light of the stoic style of argumentation” (Stroud 2012, 246). A somewhat pragmatic approach to the Stoics, yet much less pronounced than in the above-​mentioned, can be found in Bertrand Russell’s interpretation of Stoicism in his History of Western Philosophy (Russell 1946/​1947). He claims that the Stoics once had a refined ethics for themselves and another,

28 Introduction inferior one, for others, and that they had become aware that it was impossible to cope with clashing interests by means of only one ethics. The Stoics worked out a conceptual double standard, or rather, two standards of narrating what is good and bad: one for themselves and another standard for non-​Stoics. Russell explains these two standards by establishing a context of economic activities or, as we would say today, business life. The first part of his statement deals with the Stoic attitude: When the Stoic philosopher is thinking of himself, he holds that happiness and all other worldly so-​called goods are worthless; he even says that to desire happiness is contrary to nature, meaning that it involves lack of resignation to the will of God. But as a practical man administering the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius knows perfectly well that this sort of thing won’t do. It is his duty to see that the grain-​ships from Africa duly reach Rome, that measures are taken to relieve the sufferings caused by pestilence, and that barbarian enemies are not allowed to cross the frontier. russell 1946/​1947, 291

The second part of Russell’s statement speaks about the two different Stoic approaches towards economic reality: in dealing with those of his subjects whom he does not regard as Stoic philosophers, actual or potential, he accepts ordinary mundane standards of what is good or bad. It is by applying these standards that he arrives at his duty as an administrator. What is odd is that this duty, itself, is in the higher sphere of what the Stoic sage should do, although it is deduced from an ethic which the Stoic sage regards as fundamentally mistaken. ibid.

I absolve myself from the analysis of Stoicism, and search rather for the confirmation or dismissal of Russell’s claims as to the double and manipulative character of Stoic ethics. I just want to pay attention to the pragmatic dimension of historical Stoicism, and to the possibility of transmitting this dimension into contemporary contexts. I do it because, since Stoic ethical themes are gaining popularity these days, a form of linkage between them and pragmatist themes may turn out to be inviting. Interestingly enough, it is challenging to draw up an additional argument for taking a closer look at the idea of stoic pragmatism, apart from Lachs’s original idea. The stoic pragmatism that I put forward in the following chapters embodies the ambition behind a more developed version

Introduction

29

of merging and interpreting these two philosophical traditions from the point of view of their common individual and public aims in the present age. 7

Methodological Concerns

What exactly constitutes stoic pragmatism? Does it have a corpus of texts and basic tenets? I assume, gauging from Lachs’s various statements, that nearly all his later output has been written in the spirit of sp, and I take as binding his declaration that his Stoic Pragmatism text expresses the beliefs that he has “acted upon all my life,” yet “only recently … managed to characterize my attitude to life as that of a stoic pragmatist” (sp 1). Accordingly, I allow myself to equate the term “Lachs’s later philosophy” with sp, not being completely sure, though, that it is accurate. I say “later philosophy” because I am not certain since what date Lachs’s thought has assumed the character of sp, given his remark that “I have come closer and closer to expressing my ideas, but I have not formulated them explicitly until a few years ago” (sp 1). What he later called sp had been with him for decades, and “To Have and To Be” (1964) was the first text written in the spirit of sp (sp 23). Nor am I sure if all his later thought has a fully stoic pragmatist character. After all, there are other ideas expressed in his later books, such as meddling and mediation that look compatible with sp, yet Lachs seems to separate sp from these (jlpp xxv), as if to suggest that sp is an idea apart from others he has developed throughout his life. Additionally, there are other considerations in his later philosophy, such as those presented in In Love with Life: Reflections on the Joy of Living and Why We Hate to Die (1998), that could be labeled more as Lachs’s philosophy proper or, even, as a Lachsian version of pragmatism, although there is a passage in that book that openly suggests linking Dewey’s pragmatism and Stoicism into a “judicious combination” that could “bring us close to a satisfying life” (ll 42). Moreover, there are critical voices claiming that both books, In Love with Life and Stoic Pragmatism, “explicitly take up stoicism as a tool for practical philosophy” (Sullivan 2018, 197). I suspect that this type of methodological dubiousness is harmless in light of Lachs’s primary goal of stimulating interesting thought and action; fabricating scrupulous theoretical distinctions belongs to neither of these, nor is there much at stake in making them (cf. jlpp 133). This claim is very similar to Seneca’s in his Letters (xlix): “Why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problems which it is more clever to have scorned than to solve?” (Seneca 1917–​1925, 129). My consolation is, then, that rigorous distinctions are not needed nor expected either for other stoic pragmatists, for whom theoretical assumptions and text

30 Introduction substantiations are secondary, or for Lachs himself. After all, it is Lachs himself who iterates that it is “ultimately futile” to “search for the essence or inner nature of things” (sp 4). It is also futile to search for a doctrinal essence of stoic pragmatism. To be sure, I must confront these doubts and, perhaps the criticism, because in some way what I propose may seem methodologically a bit arbitrary in the minds of those readers who would expect a strict set of fixed axioms and a definitive corpus of texts to be proclaimed as the stoic pragmatist doctrine. I think it is hardly possible to do so with clarity and rigor. My argument is the following. I use Lachs’s later texts as the principal stoic pragmatist corpus of texts with Stoic Pragmatism being the very first instance. Secondary and indirectly, I refer to those figures, texts, and ideas that have had an appreciable impact on Lachs’s thought, influencing sp: Santayana, James, Dewey, Royce on some points, and, obviously, the later Stoics. Stated differently, the central set of ideas for stoic pragmatism could constitute Lachs’s thought in the first place, along with his interpretation of this slice of American intellectual and cultural history, where the philosophy of pragmatism (James, Dewey, Royce) meets the thought of Santayana, and where these overlap with the ethics of Roman Stoicism, deprived of Stoic metaphysics, as practically applicable to contemporary contexts. Let me add that in my work I frequently refer to books written by modern stoics that seem to me confirmative of, complementary to, and instrumental for the enrichment and development of the main ideas of stoic pragmatism as outlined by John Lachs. I realized that modern stoicism incorporates many more elements that have a pragmatist character than does pragmatism incorporate Stoic elements into its outlook. At no moment, however, do I forget that Lachs was crystal-​clear that a fully developed version of sp would “resemble Santayana’s ideas in a surprising number of particulars” (sp 143). 8

Current Status of Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism Scholarship

Emil Višňovský, discussing the role of contemporary philosophy in the context of its practical contribution to the question of the good life claims that “the pragmatist philosophy of life as developed in the works of Lachs, balanced with a Stoic approach, are perhaps the best example today of how this philosophical mission could be fulfilled” (Višňovský 2015, 24). Douglas McDermid seems to confirm this: “Whereas pragmatism preaches an empowering gospel of creativity and potentially endless improvement, stoicism preaches a gospel of finitude, limits, and acquiescence. A healthy dose of stoicism keeps

Introduction

31

pragmatists from becoming pint-​sized Fausts, and a steady diet of pragmatism keeps stoics from becoming embittered quietists” (McDermid 2012, no pagination). Matthew Flamm calls it a “judicious combination”—​the attempt and “the manner in which Lachs hones in on Dewey and the Stoics in order to reconcile a certain relation between the individual and the world” (Flamm 2018, 289). Such is a general tone of the few scholarly texts that discuss sp. Each stresses an appreciation of the idea of bringing philosophy into the practice of life and making it better. The present book, as already mentioned in the “Preface,” is the first book about the philosophy of John Lachs and about sp. Up till now, only a few scholarly texts dedicated to this topic have been published (most of them in jlpp). Miller & Taoka’s essay is among the first, the amplest and most comprehensive presentations of sp, although the treatment is limited to the Stoic Pragmatism book, and one more minor text by Lachs. It begins with presenting obvious discrepancies between pragmatism and Stoicism, but these two authors proceed by stating that “these disagreements about matters of physics and metaphysics can be set aside, at least here, for ethical and practical purposes” (Miller, Taoka 2015, 151), and end up with their own conclusions, putting forward practical proposals as to how to practice sp in a real and ordinary, everyday manner. The discrepancies between these two distant, seemingly different philosophical schools and to what extent the term sp is “informative,” or even “misleading,” are penetratingly discussed by Daniel Pinkas. Furthermore, the possible problems with merging these two has been skillfully converted by Pinkas into the proposition that Lachs’s pentapharmakos, or the five basic principles of sp presented in Stoic Pragmatism, is captured in the following:

1) 2) 3) 4)

Human blindness is both lamentable and inevitable. We can afford to take a moral holiday (under certain circumstances). Things good enough are truly good and do not need to be better. Let them be! or, Leaving others alone bespeaks respect for their autonomy as human agents. 5) We should stop at the operational independence of persons, or The unit in ethics is the person. pinkas 2018b, 159

Griffin Trotter is very helpful in clarifying some of the ontological dimensions of sp by showing the divergent and overlapping elements in Santayana’s naturalism and Royce’s metaphysics. It is a constructive approach because, as I already indicated above, Lachs refers to both regarding the ontological underpinning of sp. Trotter investigates this claim and detects important common

32 Introduction points, for example, in sp referring to the “fundamental forces that shape our destiny” (Trotter 2018, 178). Shannon Sullivan interprets sp through Spinoza’s philosophy and sees joy playing the central role in Lachs’s thought (Sullivan 218, 205). Hence, she focuses on Spinoza’s idea of conatus, or an innate joyful inclination to enhance oneself, and claims that “we can see conatus surging almost physically across the pages of Lachs’s work” (ibid., 208). Eric Thomas Weber places sp in the context of social justice and a democratic arrangement of public life. He even claims that sp is vital “for the pursuit of a democratically just society, in which all people can grow up in the best conditions possible for developing self-​respect and a positive sense of their own power” (Weber 2018, 191). Phillip McReynolds, interestingly, widens the perspective of Lachs’s and sp’s humanism into a posthumanism: “Lachs’s stoic pragmatism provides a better sense of scale and the relative importance of human beings with respect to the earth and larger forces than we find in the toolbox of the classical pragmatists. Lachs and the posthumanists share an interest in taking seriously a cosmic perspective in which the ephemeral nature of humanity as with all species is manifest, a perspective that seems all too relevant today” (McReynolds 2018, 54). Jaquelyn Kegley criticizes sp for, while talking about human flourishing, focusing too much on the negative notion of freedom, that is, freedom from meddling and from the government (Kegley 2018, 237). It would be better, Kegley writes, to refer to a different and more friendly, circumstantial model of individual freedom, one in which the individual thriving would be more effectively interconnected with the prosperity of the surrounding community. Perhaps a good ending to this brief outline of Lachs’s stoic pragmatism scholarship is Charles Padrón’s conclusion that one of the aims that has been achieved by Lachs in his book Stoic Pragmatism was an articulation of his own philosophy, by reconciling two different philosophies “into a transformed, singular orientation to the world” in such a way that sp is a “clearly argued, compelling, and level-​headed outlook on life that is motivated by sanity in the face of threatening contingency.” He adds that if we accept the criteria that Lachs set up, Santayana also can be understood as a stoic pragmatist and that sp is Lachs’s “final say on where he stands with his lifelong involvement with Santayana’s thought and writings” (Padrón 2013; 178, 167).

Chapter 1

Diagnosis This chapter outlines a diagnosis of the condition of present-​day Western culture undertaken from a stoic pragmatist viewpoint. Its title employs a medical term not to show that Western culture is ill, but to indicate sp’s therapeutic ambitions in identifying ill at ease contexts and to show those who are affected a way to convert this problematic into something meaningful. Such a conversion can be accomplished through appropriate actions and activities that will be discussed in the following chapters. Before that, however, some objective or external resources need to be presented in the way in which they become, pragmatically speaking, a possible field of appropriate actions rather than one of fear, frustration, despair, or disorientation. The appropriate actions that agents may perform do not refer so much to social or institutional reforms, but predominantly to understanding, interpreting, and strengthening our positions and internal approaches towards what happens around us. The proposed selection of these external resources that we, agents, can use to make life meaningful may seem accidental or arbitrary: relative wealth and social security, contingency, and a rapid evolution of Western culture as such, with its pluralism, diversity, individualism, and entrenched resources for the digital revolution. These, among others, are what characterize contemporary Western culture and, therefore, need to be discussed. Despite obvious deficiencies, contemporary Western culture recognizes the necessities and dignity of individuals, and provides a relatively high standard of living and a relatively wide scope of comfort and social security for a large segment of its population. All this does not, however, translate into a commonly enjoyed sense of a good and meaningful life. Nor does it provide a frictionless coexistence among a wide diversity of social groups. This is due to the conflicting sets of values these groups embody. There are polarizing narratives used in the media, and very rapid political, economic, and technological changes that are constantly challenged, transforming Western culture in different ways. Traditional values are continually being modified, at times seeming almost irrelevant. At the same time, these values are unrecognized (even unrecognizable) by large swaths of a given society. This unrecognition of what is before us produces unnecessary disappointment, frustration, and a sense that life is meaningless. Some of those negative perceptions have become burrowed even deeper during the current coronavirus pandemic, and burrowed yet still deeper due to the fresh European war (the Russian invasion of Ukraine) that has erupted

© Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004680050_003

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as I was completing this book. I stress that I write about the favorable living conditions in Western countries (Ukraine not included). But it would be both insane and insensitive to write about the good life amidst a contextual situation of, say, terminally ill patients in hospitals, dying coronavirus pandemic patients, families suffering from domestic violence, the poor, the homeless, and drug addicts having no hope for getting help from any institutions, and many other unfortunate plights. Nor am I a fanatical stoic who would propose, say, to a drug-​addicted and homeless person, to enjoy a cloudless day. These are specific and tragic cases and deserve separate and more detailed discussions. I cannot engage in such discussions in this book, for they would require an adequate recognition and accurate form of interventional argument, for those who have no voice, for those who are unable to cope with their own most rudimentary interests. Such tragic cases and situations reveal that the Western world has many deficiencies. Yet, given all this, from the stoic pragmatist viewpoint, it would be both unfair and unwise not to appreciate some of its achievements. Most of us enjoy them. Nevertheless, in many cases we are unable to recognize these achievements, approach appropriately the opportunities around us, and skillfully sidestep avoidable, needless troubles. 1

Introductory Remarks on Different Meanings of “Culture” and “Value”

The term culture is highly ambiguous and needs clarification. As any proposed definition could be accused of attempting to impose old-​fashioned, essentialist patterns on a dynamically changeable sociocultural reality, I propose here to tender some meanings of the term culture (instead of definitions). Since three different meanings of the term are used throughout the book, I would like to distinguish them from the start. The first is the collective meaning of culture, without specifying the numerous strains of specific traditions, movements, communities, and subcultures that constitute it. It refers to “a collection of the tendencies and behaviors of actual people” (jlpp 250) or, to put it more comprehensively, to a more or less established way of living and thinking of a given group of people in a given geographical territory (Western, American, European, etc.) in a given historical time (ancient, medieval, contemporary, etc.). To illustrate better the relationship among various traditions and subcultures within this communal meaning of the term, we can use the metaphor of a large concentric circle (“contemporary culture of the West”) that includes smaller concentric circles, some of which overlap each other and each having

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its own, specific character. There is no internal contradiction, then, in stating that “the contemporary culture of the West” is an ampler or a wider designation (a big circle) than “contemporary French cuisine” (a smaller circle) or say “contemporary American culture,” (a smaller circle) which, in turn, is more inclusive than “the present secular academic culture in the US,” (a still smaller circle) and, at the same time (yet another smaller circle) the “contemporary Christian culture in the US” and so on and so on. These are examples of cultures or cultural groups within a vaster umbrella of culture (contemporary Western), all having a general meaning. This is a more or less established way of collective living and thinking for given groups of people. Such a collective understanding of the term culture is not complete, yet it is enough for the purpose of the present work. The second meaning of the term culture refers to the Ciceronian idea of culture as the individual cultivation of the mind (originally: cultura animi or cultus animi as in Cicero’s Tusculanes ii, 13 and De Finibus v, 54). The term culture, in this Ciceronian understanding of the term, was originally an agricultural metaphor for the cultivation of the individual soul or mind. As time passed, it came to be associated in the West with the liberal arts, philosophy, and the humanities. It still can, although does not have to, be exercised in whatever culture understood collectively, that is to say, within contemporary American culture or contemporary European secular culture as it was understood in Renaissance Europe (e.g., Montaigne). The understanding of the term culture focuses on the individual-​cultivation-​of-​one’s-​mind approach, largely promoted by ancient tradition (for example, late Stoic), rather than on a collective understanding of culture (promoted by pragmatism, among others), although a precise separation of these two is impossible. After all, trying to practice the Ciceronian model of culture is, in an open or a hidden way, a sort of collective way of living and thinking as acquired and sanctioned by institutionalized systems of schooling that transmit this or that intellectual tradition to future generations. Thus, there is not and cannot be a clearly fixed borderline between these two. However, a clear difference appears when, while acting, we resolve to focus on the cultivation and amelioration of our individual minds, rather than on the cultivation and amelioration of social institutions and the public interest. Despite this, at moments, these two dovetail each other. We know where our individual energies will go, and sp recognizes these two directions of possible practical actions by an agent. The third meaning I consider, digital culture, refers to a set of commonly accessible cultural products generated and transmitted by digital tools. It does not refer so much to ways of living and thinking, nor to geographical criteria. It refers to an historical-​time criterion, since digital culture is a contemporary

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Chapter 1

creation and applies only to recent decades. I will discuss digital culture in Chapter 6. Allow me to reiterate that these three meanings of the term culture can overlap each other at some points. They should not be seen as thoroughly singular or independent from each other, as they belong to interrelated areas of human interaction. Yet they are specific enough to be discussed separately in given contexts. Such discussions concerning culture, especially when structured, systematic, and profound, can be called cultural criticism, or a philosophy of culture, and its importance will also be considered later, especially in Chapter 5. In point of fact, this entire book provides passages and thematic discussion of this concept (idea, discipline), and one of my intentions, as the author of this book, is to contribute to the contemporary philosophy of culture and to cultural criticism. Also, the term value is ambiguous and covers a spectrum of meanings. The range that I discuss in this book stretches between points that Roman Stoics themselves outlined in their texts (Seneca Letters lxxi, 33; lxxxix, 15; Cicero De Inventione 2, lv). These highlight the claim that there are values that are precious or instrumental or utilitarian, to the extent of the realization of given aims and, on the other hand, there are values that have dignity, this being precisely the reason why they should not be instrumentalized. In Kant’s formulation (Kant followed the Stoics on this point): there is a difference between the relative worth or price and the inner worth or dignity (Kant 2005 [1785], 93). In sp’s formulation: “Good things are of two sorts: those we want for their own sake or as ends, and those we want for the sake of other things or as means” (fl 307). In Santayana’s somewhat complex formulation: “Value is something relative, a dignity which anything may acquire in view of the benefit or satisfaction, which it brings to some living being” (Santayana 1957, 221). Pragmatism itself, although suspicious of the possible absolutism of dignity-​type values, recognizes the role of values and valuations in both individual and social contexts. Dewey’s following claim testifies to this: “All deliberate, all planned human conduct, personal and collective, seems to be influenced, if not controlled, by estimates of value or worth of ends to be attained” (Dewey 1960 [1939], 2). It is within this axiological range that sp operates in its attempts to interpret contemporary phenomena, and I will discuss this throughout the book. 2

What Does “Contemporary Western Culture” Mean?

I employ the term Western contemporary culture as an operational framework for sp with the conviction that it is basically impossible, even in this time

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of globalization, to shed completely our own native cultural realities. Or, as Richard Rorty has famously put it (Rorty 1991), and I paraphrase, only a few of us are able to get rid of factually our ethnocentrism and assume other cultures’ patterns of thought. Our own native cultures, whatever they be, give us our most fundamental points of reference: standards of a good life, moral norms, inspirational goals, and the positive or negative emotions that we tend to assume as natural and obvious. Yet it is not that easy to state what is ethnos or what our native culture is in the contemporary Western context, especially since we all live in a globalized world, some of us in the borderless union of European nations (EU), and some, like myself, in two distinct countries at the same time. What is more, we live in a digital age and certain segments of the younger population are already characterized by the term of digital natives (Prensky 2001), as if digital culture were their proper ethnos. It is not that simple to respond to questions about what kind of relations we should maintain with the culture we describe as ours. Should it behoove us to cultivate it and flow with the pattern of a meaningful life it champions? Should we be loyal to our own ethnic group? Can we openly exchange it for another, as we frequently (in the West now) change or reject our inherited religious traditions? On the other hand, can we freely pick up some elements from one or another source in order to establish our “current” cultural identity, independent of our native culture? It may seem arbitrary to the reader that this text is dedicated to the problems of culture and cultural diversity, disregarding delineations of specific national, state, ethnic, language, social, and religious cultures and traditions. As regards this, sp is an intercultural project and even, within some limits (Western), cosmopolitan. What is more, sp is an attitudinal disposition rather than a form of culture itself, and can be operable and defensible in various cultural contexts, be it American, European, or, more particularly, Polish, German, or Spanish, upper social class or lower, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic or atheist. It limits itself to Western culture, which is an umbrella term whose attributes will be characterized below. Despite its similarity to some non-​Western traditions, such as Buddhist or Confucianist demeanors towards life, sp has no necessity of appropriating ideas that are alien to Western culture. Instead, sp wants to explore some of its own cultural resources, vast enough to try to make our lives meaningful. Let me explain. In this book, the terms: present, presently, currently, contemporary, nowadays, now, these days and others refer to the twenty-​first century, up to and including the coronavirus pandemic. It is rather meaningless to attempt to establish an exact beginning of contemporary time, because many cultural and social phenomena that we witness have their roots in what has occurred

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earlier. The post-​2000 framework of time is, then, somewhat arbitrary, yet sufficient for our principal focus, which is to show how individual agents can successfully cope with the multiple patterns of the good life surrounding us, independent of any Western nation-​state, or any specific ethnic tradition these agents have been brought up with. (February 2022, a moment in which we find ourselves on the brink of a full-​scale war in Europe and a tectonic change in the world’s architecture of security, could soon be viewed as the beginning of a new, “post-​contemporary” historical period. This possibility is another realm of considerations altogether). It is not possible to fix precisely a spatial or geographical framework for the notion under discussion here. The designation Western, or the West, usually includes the antipodes (Australia and New Zealand), even Israel, and usually excludes, let us say, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela, despite them being in the western hemisphere. Additionally, we have millions of migrants who, or whose parents, have arrived from Asia or Africa and now live in Western countries and whose characterization as being Western tends to be ambiguous. Moreover, we have many non-​Western countries that have implemented and even integrated elements of Western culture into their social fabric and are culturally Westernized to a large extent—​for example, Taiwan, having recently (2019) legalized same-​sex marriages, being the only non-​Western country to do so to date. Another group of reasons for the imprecision of the space criterion is the appearance of variegated global phenomena. In effect, they obliterate the difference between West and non-​West at different levels as they obliterate cultural differences within the Western world itself. I have the impression that most of the economically developed democratic countries of the European Union, and the core countries of the Anglosphere, face similar issues and problems (with different levels of intensity, to be sure). They attempt to deal with multicultural policies, hyper-​consumption, both legal and illegal immigration, powerful Big Tech companies’ dictates and influence, and the most recent reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by means of analogous tools and assuming a very similar attitude. By the way, the nearly unanimous reaction of the West against this 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has expanded the cultural abyss between Western culture vis-​à-​vis the authoritarian cultures of Russia (and Belorussia) as never before. To make things even more complex, contemporary culture has been enormously influenced by the Internet, which does not have any West vs. non-​West dichotomy. However, the source of technological and cultural content comes from a very concrete place in the West, namely, Silicon Valley, California. For these and other reasons, the term West that is used in the present work is

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necessarily imprecise, although predominantly it refers to North America and the European Union plus the United Kingdom, as stoic pragmatism itself is the eclectic fruition of the American and European cultural relationship. This unavoidable imprecision is unproblematic for our purposes. After all, sp has a philosophical, critical, and reflective character and does not need to analyze culture in any empirical, ethnographical, or sociological manner in order to maintain or justify its moral message. Instead, it refers to a methodological assumption according to which philosophical reflection about given phenomena should start in medias res or in the middle of things, even before investigating the factual causes and geographical origins of the phenomena it deals with. They may be vulnerable to haphazard interpretations. Yet sometimes, we do not lose that much when we are left with “an endless succession of different complexities” (Santayana 1923, 15). Cultural diversity, digital revolution, and other phenomena can be seen as complexities that somehow must be confronted, interpreted, and dealt with, but whose scientific, historical, political, geographical, and sociological explanations would not contribute that much to what sp wants to achieve. Its central message is addressed to the individual understood as, at least to some degree, an autonomous and rational agent who wants to confront meaninglessness amidst the diversity of values and cultures. sp as such does not wield methodological tools to study analytically social phenomena that evoke meaninglessness or promote diversity. In order to do so, sp would continually have to refer to external scientific sources, something that can and should be done given the specific occasion. Is there, then, any substance, any indispensable quality (apart from the time and space criteria) that sp would see as characteristic of contemporary Western culture? Can we provide a characterization of the West that distinguishes it, say, from all other styles of organizational human life? The present chapter offers an affirmative response to this question. It avoids, though, a systematic and empirical data-​oriented vindication of its claims. The main characterization, in general terms, is that sp can propose certain understandings. As a result of significant developments in various areas of human life (economic, educational, political, social, legal, technological, medical, military), contemporary Western culture already provides enough available tools and possibilities for most of its individual members to make life meaningful. This distressing span of time of the coronavirus pandemic aside, it has been a considerably peaceful period with no wars within the West in recent decades. September 11, 2001 was a brief, harrowing exception, and the wars in the Middle East that followed took place on lands external to Europe or the US. But there

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was the Balkan Wars in the 1990s, along with the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, as conflicts touching European (and thus the West) territories. Contemporary Western countries possess the widest accessibility to education ever attained, the highest living standard for a major part of its populations, the highest life expectancy, the most developed social security system openly available to a major part of North Americans and Western Europeans, with social justice systems in place more evolved than in any other place in the world. That is not to say that social justice is guaranteed to everybody, or that there are no conflicts among the numerous social groups within Western cultures. Neither do I want to suggest that there are no clashes among social groups with their own specific interests, nor that societal problems are non-​existent related to ethnicity, generation, race, religion, politics, social strata, sex, gender, money, communication echo chambers, to mention some of the most glaring. These discrepancies do not and should not overshadow the accomplishments. One of the most obvious arguments supporting this claim concerns the masses of desperate non-​Western migrants trying to arrive by foot or by boat, risking their own lives, hoping to stay in the West at last against all odds. I claim this to be an obvious argument, but I realize this it is a comparative perspective and point of view. Yet it does speak to me each and every time I hear what my numerous international students from Ukraine, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and China tell me about the lack of freedoms in their places of origin, the scarcity of opportunities, the frayed and fragile social arrangements, the insufficient standards of health services, and the high levels of criminality in their home cultures. The Western world possesses as its proper heritage a vast number of wars and conflicts. But, it would be unfair and untrue to ascribe wars and injustice to the Western world only. The Maya practiced slavery, the Aztecs sacrificed humans in bloodthirsty ceremonies, the Japanese slaughtered the Chinese in Nanjing, the Turks slaughtered Armenians, the Hutus slaughtered the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Sunni fight against the Shia, and Mauretania officially abolished slavery only in 1981. Throughout the course of history, different groups of people have enslaved and slaughtered other groups of people independently of race or ethnicity (and religion). One can even wonder if the worst of the worst, that is to say the Holocaust, was possible due more to the technological and logistical acumen of Nazi Germany. In contrast, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who slaughtered, primarily with sticks and rifles, one third of the population of its own country within just four years (1975–​1979), illustrates that ideology and logistics are more instrumental to eventuate massacres and genocides than technology itself. Fortunately, such things have not happened in the contemporary West, and I would urge at least some basic appreciation

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of this achievement before we engage wholeheartedly, if at all, in the current so-​called cultural wars that poison our collective life presently. I am not sure if this is a completely objective way of assessing cultural issues, but cultural comparison is one of the ways we can carry out an objective, less biased, well-​balanced and more multi-​faceted look at different cultures. It is also helpful in order for us to propose a diagnosis of the condition of the Western culture (taken collectively) and to avoid both unjustified criticism and unreasonable admiration. In doing so, we can refer, for instance, to such issues as cultural tensions and the scale of opportunities that Western contemporary culture provides for individuals. At this point, we should take into consideration reality rather than utopian illusions. There have never been conflict-​free societies, unless in some unknown paradise or in the imaginations of some ideologues. If we include in our assessment the perspective of non-​Western cultures, we see clearly that contemporary Western culture provides most of its members with comparatively advanced forms of individual and communal possibilities for thriving and self-​realization in numerous spheres of life. One of these is the pluralistic recognition of different modes of cultural life, available on an unprecedented scale. Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Russia do not provide such a scale of autonomy, social security, toleration, and liberty for vast segments of their societies and their individual members, unless they are the very wealthy, or those who hold the reins of governmental power. Nor do we know of any societies in history, including the first democracy in ancient Greece (full of slaves) that developed a comparatively decent and secure social system for most of its citizens as is the case today in the West. 3

The Contingency of Ideas of Who We Are

We deal with contingency when we recognize that the values we cherish and the social practices that we have understood as important “lack the certainty, rightness, or absolute justification prior generations insisted they could attain” (tr 2). If we all agree that stability and the absolute justification of values have traditionally been the factors that gave foundations to the sense of the good and meaningful life, contingency becomes a challenge. To be sure, contingency, discussed in various contexts, is not a new characteristic of the human condition. After all, the Biblical book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) discussed it thousands of years ago, as did many texts from later periods. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the writings of Nietzsche (and his idea of God is Dead), the aesthetics of the avant-​garde, Thomas Kuhn’s idea of changing paradigms in science (Kuhn 1962), the philosophy of postmodernism, and

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American neopragmatism, among many others, have manifested the phenomenon in newer versions. Contingency has become a serious challenge nowadays, not for novel theoretical versions but for its widespread impact on practically all aspects of Western culture and life. The most accomplished and significant forms of institutionalized life in the West—​science, education, mass media, political systems, legal systems, religions, morality—​are less and less reliable to be referred to as absolute points of reference or, to use postmodern vocabulary, metanarratives or grand narratives (Lyotard 1984 [1979]). Absolute points of reference, so pronounced in the classical era, guarantee us stable denominators: commonly recognized methods that help us establish truths, common interests, a common good, generally understood evils, a common sense of progress, and meaningful lives. Since the end of the nineteenth century, the West has witnessed a tendency to perceive and interpret sociocultural issues in dynamic, pluralistic, variable, and mutable categories. It is in the name of recognition of such sociocultural tendencies that sp claims, pragmatically so to speak, that “to get our house in order, we have to rethink our social, religious, philosophical, and moral practices outside the context of the search for certainty” (tr 3). Especially, since this tendency only accelerates (the just initiated Russian war on Ukraine heightens our sense of contingency even more). One of the most spectacular examples of contingency concerning who we are comes from the London Employment Tribunal’s verdict against Maya Forstater in 2019, who lost her job for simply claiming publicly that there are only two sexes: males and females. According to the Tribunal’s verdict, the claim that there are two sexes has an “absolutist nature,” which is “incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others,” and “the human rights balancing exercise goes against” such an “absolutist approach” (The Employment Tribunals 2019; 24, 26). The question of the sexes is one thing, and the question of human dignity is quite another. We cannot avoid discussing both in the context of what is absolute and what is relative and contingent. The Tribunal’s verdict is unclear as to whether we should treat human dignity in absolutist terms or not, and it is unclear if the “fundamental rights of others” is an absolutist claim itself. However, if the question about the sexes were viewed to be suspicious, would not this mean that contingency is unavoidable even in most basic questions about happiness, meaningfulness, the good life, and self-​fulfillment? Should these be viewed as relative or relativized to some norms and cultural standards of the day? Perhaps cultural (and axiological) relativism would save us from contingency? If so, we would have to understand dignity or happiness, as relative to the understanding of a given group or a given tradition, and we could do it, but only at the price of losing its universal importance. We cannot

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demand the dignity of, say, women all across the world, while at the same time claim that dignity needs to be contextualized and relativized. On the other hand, even those who would claim that human dignity should be understood in absolutist terms, may have problems with what that means exactly (see more in the following chapter). After all, it is basically impossible to ignore economic conditions in discussing what human dignity practically means, and whether or not social security is a part of the issue in question. One of the best illustrations of this uncertainty has occurred in Spain, where, since 2014, there have been Marches of Dignity (Marchas de la Dignidad) in which salaries and pensions are at stake. These factors were non-​existent in the considerations of human cultures and earlier ethical systems of thought that tried to cultivate the idea of human dignity long before the capitalist era emerged, as in Christianity and in Kant. The idea that human rights may seem dependent, i.e., contingent and/​or relative, in social and even technological contexts, has been proposed (there are recent voices coming from such traditional circles as the United Nations that access to the Internet should become a new human right [Grey 2020]). The Internet itself, along with the digital revolution of recent decades, accelerates this sense of contingency, despite the immense progress we have thanks to digital tools in many areas of life, culture, and education (see more in Chapter 6). The sense of contingency is strengthened by social media that promote tribalism, polarization, and communication echo chambers, rather than the common values shared by human beings, independent of their backgrounds. Cultural changes together with the narratives about these changes evolve amazingly fast in social media, and younger audiences are most vulnerable to absorb uncritically whatever they see and hear. Social media’s rapid-​fire communication, the dynamism of their discourses, and the malleability of their vocabularies make it difficult for us to identify a fixed set of characteristics of any one culture, or specific segments of any given culture. For example, identifiable attempts to define a given culture (e.g., is a given culture discriminatory or not), a given moral category (e.g., happiness or moral corruption) and its niche in life, depends a lot on whom defines it: scientists, politicians, social activists (progressives, conservatives), religiously motivated moralists, social media influencers, digital celebrities, or a variety of others. It also depends on the selection through which categories (scientific, political, popular, economic) we care to describe something, and what the target audience is. Although there have always been important differences in the descriptions of cultures, values, and their interpretations, today we are witnessing something that has never taken place before. Most of us, including teenagers, have free access to powerful tools of mass communication (fb, yt, the Instagram,

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Twitter, TikTok, WhatsApp, etc.) by means of which it is possible to present and represent matters in a novel, usually sensationalistic manner. Many people, especially younger, have the technological capacity to express their views, whatever the quality or veracity, in a written or audio-​video manner. This was something impossible previously. In this way, some influencers and celebrities have an immediate impact, usually short-​lasting, on the views of millions of their subscribers and followers, and the scale of their popularity can hardly be matched by any experienced professor or regular expert, even when highly competent in a given field of knowledge. Such instantaneous influence of so many different people coming from the social media world may be positive, inspirational, or creative for many aspects of life. In some instances, it even undermines something that characterized Western culture for centuries, and that is a sense of certainty concerning basic truths and values pronounced by recognized authority figures. Here, the evolution of Western culture seems systemic and radical. Truth and values, cultivated by established institutions (church, educational systems, the legal system, the established media, authority figures) and institutionalized forms of life (established social roles, morality, customs, public opinion) seem to be undermined currently in the West. The present technological, digital revolution has much to do with it. This is revolutionary in comparison to what the Western world experienced during and after the Enlightenment. 4

The Internet and the Digital Revolution

It was a common hope of the representatives of the Age of Reason that the development of the sciences, along with a general access to knowledge, was the way to transform social life for the better, to erect the pillars of sociocultural life sturdier, and to make members of the public, as a whole, happier. We could imagine that the French Encyclopaedists, if alive today, would see our contemporary Wikipedia as a perfect realization of their original Encyclopédie project, given its objective knowledge-​oriented approach, nearly free accessibility to millions of readers in nearly all living languages, the unlimited scope of the subjects and problems it discusses, and its alacrity to update old facts and introducing new ones. We could also imagine, I suppose, that the Encyclopaedists would not understand why so many contemporary people misuse their smartphones in order to derive excitement from websites dedicated to crime, polarization, pornography, hate, scandal, perversion, and, on the whole, fake news. There must have been something inherently wrong in the Enlightenment’s theoretical assumption concerning human reason as

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being the most adequate faculty for all humans. Also, with regard to the latent hope that unlimited access to education and science automatically means a better world for all concerned. The digital revolution is a relatively recent characteristic of contemporary culture, yet it was preceded by the Industrial Revolution and incessant technological progress in the twentieth century. It has a global scale, yet is viewed essentially as a Western phenomenon, since it originates from Silicon Valley, where the most powerful Big Tech corporations still have headquarters, and exercises a strong cultural influence on Western populations. Due to this revolution, for the first time in human history, an unlimited access to knowledge and information (through the Internet), has made it possible for most of us to become even more aware of our possibilities and our flourishing. And this despite the omnipresent disinformation and fake news that we must confront on a regular basis. Indeed, this knowledge is accessible only to those who are able to filter information out of the ocean of misinformation, news out of fake news, and what matters out of inconsequential trash. By all means, the Internet has revolutionized the processes of acquiring access to education and knowledge, and the covid pandemic lockdowns have even accelerated it. There is an enormous, wide tranche of issues that can be discussed here, and public communication is one of them. The lessening of the importance of established and mainstream media, along with the increase of social media and the possibility of a free selection of information that one chooses and becomes accustomed to and that the users like, coupled with the rejection of what the users do not like, have resulted in a sharp division and polarization of audiences. Algorithms that are programmed to maximize the profit of Big Tech corporations have much to do with it. As one of its unfortunate results, there are a growing number of groups of people who live in media echo chambers that produce a vibrant feeling, in these groups, of their own omniscience and of being in the right. Omniscience and absolute conviction about being in the right are both dangerous and tend to exclude. Having biological structures within our bodies, and a sociocultural circuitry in our minds, we all have different degrees of limitations in perception, understanding, and in interpreting the world as it really is. Even if we are well educated in a singular area of competence, and/​or unprejudiced toward some manifestations of culture, acquiring competence in other fields of knowledge and communication can become a challenge. The same thing results from social status or a privileged position within any power structure; these vertical perspectives allow us novel perspectives, yet unavoidably obscure others. Small wonder then, that it is nearly impossible to assume

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an unbiased position for treating equally and fairly those people whose cultures or lifestyles we do not understand or misrecognize. Similarly, there are revolutionary changes of perspective in education. Nearly all the major attributes of the traditional university—​professors, students, libraries, classrooms, diplomas, conferences, social recognition, academic publishers, books, job offerings, and an ethos of work—​have already become a part of cyberspace. Many professors teach online and give private classes, offering courses as members of numerous e-​learning educational institutions (offering diplomas too). Coursera, with its 33 million registered learners (High 2018), is perhaps the largest. Students are at liberty to choose innumerable lectures and courses, for example on YouTube, very often free of charge. Libraries, another important attribute of educational systems, have evolved in a spectacular fashion. Millions of pdfs, e-​books, and blog posts with texts, are accessible from any laptop, Kindle, or smartphone at any moment, many without cost or very little. Professors do not need to wait months, or even years, to publish their books or journal articles as was normally the case with academic protocols. Instead, scholars can publish digital versions of their texts, of whatever length, overnight, on their blogs and personal websites, or simply distribute these texts by e-​mails to their colleagues, students, or anyone interested. College classrooms can easily be transformed into home settings or into a cafeteria in the e-​teaching/​e-​learning system that employs Skype, Zoom, or other formats. Conferences can be easily converted into Webinars or online seminars, turning these meetings into events without having concerns about securing monies, travel costs, hotel, time, and a geographical location for the participants. Whether teachers, humanists, ethicists, and other scholars should remain in university classrooms and congress conference-​rooms or move their activities into cyberspace does not seem a yes/​no predicament these days. There are many educational contexts that already require using digital tools as the traditional mode of teaching students, e-​teaching for instance. Contemporaneously, university education has been losing its privileged status, if not monopoly, as exceptional institutional arrangements that are responsible for the cultivation and transmission of knowledge to future generations. The Internet, independently of any university curricula, also stores and transmits knowledge in many areas the learner could desire access. The Internet does it on a much larger and more expansive scale than traditional institutions of higher education, and this makes a huge difference. These challenges must be met, or, at least, be reconsidered. And I develop my ideas as to how to respond to them in Chapter 6. To be sure, the Internet and, especially social media, strengthen a sense of contingency in various audiences due to the dynamism, changeability, and unpredictability of the message they

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promote. There is uncertainty with respect to their versions of the true and the real. On the other hand, we do deal, as never before, with the pluralism of values and the positioning that represent these values in all areas of individual and cultural life, and this pluralism has much to do with the problem of the meaningful life. 5

Pluralism of Values

One of the most characteristic features of contemporary Western culture is the acceptance and institutional promotion of the idea of a pluralism of values. Its theoretical vindication goes hand in hand with its practical implementation in areas of political points of view, scientific ideas, moral positions, cultural perspectives, and religious concepts. For example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2012, Article 11, point 2) reads: “The freedom and pluralism of media shall be respected.” In the realm of moral life, it is commonly accepted that democracy should mean, among other things, a safe space for a variety of equally expounded views that are possible for a vast array of issues. In the context of a meaningful life, the term pluralism implies, among other things, that “human life might find fulfillment in a variety of different ways” (gs 11). Here, the pluralism of values excludes the absolutist view about the summum bonum, the highest good, in its various versions—​that there is only one obligatory method to set normative standards for a good life; that there is only one set of goods or values to be achieved; that there is only one (or the best way) of interpreting these values; and, that there is one significant way of aiming at self-​fulfillment. Another integral part of pluralism is the following: any distinct moral message concerning the good and meaningful life needs to be fragmented and contextualized. We are unable to demonstrate justifiably that there exists only one single system of thought that could teach us what actual reality looks like and, therefore, how the good and meaningful life should appear for all of us. This is acutely problematic within the contexts of diverse cultures, each of which presents different norms and divergent patters of navigating amongst the very challenges of life. We are unable to reliably declare which culture, even a lifestyle within one particular culture, is the best and most recommended to practice for all concerned, especially for children. Parents’ advice does not usually jibe with what children can access on, say, TikTok or Instagram. Additionally, it is quite difficult to ban these despite the tendencies we observe in millions of young people imitating uncritically the lifestyles of digital celebrities whom they admire on the Internet on a daily basis, with or without parental control.

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This description gets even more complex when we add the diverse viewpoints that we, as adults, learn from the omnipresent communications in a variety of platforms. If we actually cared to acquire a sense of the factual state of things, we would need to know and assess a vast assortment of viewpoints and, in this way, procure a pluralistic picture related to values and facts. However, such a multiplication of viewpoints would be endless, infinite. We would never have enough in order to grasp a complete picture of any given state of affairs, as it would be impossible to get to know, understand, and appropriately assess such a multiplicity of views, and then competently to decide which one is appropriate. To state the same thing in the words of William James: “All that my pluralism contends for is that there is no where extant a complete gathering up of the universe in one focus, either of knowledge, power, or purpose. Something escapes, even from God” (Skrupskelis and Berkeley 2004, 407). Here pluralism may assume a form of perspectivism—​that is, a series of approaches, some of which are less or more justified, and whose distinct ways of looking at human life preclude a uniform vision. It is not only that the world is too vast in its complexity for any one person. To possess capacities sufficient to embrace complex realities via one single method and/​or an unbiased viewpoint, is an unrealistic demand. It is also the multiplicity of angles, takes, views, perspectives, and the specific interests of any given group of people who determine their way of looking at, and assessing practically, life. As a result, all what we can do is to look at things from the perspective of what we can derive from our cultures, traditions, and even from our own individual takes on reality. These perspectives are limited, as are limited cognitive possibilities, both of groups and individuals who belong to this or that group. In this way, for example, the perspective of any religious tradition has a limited understanding concerning any manner of self-​fulfillment while, at the same time, the perspective of any secular tradition loses sight of the sense of religious dedication. Or, to provide another example, being an observer or a theorist inevitably deprives us of possessing a deeper look into the reality that a practitioner, or simply an individual, faced with a given plight, must deal with. Finally, one last example: getting older and maturing while assuming responsibilities for others (our children in the first instance), changes so much our individual perspective that we thought obvious in our earlier days. 6

Cultural Diversity

A pluralism of values is inextricably related to cultural diversity, although this relationship is nothing definite and fixed. Diverse cultures, apart from being

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diverse in themselves, have developed different systems of values along with their own more or less established narratives and myths. Similarly, European culture has developed a system of religious values (Christianity) and also a system of secular values (e.g., the Enlightenment) both of them existing as it were, within one cultural tradition. In our age of globalization, contact between cultures is much more constant and profound than ever before. Contemporary Western culture appreciates this cultural diversity most of all, both in theoretical and practical dimensions. Especially in the form of multiculturalist policies. Multiculturalism, understood as an official policy of any given government, began in the early 1970s in Canada, Sweden, and Australia. These were followed by many countries that tried to implement multicultural policies in various degrees. The case of the United States is unique in that it only recently has officially introduced specific elements (e.g., multilingual policy in Alaska). Historically, being a melting pot since its historical creation, it has been for the most part a country without a legally declared multiculturalist policy on the federal level. We can only wonder, for example, how soon it will be until learning/​speaking Spanish becomes part of the official American multilingual policy, given the fact that the US has already become the second largest Spanish speaking country (60 million) after Mexico. Intercultural contacts within the Western world became more intensive during periods of facilitated migrations of people at the end of the Cold War. With the opening of borders within the European Union due to the rapid expansion of transportation possibilities and people becoming wealthier, tourism en masse exploded. In recognition of the new dimension of the phenomenon of cultural diversity, the European Union appropriated the slogan “united in diversity” as its motto (in use since 2000), and the unesco Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity was announced in 2001, among many other statements and documents. These and many other initiatives are solid manifestations of a tendency towards the appreciation and promotion of the idea of cultural diversity in its various forms and different degrees of augmentation. One quick glance at the main points of unesco’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity is worthwhile. It provides descriptive and normative claims with a global perspective: “The defence of cultural diversity is an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for human dignity” (Article 4). The justification for this claim is the following: “As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for the nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations” (Article 1). The Declaration assumes somehow, uncritically it seems to me, that cultural diversity is a factor of development, and that it “widens the range of

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options open to everyone” (Article 3). I say “uncritically” because it appears to ignore that some states, cultures, and traditions have homogenous identities which entails that any form of cultural diversity would be exceptionally difficult for them to take on. By exceptionally, I mean, to those who harbor more pronounced traditions of intercultural exchanges, as colonizing powers in the past, or countries with long traditions of international trade. I cannot imagine, for example, that Amish communities in the US or the Orthodox Church communities in Europe would want to take on a multiculturalist approach in the hope to “widen the range of options”; instead, I would expect a justified fear in them that should diversity be forced upon them, it could chip away at their own specific traditions, eventually destroying their sense of identity. Perhaps for this reason, the Declaration admits (in Article 9) that particular states are free to define and implement cultural policies in their own ways. The declaration differentiates between cultural diversity and cultural pluralism (Article 2). The former is a descriptive claim that humanity signifies, among other things, a collection of diverse cultural traditions that can and should serve us as rich and extensive sources for thriving and progress; the latter is a normative claim according to which some elements of cultural diversity should be implemented into the practice of life so as to enrich it. The Declaration does not discuss that there is a serious problem with an effective arrangement of different cultures. This suggests that many of them (or all of them) can equally enrich us or that we can enrich them, whatever “ours” and “theirs” means. In other words, according to which criteria should we assess various cultures in order that they enrich us? Enrich in what sense? Mere coexistence, side by side, is well-​nigh impossible, as the experience of multiculturalist policies in many countries show us. Should we assume that all of them are equally effective in, say, making life meaningful for most of its members? What if a given culture cultivates, for example, a caste system for centuries, or views the idea of the equality of men and women as pathological? What if the secularization is viewed as blasphemous? Is it not an absolutistic claim that “all cultures are equal,” and is it not in itself a form of Western cultural imperialism to impose such egalitarian and democratic claims (“all cultures are equal”) upon cultures that have been essentially non-​democratic and non-​egalitarian for centuries, if not millennia? Viewing matters from a comparative viewpoint, we could say that a characteristic feature of contemporary Western culture is its relatively high tolerance and relatively low rate of persecution of diverse social, ethnic, religious, and cultural groups who aspire to pursue and strengthen their own traditions, to cherish their own values, and to express their uniqueness (although in recent years there have been hot debates about the so-​called cancel culture

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vs. freedom of speech in some Anglophone countries). It includes groups that have been deliberately excluded, persecuted, or unrecognized for centuries. For example, the First Nations in Canada, African-​Americans in the United States, the Jews in Europe, and the poor everywhere. If we, then, understand culture as a set of established ways in which a given social group can manifest its specific modes of living within a larger society or civilization, we can understand how most ethnic, religious, and cultural groups find their niches in the non-​threatening, socially secure West, rather than elsewhere. Institutional recognition, appreciation, and the promotion of pluralism and diversity have become characteristic features of contemporary Western culture. The cultural coexistence of numerous groups does not necessarily mean that tensions do not exist. Rather, it illustrates that there are, at least up to the present (2022), moderately well-​developed procedures that make it possible for us to continue on with the relatively peaceful adjustment of conflicting groups vis-​à-​vis others by, above all, dialogue and peaceful persuasion. 7

A Possible Cost We Pay for Our Comfort

As already mentioned, I take it for granted that the basic existential needs of most members of Western societies are secured as they never before in the past have been. The current war in Ukraine (February 2022) and the alarming suffering of Ukrainians reveals to us even more clearly what we actually enjoy in the West. To enumerate: we have not had war on our territory for decades, social security, free media, sanitation, human rights, women’s rights, minority rights, democracy, a high standard of living, low infant mortality, high life expectancy, access to first-​rate health services, and access to education. Never in the history of humankind has so vast a segment of the population had access to so many goods and services and rights that foster dignity and self-​thriving. Such a groundswell in the character of Western post-​w wii culture, especially since the late 1960s, could suggest a shift in values. A comfortable life elevates the individual-​oriented set of consumption values and, willy-​nilly, reduces the importance of other, long-​established continuities of values. Stated otherwise, a dedication to maintaining a conventional, multigenerational family, is difficult to defend when faced with, and forced to complete with, the comforts and liberties that hyper-​consumption offers. We witness so many individuals who do not wish to have such familial commitments preferring their individual liberties, their professional careers, and their individual forms of happiness. Still, the comforts thereby achieved are not always converted into contentment, although it is difficult to be exact on this point and provide reliable data.

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Nevertheless, we stoic pragmatists, can observe a sort of paradox here. The well-​developed capitalist system of the democratic West protects basic human rights and offers essential goods and services, but something in this capitalist mechanism stimulates us to yearn for an even higher living standard, with still more extravagant expectations regarding life. These criticisms and never-​ ending expectations do not have to be understood negatively; they may result in giving rise to new energies and encountering pragmatic solutions here and there. However, they often convert into dissatisfaction and complaints as to what we already possess. Relatively high living standards, social security and domestic, societal peace have come to be taken for granted by those who have been brought up in wealthy, secure societies, which could mean that they find few reasons to admire them. This seems to be happening at present with the younger generation of North Americans and Western Europeans. And it is not only the youth. The collective, public memory of yesterday’s travails has become selective. Living in the most secure, most educated, and wealthiest conditions deprive one of full appreciation of the achievements that Western culture has incrementally managed to construct throughout the centuries. For example, the contemporary discussion about the need for recognition of rights of all individuals (e.g., minorities) obscures, unfortunately, the discussion as to the progress the West has indeed made in recent decades concerning the fact that there is place in the marketplace of ideas, in the intellectual agora, in which minorities of so many stripes have been given so many freedoms. An important question that could be asked here is the following: How is it possible that despite wealthy, relatively comfortable conditions of living, so many people suffer from frustration, solitude, a lack of self-​worth, and mental problems? A stoic pragmatist would ask this question in the context of a particular person (rather than a representative of a particular social group), living in particular circumstances, and trying to recognize the opportunities surrounding one, rather than from a socioeconomic or political perspective. Stoic pragmatists pose this question because of the claim, developed in later chapters, that we, rational individuals, already have at our disposal powerful, easily obtainable tools to convert our lot into something much more meaningful. One of the possible ways of answering the question is by thinking about the costs that living a comfortable life in the West demands, and apprizing them through the perspective of the stoic idea of dichotomy of control, of which I address later. Its main assumption is that it is far better for our mental health and sense of agency to engage emotionally with available sources, for a meaningful life that we are able to control and rely on. On the other hand, it is more advantageous for our mental health and for our sense of our agency not to depend too much on sources that are external, which are unreliable,

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contingent, and hardly controllable. To provide a trivial example: instead of getting upset with the rain (we cannot control weather conditions), it is much better for us to predict bad weather and protect ourselves with an umbrella, and in so doing it is within our control. If the rainstorm develops into a hurricane (still uncontrollable), we can escape (which is within our control) to a safer location, but this requires our attention and access to meteorological information in advance (still within our control). Obviously, real life is much more complicated, and one can ask the question of whether such a strategy is needed and realizable in contemporary conditions in the West. After all, our daily lives, our professional engagements, our social relations, and our public commitments are more complex than the rain and umbrella scenario. And does it make any sense to refer to the ancient inspirations while coping with the most modern challenges of our culture? Let me propose some thoughts about this. Highly institutionalized, and enormously effective forms of sociopolitical life tempt us to become more and more entangled in a web of indirect dependencies, anonymous interrelations, and nearly automatized patterns of behavior. For example, it is nearly compulsory for most of us to follow the algorithm-​ oriented communication procedures, as it is necessary for all of us to employ Big Tech’s tools in order to communicate (e.g., Google, fb, ig, yt, Twitter, TikTok). The end result is a fast and open transmission of human voices and expression as never before achieved in human history, yet the price we (especially younger users) pay for this is a substantial reduction of agency in some of its moral, cognitive, and communal aspects. As it stands, institutions of various kinds (digital communication institutions in this case) have a tremendous impact upon our lives by providing us with tools of communication and the ways of operating them, but most of us have barely any impact upon the shape and character of these institutions and the way they operate. As a result, we are persuaded, if not forced, to follow patterns of communication, sometimes everyday patterns of communication, that are not ours; we learn how to operate them (for example, Microsoft Teams as I must do at my university) and accommodate ourselves to the conditions they set. It is exactly this acute sense of the limitedness of our agency that sp seeks to address and discuss, since it makes many of us less placid as it concerns certain aspects of our cultural lives, despite the opulent conditions that surround us. Here the term mediation, that is, “action on behalf of the other” (im 11), or “the placement of a third between oneself and the object one works on or the result one attempts to achieve” (cc 19), is extremely helpful in explaining the mechanism of this dependence. The term mediation, which refers to “a nearly universal feature of human action” (cc vii), defines the indirect ways in which

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we realize activities through our planning them, and then executing them in order to attain (or failing to) the aims along with their consequences and possible side effects. This indirectness is caused, frequently, by the fact that we get into mediating relations “in which individuals perform actions on behalf of others” (rpl 100). Why is such indirectness so problematic? Primarily because it alienates us from the effects and the ways we want to realize our intentions. Such alienation may have much to do with the meaning or meaninglessness of our actions, which then translates into the importance of our agency being questioned. In this way, the subjective sense of the quality of our lives, understood as profound satisfaction of what we achieve and who we are, becomes debatable. In other words, our dependence on the external conditions of life, which we scarcely control grows exponentially, and this, in turn, does a disservice in having a fixed or even predictable vision of a meaningful life. Or stated otherwise: “In a world of mediation the individual finds himself as a single link in a long chain of structured interactions” (im 61), that heighten the sense of contingency even more severely. This renders us, as agents, unable to navigate and balance the negative sides of contingency and the unpredictability of actions. The planning and realization of what we do, successfully or not, depends on the intervention of others because our activities, submerged so much as they are in the cultural, economic, political, social, and technological contexts, are so dependent on them that the control we exert is minimal. If the intentions, realizations, and effects of activities that I assume as mine are mostly not mine, it is more difficult to find meaning in them and agency in myself. For example, it seems to me to be my very own individual and independent idea to write this book, yet it is not fully individual and autonomous for reasons it would be wise and sane for me to remember: the type of education I received throughout years of schooling, the type of sensitivity or sensibility that I acquired through my life experience in a specific historical time and geographical place, the scope of liberties I now enjoy and the past dictatorship in my own country (Poland) that allow me, or not, to write what I want to write, the technological skills (operating my laptop), the policy of publishing houses that I must follow, the types of expectation I perceive from my university, the way that my (excellent) proofreader accomplishes his task, the way in which the reviewers evaluate my manuscript, and many other circumstances. As a result, the book, when (hopefully) published, is claimed to be mine, yet, in reality, it is partially mine and partially the result of good luck, of favorable circumstances, and many other factors both within and out of my control. Naming this book as “mine” would be even more difficult for me if I happened to see its publication and its role in the public life as a meaningful part of my intellectual

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life. In that case, my sense of meaningfulness would depend on factors that are for the most part not mine. It would be indifferent to me though, if I assumed a stoic pragmatist stance and saw the meaning in the very process of spending some intellectually wonderful time in thinking about it, writing it, and doing my best to publish it, with reserved expectations or disinterestedness about its possible success in the public arena. Due to a longer chain of intervening factors and unpredictable circumstances, many of our activities are perfunctory, superficial, fragmented, accidental, and fungible. This is very visible in the job market, for example. There are a growing number of jobs and regular, everyday occupations that are easily exchangeable by other people (or by robots and ai more and more often these days) without much difference in the quality of what is done. If our sense of a meaningful life is dependent upon the kind of job that we exercise, we should remember that fungibility, as boring routine, usually does not contribute to our sense of the meaningfulness of our activity, and thus opens us up to being more vulnerable. To be sure, the level of human cooperativeness in nearly all areas of life is currently so advanced and so sophisticated that most of us unavoidably serve only a tiny part in the whole process, or rather a chain of processes, and hardly ever see the result of those processes as our own. Nor do we have a sense that a given project is a result of our own invention or doing. Whatever institution we serve—​a corporation, a government, an administration, the educational system, an it industry—​most of us are unable to exert an influence on the consequences, even when these turn out to be scandalous or unjust. We do not seem to care much for what is beyond our own specific slice of activity in doing our job. Institutions are too sprawling, too complex, too hierarchical, and too mediated that we could dimly be aware of its impact on the lives of others. Here, we can talk about a “mediational distance” that can be “measured by the number of people necessary to create a social act of some complexity. In making our minuscule contribution to the act, we do not see how it combines with what others do to make a larger whole and we remain in the dark about the consequences” (cc 95). Many examples can be provided that illustrate the problem of mediational distance, and education seems one of the most typical. Parents may do their utmost to transmit the best patterns (in their own minds and hearts) of the good life to their children, but these very same parents may have little impact on the external contexts of upbringing beyond their control: the quality of the school teachers, the substance of the school teaching, the school district’s policies, possible violence in the schoolyard, the contents of Instagram or TikTok that their children may unwillingly have become addicted to, the negative influence of children’s peers, and the cultural fashion (e.g., digital celebrities)

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that suddenly starts to overtake youth’s aspirations. These and many other factors mediate in the process that seems to be our own (belonging to the parents), which is the upbringing of our own children. Education, in our contemporary, digitalized era, merges with digital communication which, as such, may serve us as another telling example of the mediation problem. In Twitter, any text must be short and laconic and, in this way, very much dependent on the interpretation or misinterpretation of those who see it later. Amidst an ocean of texts floating in digital space, it makes it difficult for many audiences to see the difference between information, misinformation, disinformation, and fake news which, again and again, renders us all further removed from the original intentions of a given text and its authentic message. Both authors and readers are not able to recognize the future contexts in which any given message will be interpreted by those who happen to encounter it during a time when a new context will prevail and color the meaning of the message (sometimes years old, sometimes only a few days old). For example, any part of this present text (my book), when accessible on Twitter, or on any blog or in any other place on the Internet later on, can be taken out of context by any social media user who, then, comments on as hateful or offensive to specific audiences that I have never had in mind and never intended to address while writing the book. In this way, my best intentions as an author can later be ridiculed by a decontextualized fragment from my text, which, if it does occur, may translate into reputational problems at my work or elsewhere and, further on, into my sense of the good life (which I hope to prevent by maintaining the stoic pragmatist stance of indifference to externals). Apart from the expected results stemming from our actions, there are, also, negative ones, that may affect us in a more profound way. I would like to discuss six of them: passivity, impotence, ignorance, manipulation, psychic distance, and irresponsibility (cc 26–​47). All of them, separately or combined, cause some of us to undergo that paradoxical sensation, already mentioned, that despite the wealthy, secure societies we live in, the sense of the quality of living may seem to be diminishing for many of its members. On one hand, it can seem illusionary, as we have many tools at our disposal to arrange our lives in a way that brings about much joy and meaning. On the other hand, as it were, all these six phenomena contribute to a sense of meaninglessness by reducing our sense of agency, of our being the factual authors and practitioners of our own activities. These may leave us with a perception of fragmentation, incompleteness, and disorientation as to the actions we want to execute within predictable paradigms and long-​term perspectives. The first, passivity, does not entail that people living in the contemporary West are, in general, less active than people living elsewhere. An initial

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glance at Western societies would suggest just the opposite: most of us seem to be more and more active in various expanses of life, both private and public. For example, I only rarely see my students without smartphones in their hands. They appear terribly busy with operating them even while talking to me personally. A plethora of activities seem to make us busier with all kinds of obligations centering around the professional work that we perform and with must-​do actions, frequently consumption/​production-​oriented actions that we receive and realize in the external world and on which we are totally dependent. I say “receive,” but very often it is difficult to say if we are offered or whether they are imposed, since they are realities of capitalist and consumption/​production-​oriented acts dominating most of our lifestyles. Or, in other words: “We do what is expected of us, but the source of our activities does not reside in us. Though we do things, we feel that we sing someone else’s tune: countless others claim possession of our souls. As a result, we feel passive in our activities and active only when we are left alone to do what we really want” (cc 31). Impotence is also a paradoxical phenomenon in the world of enormous transformations that make our communal and individual lives more dynamic. We saw thriving businesses all around us and cyberspace relentless in its reach, even before the coronavirus pandemic (covid), and even more so during it. However, all these developments require a gigantic web of human cooperation, one side effect of which is the individual sense of being a small, and rather unimportant part of the whole process. Worse still, as already mentioned, many jobs are fungible, meaning that workers are aware that the particular jobs that they perform can be easily performed by anyone else, or by artificial intelligence, which is a more and more probable scenario these days. There is less and less place for a sense of satisfaction derived from a completed project or performance, one that is exercised from its inception, through its realizations, until its finale. A sense of impotence arises as a result of these limitations in transforming our plans and ideas into full realizations. A high scale of ignorance about the factual mechanisms of public life should not be a surprising phenomenon, even if we realize that we live in the most educated societies ever organized. Access to a wide spectrum of education at all levels in Western countries has never been easier and more ubiquitous. At the same time, the development of technology, medicine, finance, and politics makes their mechanisms of operation even more complicated. Very few experts can fully understand the anatomy of, say, the vastness of the financial sector, not to mention most ordinary citizens. So many people (politicians, commentators, influencers) have different viewpoints and divergent interests, and are involved in discussions in the mass media, which obscures the understanding

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of those who watch and listen. It is not possible, on a practical level, for most of us to feel that we have any control over the phenomena that govern our lives. It happens on smaller scales also. Corporations for example, be they global or national, shroud in secrecy from their workers the complexities of their businesses. The Internet is a more complex example—​we have access to all kinds of knowledge in cyberspace but only a few of us truly understand its logic, and quite soon there will be even fewer who claim to know how it functions, or are able to calibrate its algorithms. Yet, it is these very algorithms that regulate more and more aspects of our daily lives, from gps to fb. In all probability, our ignorance of these mechanisms will continue to grow despite the increased levels of education and access to the Internet. Manipulation is a very general term and, perhaps for this very reason, is often used and abused in public debates. To be sure, there are contexts in which it can be justifiably applied, for example, as making reference to our intentions and activities that have been unrecognized, or instrumentalized, or used by others in ways we did not want or were not aware of. For example, when we realize that a service or a tool that we had expected to work for our own benefit has appeared to work much better for somebody else’s benefit, as in the case of our digital data serving Big Tech companies as fuel for their business activities. Most of us have no idea whatsoever that it occurs every time we click something on our screens or send an e-​mail. The more we click any digital tool the more data we leave for the digital corporations, the data that are then converted into these corporations’ profits, not ours. We are easily tricked by commercial narratives and it escapes us that the factual mechanism of the operation of digital devices is for profit thanks to our engagement with these digital services. Perhaps we should not complain too much about these operational mechanisms. After all, we are given, almost cost-​free, powerful sets of tools for use in our own interests, ambitions, and benefit, and we can better communicate and perform any kind of communication activity, business included, as never before. Perhaps we should not complain, given the fact that something similar, though on a lesser scale, happens very often in the business world, digital or otherwise. When we hear the narrative expressed by the service provider that “you are our special client,” we should immediately know that we are regular clients, like everyone else, and what we actually are hearing is what in rhetoric is called, the “appeal to vanity technique,” that is, just one of many persuasive strategies to attract a client’s attention in order to profit from a client’s needs. Similar mechanisms of operation take place frequently in politics, in education, and in other spheres of the public sphere and interest. Psychic distance, or “ignorance of the interconnectedness of social acts” (cc 43), is inevitably an unavoidable effect of mediation. It is quite risky for

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any individual to engage in emotionally, or wholeheartedly to dedicate one’s energies for something s/​he does not have an influence on. What I mean, is that it is risky when the project fails at a certain point, and it is risky when we do realize, usually when that something goes wrong, that the bond among coworkers is tenuous. As Lachs writes: “Pride in work, understanding the vital importance of one’s own contribution, and seeing coworkers as partners all suffer or are eliminated” (cc 44) or, we might very well add, stay on a merely declarative level. Finally, responsibility for what we do can become so restrictive in a given segment of our labors, that irresponsibility for final results, or for the side effects, of what we are engaged in, appears to have become a norm. If the individual performs a limited task within a greater process, as usually is the case, s/​ he is unable to perform the complete human act. As Lachs has clarified: “Since the cause of the action, the purpose, and the motive all come from the outside, it is not altogether surprising that people refuse to feel responsible for failures” (cc 46). 8

What Does This Diagnosis Tell Us about Thoughtless Individualism and the Risk of Meaningless Lives?

Allow me to mention, once again, the reflection that it may seem strange that, on the one hand, post-​w wii Western culture has developed an expansive social, economic, and political machinery to recognize, respect, and protect individual life along with its rights, sense of dignity, and prosperity. On the other hand, we see extremely powerful institutions that, by means of the tools of mass communication, a more and more digitalized job market, and an overpowering bureaucracy, endanger the significance of individual efforts. Does this mean that the meaningfulness of the individual life is at stake here? As in previous periods of history, with monarchies, the Church, the military (draft), Big Tech and Big Pharma, global corporations (many more powerful than medium-​sized independent states), and political international bodies (e.g., the European Union), all have an enormous impact on the life of each of us. Concomitantly, very few of us, unless we are at the top of some power structure, have any impact on the operation of these institutions, or on any decision-​making processes in Silicon Valley. This is evident in the digital world, and there are voices that maintain we have just entered the epoch of techno-​ feudalism (Varoufakis 2021) in which masses of people can find themselves under technological surveillance in a most effective, rigid manner, and it is the tiny group of Big Tech bosses, sometimes in alliance with given governments,

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that dictate the conditions of this surveillance. Something similar, though to a lesser degree, happens in the case of specific forms of public administration, service, leadership, executorship, policy, planning, management, analysis, and legislation, especially when the decision-​making processes affect millions of individuals. Yet very few of those individuals have much to say about the character of those decisions. Those who do have something to say are experts, politicians, influencers, businesspeople, it people, and journalists. Since such is the logic of the operations of any large embodiment of institutionalized life (past or present), I do not want to criticize these institutions as such. I emphasize again: they, after all, make our lives easier, safer, and more comfortable. Despite a hegemony of massive institutions, of omnipresent bureaucracy, and of mediational modes of operation, nearly all of us these days have much more to say and much more to enjoy than any subject in previous ages in any country, unless one happened to reside at the upper echelons of a social power structure. Even if we agree about entering an age of techno-​ feudalism, each of us lives qualitatively a much better life than anybody under any previous feudal system of the past. Moreover, these institutions make it possible for many people to create themselves and fashion their lives meaningfully. This being the case, sp has little to say about the sociopolitical aspects of our dependence on powerful institutions except to indicate a danger of disproportion wherever it may appear, to rendering all of this as natural or necessary. This asymmetric disproportion between executing power on us, and our own sense of powerlessness, brings into focus the role of the individual in cultures that cultivate individualism as one of its fundamental values. These two perspectives may seem mutually exclusive. Reviewing the human condition from collective viewpoints, as is usually the case in reflections about culture, history, politics, and the economy, differs from reviewing the human condition from an individual perspective. The contexts of a meaningful life and a quality of life, both so colored by personal attitudes and conditioned by subjective experiences, make these two perspectives even more distinct. An appreciation of living conditions in the West is one thing, yet the assessment of individual ways of thriving and seizing the opportunities surrounding one, is a different story altogether. Even if we understand Western culture in the collective meaning of this term, the role of individual agency within collective culture is a characteristic trajectory for the whole tradition of Western humanism starting with Cicero, or even earlier. It will be discussed later on in the book (the chapter on agency) whether individualism in the contemporary Western, especially American version, is really individualism at all, or rather a collective form of behavior that centers some type of activities on the individual. After all, “the most individualistic

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Americans are easily recognized as Americans anywhere in the world, perhaps precisely because they are so careful to be individualistic” (ll 32). Indeed, the American (Western) individualism has hardly anything to do with, say, Chinese individualism which only confirms a strong interrelationship between individualism and the cultural ambience that conditions or facilitates it. As such, does Western individualism entail, for example, the individual responsibility for having a meaningful life? Does it assume patterns that are conventionally established by culture in the collective meaning of this term? Is meaninglessness a possible risk that we pay for individualism in its thoughtless and unreflective version? Meaninglessness has different causes as it has different forms. If we characterize it, very broadly though, as lacking a sense of importance and/​or of value in one’s life, we can see that it may deal with life as a whole or with life at one of its stages. If we assume this meaning of the term, we will see that the importance factor and the value factor are crucial. Throughout the course of this book, I will think through this question of whether contemporary Western culture provides us with the resources for these two factors in a sufficient degree. If, as is often claimed, individualism is one of Western culture’s principal features, does it not mean that it (Western culture) elevates the importance of individual life with related value to a level that other cultures have not done? Or, perhaps, others have done so, yet many individuals are not able to perceive this? Perhaps the importance has mostly a delusional character and refers to trifles and superficialities rather than more vital questions? Perhaps we have dissolved the vitally meaningful in favor of the consumption-​oriented meaningful, taken the roles of clients and/​or producers, and have exchanged the meaningful life into a successful life as a basic model for happiness? This is precisely the point that sp wants to address by forcing us to pay attention to the unused opportunities available to us in contemporary Western culture. Small wonder then that a significant part of sp’s moral message addresses the following challenge: “Much of the destructive power applied in our world is the work of individuals reacting against the felt loss of their significance in mediated chains” (rpl 105). Why a sense of meaninglessness is dangerous and may become destructive for us should not be that difficult to answer. It seems to be because, sooner or later, a meaningless life might become a painful, lived experience by leaving us burnt out, bored, inactive, complaining, frustrated, and unhappy. But it may become also toxic for our surroundings, especially for those individuals who are close to us; our family members in the first instance. They, especially our children, suffer most directly from the meaninglessness we may impose on them, willingly or not. On the other hand, one who enjoys a good and

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meaningful life has a great chance not only to feel a high quality to one’s own life, but also to radiate this energetic feeling around and, consciously or not, stimulate others in a positive way. It might seem trivial to say, but it should be reiterated, that the quality of life can become more elevated in spaces where the meaning of life is felt and shared. Undeniably, it is not very often that one mode of the meaningful life is viewed as attractive and meaningful to others surrounding one, even one’s closest family members. The clash of meanings and the discrepancy of the visions of the good life is not only possible but is also quite frequent. A primary reason for the so-​called generation gap is the difference in understanding of what the good life and the meaningful life look like for the elderly and for youth. Meaninglessness has many ugly dimensions, and reducing it, for example by a profound reflection about life, is always recommended. Even conversing about various forms of violence in this context is not without a reason: “It is, after all, implausible to suppose that people resort to violence to express their happiness” (rpl 104). Violence, be it physical or digital, can sometimes be a tragic, failed search for meaning and, as a result, especially dangerous for society, and “attractive” for the perpetrator. After all, the perpetrator may indeed entertain a feeling, paradoxically enough, as to the completed act of his or her crime that results in the following: a (bad) intention, a (brutal) execution, and the effect (harmful to the victim and the victim’s family) may not be so harmful to the very perpetrator, if not eventually arrested and punished. Let me repeat my conviction that it is relatively easier these days to have our lives be viewed as important, valuable, and meaningful due to a full array of encompassing opportunities; yet, for some reason or another, not everybody utilizes them to realize personal objectives. Perhaps, as the historical Stoics were wont to suggest, humans, independent of when and where they live, are often too concerned about trifles with too much energy spent caring about petty issues. The laborious and meaningless routine that has conquered our sense of living could be one of the most frequent consequences that we pay for our wish for a comfortable and secure life. A lack of reflection about what really matters makes it even worse. Consequently, “the devastating sense of the meaninglessness of what we do and of our own unimportance moves us alternatively to shoulder-​shrugging indifference and to personal despair” (cc 7). Why should we talk about laborious routine as a considerable negative factor in this context? For one, because “the industrial world invites and rewards hard work that leads to delayed gratification; as a result, people find their lives consumed in activities of little direct value” (ci 75). sp views this interconnection

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between a sense of a meaningful life, and a sense of being a meaningful individual performing meaningful actions, as one and the same. The present diagnosis does not serve a stoic pragmatist in attempting to heal the world. Rather, it serves to impart the inexpensive and rather easily available ways in which it is possible to navigate twofold. First, to navigate among the traps, challenges, and opportunities that make life meaningful. Second, to try to ameliorate a slice of the public sphere where our knowledge and skills allow us to intervene. sp does not claim that the characteristics of Western culture are either good or bad as such. They simply occur, and we need to face them. The best we can do is to convert them, from something potentially dangerous into something profitable for us and loved ones. Or, if this is not possible, at least, reduce their negative spread. This is the therapeutic component that sp can offer. It is non-​pragmatic and non-​stoic to view Western cultural elements negatively, to throw in the towel and become frustrated as to their meaningful prospects for our lives. Here, sp shows its indispensably positive and optimistic dimension. So how exactly can the stoic pragmatist navigate here? The chapters that follow discuss devoting our wisdom, knowledge, skills, and energies to the concerns that create and maintain the possibilities of a good and meaningful life. Such efforts, if intelligent, involve anticipating the possible side effects of our activities. They also involve our abilities to interpret circumstances and events in a way that reduces any possible frustration and despair about things that we are unable to influence. As such, our engagement in public and cultural life, replete with uncontrollable elements, does not have to have any inherent limitations; either successful or not in the public and cultural arenas, we can do our best at least to try. Focusing on agency, or thoughtful individualism, is a starting point, and this is the reason why the following chapter addresses it.

Chapter 2

Agency The problem of agency is central to sp both in its anthropological assumption that “each private, conscious person is a unique center of activity and feeling” (cc 7), and also in the cultural and ethical consequences of this claim: “Positive meaning in life comes from our self-​control in being able to convert obnoxious means into intrinsically enjoyable ends” (ll 46). The present chapter focuses on individual natural resources, especially reason, inner potential, and energy—​employing here Aristotle’s energeia (Metaphysics 1048)—​that the agent naturally possesses and may substantially develop, especially when in a friendly cultural environment: “We are born as squirming charges of energy seeking release” (ll 6). sp shows the strength of the agent’s powers to make life good and meaningful, with a relative independence from the sociopolitical circumstances surrounding one. After all, what the Stoic tradition teaches us is that “the drama of our struggle for meaning is staged in the individual soul” (ll 45). Yet, the strength of the agency does not rely solely on agency as an isolated entity or on anyone’s features or virtue as the ancient Stoics understood it. What we know from the pragmatists’ writings (George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, Sidney Hook, Richard Rorty) about social behavior is that no one can be a socially isolated entity, and that everyone is somewhat interwoven into the cultural, sociopolitical, and economic ambience. Even the individuality of a person is social: “Only in social groups does a person have a chance to develop individuality” (Dewey 1983 [1922], 176). There is a sort of unavoidable circularity here. Namely, the individual, during the process of upbringing and maturation undergoes a series of cultural influences before becoming a conscious agent willing and able to think of cultural matters or any other issues. In a similar way, stoic pragmatists incorporate one of Western culture’s crowning achievements, the idea of the dignity of all human beings. Actually, the Latin term dignitas that stands for an important ethical category, has been inherited by us, as already mentioned, from the Roman Stoics, via Christian thought, Kant, and to some extent pragmatism—​Dewey linked democracy with “the dignity and the worth of the individual” (Dewey 1958 [1938], 44)—​and, perhaps most importantly, The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). sp willingly refers to these Western sociocultural sources in its focus on the role of individual agency.

© Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004680050_004

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Dignity

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) identifies “the dignity and worth of a human person” (Preamble), and claims that each person possesses rights and dignity and is endowed with reason and conscience (Article 1). sp refers to these ideas, although value rather than worth is the preferred term; hence, dignity, humanity, and values are ethical, anthropological, and axiological grounds for further discussions about agency, freedom, and obligations in individual, cultural, and even sociopolitical contexts in sp: “Being classed with humans endows individuals with rights and dignity. It protects them from the sort of abuse endured by poor blacks in the Tuskegee syphilis study and the mass murders faced by Armenians, Bosnians, Tutsis, Hutus, Gypsies, Christians, Jews, Moslems and Native Americans, among countless others” (ci 54). The ethical term dignity does not and cannot have an empirical or descriptive character. It does not refer to any natural or physical fact nor to any objective set of behaviors that we can observe in the human world. Even less so does it refer to a supernatural or transcendental reality. At this point sp distances itself from the religious and theological justifications of human dignity that link the human with an ontologically separate divine, as in the Imago Dei, for example. On the other hand, the lack of solid secular and empirical evidence about dignity cannot preclude us from talking about the moral aspects, especially in the aftermath of horrific genocides of the past century: Nanjing, Katyń, Auschwitz, Srebrenica, Rwanda, and Ukraine’s Mariupol most recently. To be sure, there are plenty of tragic examples in recent history, like the Nazi Germany concentration camps, that demonstrate the thesis that those humans (the Nazis) who performed brutal acts on a regular basis against other humans (e.g., Jews), did not have a sense of dignity. However, this claim is not so obvious, because we could interpret the Nazi atrocities as being directed against the dignity of the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and German dissidents, in a way that would confirm a huge role for dignity, even if not confirmed empirically. Namely, if the Nazis had intentionally and systemically deprived other human beings of their dignity, it could be interpreted as a sort of Nazi way of recognizing dignity as something crucially instrumental for humans to be humans; depriving dignity to some humans was the equivalent of making them sub-​ humans, according to Nazi racist ideology. In opposition to this and other racist ideologies, sp joins all those numerous humanistic views that assume dignity as central to the concept of humanity. However, sp does not, nor did the historical Stoics or the contemporary pragmatists, assume dogmatically that there is an essential or intrinsic part to

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human beings, called dignity, that is located somewhere inside the body, inside the mind, or elsewhere within the human being. Instead, sp follows the pragmatist explication of the problem (Rorty), and this is seen from the perspective of the community that functions within a moral framework: That on my view a child found wandering in the woods, the remnant of a slaughtered nation whose temples have been razed and whose books have been burned, has no share in human dignity. This is indeed a consequence, but it does not follow that she may be treated like an animal. For it is part of the tradition of our community that the human stranger from whom all dignity has been stripped is to be taken in, to be reclothed with dignity. rorty 1991, 201–​202

sp tries to connect the following two things: one is “to secure the dignity of human beings,” and the other is to make it possible for individuals “to seek their good lives in their own ways” (ci 55). The variety of cultures, the pluralism of values, and the infinite variety of goods and services that make people different in beliefs, convictions, habits, and goals should not prevent stoic pragmatists from talking about the dignity of all human beings as an anthropological and ethical starting point. In order to do this, sp assumes a pragmatic postulation that it would be morally fairer and culturally more functional to predicate that all human beings have a hypostatic moral nucleus, call it dignity or humanity, or human nature, or soul, or whatever, that could and should be converted into a normative postulate to (not just in theory) treat in the immediate present all humans in a humane way. Dignity is, therefore, not seen as something that inherently lies in human nature as a sort of a metaphysical entity but rather something that we, human beings, should want to be vitally and legally needed in the moral and sociopolitical economy of human existence. 2

Humanism and Primitive Naturalism

A very long tradition of Western humanism seems natural for stoic pragmatists to refer to as a cultural background. On the one hand, Cicero, so sympathetic to Stoic thought, was a founding father of humanism (humanitas) whose primary focus is the understanding of culture as an individual cultivation of mind along with a skillful fellowship with society. Similarly, Seneca famously ended his essay on public anger with the following: “While we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to anyone”

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(Seneca 2005 [1928], 49). On the other hand, humanism has had recent embodiment in both American pragmatism (William James) and European pragmatism (F.C.S. Schiller), and is best encapsulated in William James’s following claim: “I think that Mr Schiller’s proposal to call the wider pragmatism by the name of ‘humanism’ is excellent and ought to be adopted” (James 1909, 53). In Schiller’s original formulation, pragmatism “is in reality only the application of Humanism to the theory of knowledge” (Schiller 1903, xxi). This updated version of humanism is complementary to naturalism understood as the view that “whatever exists is a constituent of a single, continuous, and self-​contained spatio-​temporal and causal network” (Lachs 1967a, 55). Naturalism is an ontological underpinning of humanism for, among other things, the claims that it is human powers—​not divine powers, not the power of absolute values, not the power of evolving history, and not nonhuman natural powers—​that are the most, if not the only, effective sources for making the human world better and human life meaningful. I write about this because in the contemporary Western context, any reference to God, to the logos, or to cosmic rules in social life is somewhat lame compared to the claim of the naturalistic view that states that what we call reality is most adequately described by means of scientific discourse, provided by empirical and social sciences at their most current stage of development. From what we can derive from these sciences, nature “is not governed by a cosmic intellect” nor does it “manifest any of the attributes normally associated with consciousness or mind” (Lachs 1967a, 55). Cosmic metaphysics, so pronounced in some Greek systems as well as in Christianity later on, is reduced in sp, yet not eradicated. As the natural rules that govern the universe, like gravity, cannot be ignored in our gaze towards what happens around us, we cannot ignore the natural rules that govern life, like the biological structure of our bodies, aging and dying, and the medical recommendations as to how to maintain a healthy life, if possible. Nor can we ignore the physiological determinations of our bodies (e.g., corporal predispositions), the psychological impact of our family background in our childhoods (full of love or full of toxicity) or the social behaviors that, in a sense, determine our individual commitments (e.g., our need of belonging to a social group, sharing the language of that group, along with shared narratives about the world). Most of us, especially as we age, are aware of these limitations and recognize one’s own determinations, conditions, and dependencies. However, the stoic pragmatist is not willing to state that these limitations come from “out there,” that is, from the place or space that is beyond the rules described or explained by means of biologically organized phenomena and physically interpreted laws. Beyond these, there is hardly anything except our anthropomorphic

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projections that render intelligible non-​human reality by means of human terms and categories: “The gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use, the gods whose demands on us are reinforcements of our demands on ourselves and on one another” (James 2009 [1902], 252). Humanism does not have to be atheistic or anti-​religious. We simply do not have the epistemic tools to detect the existence or the inexistence of any divine power. Our inability to satisfactorily answer the theological questions about God or gods does not mean that such questions do not make sense. Simply put, human intellectual powers are limited and cannot transcend the barriers of a human conception and interpretation of the world outside our minds and our reliable tools that allow for knowledge. That is why dialogue, conversation, and criticism among human agents are so important for shaping optimal arrangements in public life. And this criticism does not necessarily mean to fight, as sp is sympathetic to the exchange of views: “To criticize people is to take them seriously, that is, to respect them as intelligent friends traveling with us on the road to a less error-​prone and more humane universe” (U 35). The conditionings and limitations should make us even more aware of the need for critical dialogue and of the danger of imposing absolutistic conclusions, as I have referred to some of such human limitations in various places in this book. Naturalism states, then, that it is the mechanisms best described by the exact and social sciences (at the most recent and updated stage of their development), and not religion or ideology, that should dictate to us our main concerns and offer us the most adequate knowledge regarding humans. It does not imply, however, that all we do should be reduced to the sciences so that science functions as sort of a lay religion that tells us what we should do. After all, granting dignity to all humans does not result from empirical research, as already mentioned. There are many social and cultural arrangements that are removed from science, but sp claims that they should not be against science or, more precisely, against the updated results of scientific research. Having said that, we must admit that knowledge obtained from science is not the entirety of the wisdom that we possess. Self-​knowledge, life experience, cultural tradition and collective memory, wisdom that has stood the test of time, the moral message of religious experience, and other spheres of human life should complement science in understanding our world and our roles in it. Humanism is not a scientific discipline. It is a solid resource to help us learn how to give meaning to ourselves. In one of the most spectacular manifestations of this stance in modern times, the Humanist Manifesto (1933), we read that “the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within

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himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task” (Humanist Manifesto i, 1973 [1933]). This position corresponds perfectly well with the stoic one, both the historical Stoic and the modern stoic recognition of the importance of knowledge about ourselves being a vital part of humanism in its naturalistic (and secular) version. Thus, sp willingly follows “the fundamental Stoic idea that to live a good life we have to learn about how the world actually works (as opposed to how we wish it would work), and that we must also learn how to reason correctly in order to best handle the world as it is” (Pigliucci 2017, 179). Since we cannot responsibly rely on powers and resources from “out there,” we need to focus on human actions and treat the results of these actions as the most functional and effective factors in the economy of human existence. To stress this, perhaps the phrase “primitive naturalism” could be used here (it refers to Santayana’s philosophy of “animal faith”; cf. fl 120nn). Namely it is this: “Primitive naturalism makes all issues of existence empirical questions and provides reassurance that a being whose presence and influence cannot be ascertained need not be counted among the existing” (fl 115). Human practical activity should be the fundamental ground for us in order to discuss meaningfully the perplexing, complex questions about the lot of human beings in their social, political, economic, and cultural spheres of living. And here there is another ingredient of naturalism that could use the term “primitive” as instrumental, and this is its practical, not theoretical, dimension. This emphasis on practicality is in line with the fundamental conviction of the stoic pragmatists that “actions reliably reveal people’s beliefs” (fl 120) and these (actions) should be the essential tools allowing for individuals to become agents. The scope of actions of the main decision makers in any given context is a separate set of themes. Before I develop it in the following chapters, allow me just to mention that sp cannot absolve itself from indicating the role of self-​knowledge as one of basic regulators of a meaningful life. The rationality of (adult and mentally healthy) agents, despite cognitive limitations that are inescapable conditions of the human condition, can be seen as the most indispensable constituent for a good and meaningful life. The Socratic dictum “know thyself” is one of the most powerful imperatives of the humanistic tradition of the West, and one of the most powerful aspects of agency in general. However, as already mentioned, scientific knowledge—​in Stoic terms “knowledge of human and divine matters” (Brouwer, 2018 [2014], 7)—​along with its methodology and rationalization, is not the only reliable source for us. Practical knowledge—​in Stoic terms “fitting expertise” (ibid., 41)—​or the skills that we use to respond to what we know about the world, complements what we learn from science.

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I write this because, notwithstanding sp’s attempt to recognize a wider spectrum of human existence, including less intellectualized attitudes, it is not an exclusively science-​oriented or academic-​oriented attitude. The third and final element of primitive naturalism stresses a common platform for educated and non-​educated people about the basic mechanisms that regulate our lives, even when these mechanisms are symbolically transcribed by myths or religions (cf. fl 118). Most humans do not require a biology class to know that some specific things may be painful to our bodies and others may fill our minds with joy. sp wants to include the self-​knowledge, life experience, and wisdom transmitted from our cultures’ historical heritages and blend them with the sciences and exacting expertise. And this can be done with the conviction that all of these ways of knowing the world count in fashioning a context of the good and meaningful life. sp does not share with science-​oriented philosophies something that could be called over-​intellectualization, or the assumption on the part of intellectuals that life can best be described, and exclusively understood by, rationally justified criteria. Instead, sp “takes human existence in all its nonintellectual complexity as its datum” (sp 71), and this is because, let me reiterate, the knowledge that we derive from science, although basic in showing us how the real world hangs, is not all the knowledge we possess, and wisdom, expertise, self-​knowledge, life experience, and skills, complement science in showing us how to live well. 3

Women and “Stoic Feminism”

It would be an obvious incoherence to proclaim, theoretically speaking, the dignity of all human beings and, and at the same time, tolerate exclusion or discrimination in its misogynistic version. sp’s two main philosophical resources, Stoicism and pragmatism, although in different degrees, assume the equal status of women, and pragmatist feminism evokes this trajectory most pronouncedly (Whipps and Lake 2020). The title of this section indicates a possible justification of the thesis that there are grounds to claim that even historical Stoicism (not to mention modern stoicism and sp itself) promoted moral and legal equality between men and women. As this book avoids strict, historical probing, I can only indicate my sympathy with contemporary attempts to defend the idea of something that can be called Stoic feminism (Aikin and McGill-​Rutherford 2014). This and similar attempts try to expose the “egalitarian,” or humanist dimension of the teaching of some of the later Stoics, especially Musonius Rufus, “notable for his pragmatism” (Irvine 2009, 44). Rufus, Epictetus’s teacher and author of a discourse entitled “That Women

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Too Should Study Philosophy,” deserves more attention these days, owing to his claim that individual virtues were human virtues, not only male virtues (Nussbaum 2002, Tuomela 2014). This humanistic approach embraced larger expanses of Stoic teaching, for example, the idea of cosmopolitanism and the idea of the need of education and philosophical training. To quote Martha Nussbaum on this: “Musonius Rufus uses Stoic cosmopolitanism to defend the equal education of boys and girls and the higher education of married women, arguing that rational and moral nature needs educational development” (Nussbaum 2002, 38). Here I want to stress sp’s humanistic dimension in its claim that virtues are human virtues, not only male virtues. It corresponds perfectly well with those contemporary feminist claims that emphasize the equality of sexes in the moral and legal domains. However, it may not correspond to the claims that emphasize the different status of sexes and even the priority of feminine virtues over “(toxic) masculinity.” sp refers to the humanistic tradition of the West that relates to human dignity rather than to the dignities of sexes separate, apart, or in a polarized mode. In this way, it is understood to employ a universalist narrative, since it deals with all human beings independently of their cultures, ethnicities, citizenship, religion or religious denomination, sex or gender, or geographical residence. In assuming humanistic rhetoric and a universalist message about the moral significance of all people (not criminals, terrorists, or the like for their crimes against other humans’ lives), sp may oppose those narratives, or contemporary tribalist tendencies, for example, or those whose main communication strategy is a polarization and a forging of division between humans into conflicting groups, insinuating that some are morally more elevated than others and, thus, some whom deserve solidarity and special treatment at the cost of other groups. 4

The Agent’s Limited Autonomy

If we agree to understand that the individual “organism is a free-​standing sensor and agent” (ll 31) and agency is a “balance of control and stability” (Becker 2017 [1998], 160), we could claim that individuals, as conscious agents, “are in the best position to determine their own interests and to devote energy to their own pursuits” (M 9). Before proceeding, the question, What does “individuals” mean when used in this project? should be answered. These are regular people “with a finite and peculiar angle of approach to the world. They may be unintelligible from the outside; but from their own perspectives, everything they feel and do seems luminous and for the most part astonishingly right. … They

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do what they can to lead as rich a life as they can, focusing on ordinary pursuits executed with personal flair and flavor” (ci 142). sp’s assumption at this point is that agency makes the individual more conscious of opportunities, skills, actions, activities, consequences, and all this makes us stronger or better oriented in the context of enjoying a good and meaningful life. The individuals we are talking about here are not social reformers who want to rearrange public institutions, but those who want to rearrange the ways we interpret our individual lives. After all, it is the individual life that serves as the ultimate test for the unmeaningful life, which is pain, disorientation, and suffering. On the other hand, it is the individual agent’s life that serves one as the ultimate test for a meaningful life, which is happiness (eudaimonia) or any other goal definable by an agent who is able to dedicate one’s interests and energy to set initially, and then fulfill the goal worthy of pursuit. The ultimate test of life centers around the universally valid wisdom which is “we all suffer our own pains and die our own deaths” (ll 31). Neither institutions nor societies as such can suffer or be happy about the unmeaningful or the meaningful life, only individuals can do that: “For the community cannot act on my behalf and never suffers my pain when I am wrong” (gs 99). In sp, society, basically, is a collection of individuals, and the shape or the spirit of any given culture depends on the characters of its individual members. One of the consequences of such an anthropological approach is that the efficacy of an action is based on agency and “only derivatively in the regularity of the world” (sp 76). In other words, “it is only by a conspiracy of individuals that society can act, and only by the voice of individuals that it can be judged” (poml 196). This does not mean, however, that we are isolated entities having an objective knowledge about the world surrounding us. sp does not promote any type of simplistic reductionism according to which social and cultural problems can be reduced to individual characteristics of particular members of the public. We are not able to understand and interpret a host of social, political, and cultural problems by using this unjustified assumption. There are so many public issues that cannot be reduced to the behaviors of the individual members of any society. To be sure, it is hopelessly difficult, if not arbitrary, to try to set a strictly delineated boundary between the individual and the communal in such cases as the following: family, our native cultures, our country or state, our own generation, our language along with its rhetoric, narratives, and discourses that we use in communication, and also the authorship of our projects in which many other individuals are involved. From the very moment we are born, each of us, apart from our predispositions and talents, is submerged in numerous conditions and becomes influenced by powerful mechanisms of communal life

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in all their aspects: historical, linguistic, social, economic, moral, educational, political, technological, and cultural. Even individuals who seek isolation or intend to sequester themselves away as monks or nuns in a monastery or nunnery are culturally submerged in their religious cultures and traditions and assume a specific, aged and well-​worn type of public mission, which is to pray for the sake of humankind. Or, to give another example, even if sent to a deserted island we use our culturally transmitted technical skills to set up a shelter, use culturally developed skills of survival, and can toss into the sea a heartbreaking message in a bottle that may be encountered years later and serve as a real-​life story motif for a Robinson Crusoe inspired type of movie. A complete divestiture of assumptions and biases of one’s native culture is impossible. We cannot ignore the sociocultural impact on the individual members of the social or cultural group, and even talking about “two sides” is arbitrary and circular here. It is arbitrary to set a barrier between the individual and the society because these are mutually interrelated in a variety of ways; it is also circular, as mentioning “conscious agency” may be much easier in cultures that, as in contemporary Western culture, have already developed an approach of critical thinking towards their own culture, and more difficult in those that have not. After all, there are cultures that have not developed any strain of a culture of democratic criticism and, instead, view as blasphemy any critical expression directed at established forms of cultural life. These and other discrepancies, however, force us to ask how much having a meaningful life depends on us and our own efforts, and how much on what other people and/​or established systems of thought (religious, ethical, cultural) inform us about it. In an age of contingency, pluralism, diversity, a variety of narratives about the good life, and volatile dynamics touching nearly all aspects of life, such a question gains importance. sp recommends such an individualistic approach while thinking about the meaningful life and responsibility for instance, because it wants to stress the role of agency that needs to navigate skillfully challenges and the traps of all kinds circumscribing the individual. These external contexts cannot be ignored; yet they cannot, on the other hand, obscure individual agency and the importance of individual choices. There is one more reason why sp focuses much more on the individual than on the social. Namely, sp does not pretend to possess any special methodology to analyze social, economic, and political problems. Although sp relies on and accepts the scientific explanation of the world, it absolves itself from the methodology of the social sciences and the empirical analysis of the social world because its compelling message

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concerns a humanistic reflection about the efficiency of the agent’s coping with the meanders of life. Even when sp discusses its possible contribution to cultural and public domains, it only indirectly refers to the history and the present role of given institutions, political movements, and the social power structure. It does not possess socially influential tools to ameliorate cultural institutions or to redirect the course of social movements. Such redirections and ameliorations can be attempted, though, when a given stoic pragmatist could, like Marcus Aurelius in the past or, on much smaller scale, John Dewey more recently, get involved in socially and politically powerful institutions of the day (government, academia) with enough adequate tools to affect developments on a major sociopolitical scale. Or, on a still smaller scale, a stoic pragmatist happens to get involved with the educational system or with a digital platform by means of which one’s voice can be amplified. For example, as I will discuss later (Chapter 6) a possible scenario of a stoic pragmatist as a digital-​culture public intellectual who will want to (ably) use cyberspace and some digital platforms to (effectively) promote a message on ethical and philosophical issues. Obviously, the amelioration of social and cultural life is not an aim for stoic pragmatists since they encroach on spheres of life that are external to one’s control, independent, and unpredictable. However, doing our best and striving to ameliorate the quality of our lives and of those who want to listen to us, definitely is within our control and definitely is dependent on our intentions and skills. It is in such contexts that sp stresses the role of agency. Individuals need to recognize their power to influence and inspire meaningful lives according to the claim that the “grounding assumption of freedom is that human beings are self-​moving agents who are capable of recognizing, seeking, and attaining their own good. If we deny human intelligence, drive, and competence, we will naturally wish to take over the lives of others to help them along” (M 8–​9). “Taking over” or interpreting lives according to external standards, which are functioning prior to an agent’s thought about those standards, could imply that given individuals have not worked through their own tendencies about a meaningful life. This may mean that somebody else does it for them or instead of them. I mean, if we do not take care of our worldview as ours, we inevitably will have to, incontinently, incorporate one of the already functioning worldviews as our lenses through which we see the world. To be sure, nothing is wrong with such an approach. But we do become less of an agent in this way, since we give away important prerogatives of agency to others. In this sense, the problem of agency is also a part of the problem in the relation of sociopolitical and

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cultural influences, and an agent’s autonomy and scope of individual freedom. The relations of power within the social and cultural power structure can be characterized in this way: a balance between our dispositional ability to maneuver effectively toward our goals, responding with practical intelligence to salient events along the way, and our dispositional resistance to being deflected by the shifting winds of impulse and circumstance. When we have perfect control over our conduct, we no longer have anything worth calling character; we are simply untethered actors in an atmosphere of possibilities. When we have perfectly stable dispositions, we no longer have anything worth calling control; we simply follow the trajectory determined by our fixed traits, unable to maneuver at all in response to new information about our endeavors or circumstances. becker 2017 [1998], 160

I leave aside here the circular problem of internalizing such ideas of individual autonomy; we learn from our culture and its numerous institutions that individual freedom, within legal boundaries is a basic right, and we internalize this message throughout our upbringing. We then live out our lives in step with our deepest convictions that individual freedom, within legal boundaries, is our basic right and then transmit it to future generations. If such is the case, the subjective sense of individual autonomy has a communal, societal, and cultural background, and that is why I mention an agent’s limited autonomy. Even if the individual has the opportunity to select one given lifestyle and a system of thought that could interpret the good and meaningful life according to some well-​established traditions, the question of autonomy would still persist. Namely, if there are numerous traditions that have developed models for the good life, why not take on these already existing models and why should we care at all about meaningful life on our own? Or, perhaps, even more importantly, the meaningful life could perhaps mean adopting one of the already existing models for a meaningful life, and a conformist approach that would be most propitious. It is agency that allows us to have this or that attitude toward life and being able to choose, rightly or wrongly, how to live, how to alleviate our pains, and how best to use our time before we terminate our earthly journey. I stress the individual’s agency here not only to remind us that there are individuals whose agency is reduced due to natural causes (for example, genetically caused mentally disabled people or dying people of whom I write below), to the natural

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stages of development (children), and their own ignorance (irresponsible and thoughtless individuals). sp pays attention to the risks for individuals who are thoughtless or without reflection concerning their lots in life or simply egocentric, ignorant, and apathetic to what happens around them. Pragmatically speaking, the price they risk for their irresponsibility is their own vital interests, and the qualities of their lives in the short or long run. Ignorance is never a healthy option when we refer to the idea of “know yourself,” or when we care about the fate of those we love. Relying on a subjective set of opinions about oneself is risky; if not supported by at least some portion of objective knowledge as to how the world works and at least by some portion of experience about successful relationships with other individuals, we are in danger of slipping into illusion and self-​deception. A more adequate perspective of the reality gives us a wider picture of the conditions of the good and meaningful life. Subjective opinions may turn out to be irresponsive ignorance that endangers the one who entertains these opinions. This frequently occurs in the case of children and, somewhat less frequently, with infantile and irresponsible adults. When we talk about agency, we stress the role of the causality of our attitude, and the importance of our adequate responses to what takes place around one. So, how do we view the difference between these two forms of individualism, agency and egotism, when both give the impression of being the center of the world? One way of presenting this difference is the following: “Those who believe they inhabit only a small corner of the world do not let their problems poison the beauty around them. They take pleasure in seeing how a good life can be, even if its beneficiaries are mainly others. In contrast, individuals whose misfortune colors their perception of reality cannot avoid thinking of themselves as central in the scheme of things” (ll 31). Something that we can call an attitude towards life, of which I write more about in the following chapter, makes a substantial difference. The agent is able to recognize his or her place in the world and to use individual powers to see how things hang together and thrive, whereas the egotist yearns to conquer and impose oneself on others, which increases the probability of bumping into others’ visions and interests (especially other egotists) and, in this way, of generating various forms of conflicts, violence, and aggression. Such dangers increase in group interactions, since egotists tend to overrate their own groups and discriminate against those who do not partake in these groups (Pinkas 2018a, 185). This does not automatically mean that agency is a passive submission to what some types of egotists impose, as I explain below.

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The Widening Circles of Concern (Oikeiôsis)

One of the ways that sp can promote a non-​egotistical and non-​disillusioned type of agency, is to do it via the Stoic idea of circles of concern, or oikeiôsis. Primarily derived from Hierocles’s texts, transmitted by Stobaeus (Whittingham 1822), and from Cicero (De Oficiis I, 53–​54), the idea can help us explain the mechanism of an agent’s attitude radiating, so to speak, into public life (see more in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6). The relation between the individual and the society or culture surrounding one around is complex and circular, and contemporary pragmatism clearly emphasizes this. Nevertheless, without ignoring it, the circles-​of-​concern model of the relation between the agent and the general public will serve me, throughout this book, to help discuss a possible individual contribution to cultural life, understood collectively. The concentric circles, as when a stone is thrown into the water, reveal the center of attachment, affection, and vital interest that every individual zeroes in on . Let us follow the original Stoic suggestion about the way the individual agent could, or even should, contribute to public life. To be sure, according to the natural order of things, our own organisms serve as basic indicators of pain and pleasure, and at least for this reason, they are the basic points of reference for our actions. In the words of Chrysippus: “The dearest thing to every animal is its own constitution and its consciousness thereof” (Diogenes Laertius vii, 85). There is also, as in Santayana’s formulation, “a psychological sense in which an individual may transcend himself. His thoughts will embrace all his familiar surroundings; and his habits being necessarily social, his passions will be social too. The scope of his affections may eventually extend over the whole world” (poml 196). At the same time, an individual agent’s social bonds and cultural concerns decrease to the extent that circles expand outwards. The closest and most intense circles of bonds, concerns, and affections include one’s relatives, one’s neighbors, then one’s community, one’s culture, and finally all of humankind. They extend to all humankind (kosmopolitēs), yet the intensity and engagement are strongest for those who are closest to us, our families, our dear friends, and our community. The concern for those closest far surpasses the concern for those who live in distant lands and cultures (both in the temporal and geographical senses). This idea does not result from the egotism of a detached self-​ interest, from an insensitivity or indifference to the fate of others. Rather, it means that there is a natural order of things, that individuals are the principal points of reference with their actions, that there is a degree of responsibility for others (for oneself in the first place though), and the intensity is more acute when we deal with those closest to us. Those others who surround us should

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be helped when needed; however, when they do not need our help, we should be wise and tolerant enough to let them do what they think proper for themselves. We should not prioritize those others over and above our own closest relations, and it is our own plight and struggles, which represent the proper task for us to concern ourselves with. In the context of a meaningful life, we ourselves, as individuals, are the pivotal battlefields, so to speak, and, when our attitudes and frames of mind become ingrained, we then can disseminate our attainments (the good, happy, and meaningful life) or failures (being toxic, frustrated, or unhappy) which are not solely ours, since these are also public and cultural. We can disseminate positivity or negativity and, whichever is the case, it is the public dimension of our lives. If our personal dispositions are positive and friendly, something similar will probably be our orientations out in the public domain. The quantitative impact should not be the underlying concern here. It does not have to be understood in maximalist terms and refer to the entirety of Western culture or all of humankind; even small-​scale ameliorations can be valuable, and we never know how a small-​scale amelioration will be used or transformed in the future. To use Wittgenstein’s words here, my cultural circle, whatever it is, can be my collectively oriented and culturally oriented activity: If I say that my book is meant for only a small circle of people (if that can be called a circle) I do not mean to say that this circle is in my view the élite of mankind but it is the circle to which I turn (not because they are better or worse than the others but) because they form my cultural circle, as it were my fellow countrymen in contrast to the others who are foreign to me. wittgenstein 1978 [1997], 12–​13

sp proposes to do one’s job of enacting a good life independently of possible large-​scale social reforms. It is not that sp does not recognize or appreciate these reforms, but sp does not have the tools and the institutional basis, so to speak, by means of which it could sew large-​scale reforms into the fabric of social life. sp assumes that a way to make social and cultural life better is by the moral and cultural betterment of members of the group; in the same way, the betterment of institutions can be achieved by the betterment of the members of these institutions, and the term “betterment” in sp signifies, first and foremost, the individuals assuming a better attitude (a more effective one) in reference to such aims as the quality of life and its meaningfulness.

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Fortitude and Physical Disability

In a stereotypical opinion of many (healthy) people, physically disabled people are for the most part agent-​less due to their corporal limitedness and dependency on the external conditions (we should not forget that the scale of the dependency is related to the type and degree of disability). Many of physically disabled people need assistance while performing everyday activities, acquiring access to medical equipment, constant consultation at health institutions and centers, specific arrangements with living conditions (e.g., elevators), and many other things that healthy people usually do not have to think that much about. However, reliance on externals does not make disabled people less of an agent; their inner attitude towards life, their adequate recognition of what is achievable, and their fortitude make it possible for them to thrive in the face of their physical limitations. They can even become role models in some contexts. I write this because I cannot stop myself from reflecting that there are many physically healthy people who, aside from their relative wealth, their access to most of the latest technological devices that can serve them in a variety of ways, nevertheless, complain about their misery, their poor lot in life, the “injustices” they suffer from as “victims,” and their meaningless lives. With regard to cases like these, it seems to me that disabled people can be inspirational for others by showcasing their fortitude and showing how to cope successfully with factual, not imaginary, burdens in their lives. I here refer to the role in Seneca’s understanding that fortitude plays, that being “a scorner of things that inspire fear (…), crushes the powers of terror and all that would drive our freedom under the yoke” (Seneca, Letters lxxxviii, 29). In this context, sp serves the most practical of aims. What could be more practical than for philosophy to offer help in developing agency that reflects an attitude equipped with a set of ideas that assist in overcoming daily obstacles at the most basic existential level? This contrast between physically disabled people who show fortitude and those who are healthy and able who exude fragility and complaints, challenges me, once again, to think about agency in relation to the external conditions and limitations we face. Epictetus, a former slave, physically disabled (lame), and even then, a renowned teacher of how to attain happiness (eudaimonia), and William James, co-​founder of pragmatism and eminent educator notwithstanding his neurasthenia and suicidal thoughts, as well as Lawrence Becker, the founder of modern stoicism and a scholar of ethics, acutely physically disabled himself, could very well stand out as iconic figures, showing us how agents can confront the most serious of obstacles. They speak to us, or better

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yet, their practical examples show us that a meaningful life overwhelmingly depends on our attitudes toward life. It is the specific features of our character that make us attentive to meaning-​oriented activities that can be achieved by means of relatively low-​cost, easily available tools. To be sure, what is low-​cost and easily available relates to the economic, technological, and medical aspects of a given society. For example, it would have been almost impossible for people like Becker to have functioned as an academic professor (giving lectures, publishing, attending faculty meetings) without using the complex rehabilitation program and medical help that was available in his country (I am not sure if such would have been available in mine). To be specific, he suffered during his life from post-​polio paralysis of both arms and legs, and spent most of his life in a wheelchair, using a portable ventilator for sleeping due to breathing problems, and not being able to use a diaphragm (typing his books with his toes). Let me use this context to say a few words about my disability that has accompanied me all my life, which is high myopia and, related to it, the retinal tearings and detachments that occasionally take place and render my sight uncertain. It would be very difficult for me to function academically (and in sports, since I am a karate instructor too) without the recent development of ophthalmology of which I am one of the beneficiaries (e.g., numerous laser interventions on my retinas, relatively high-​technological glasses, relatively high-​technological medical examinations of the eyeball and surgical operations). On the other hand, it is impossible for me to have access to the most recent and costly ophthalmologist developments and interventions, so I need to navigate between external possibilities and an internal attitude. I pragmatically develop my knowledge about the most developed ophthalmologist devices that are accessible to me and stoically enjoy the fact that I am able see at all. I reflect about the potency of my abilities rather than lament about the tragedy of my disability. In this way, I want to hold onto to my limited freedom in the face of the deterministic physical limitations that have been a part of my whole adult life. Determinism, in its naturalistic version, says that at least some aspects of life are conditioned by the laws of nature in such a way that we are not able to escape from (so-​called causal determinism). It is debatable if some types of disability, caused genetically or caused by a tragic coincidence of external factors that we were not able to prevent, can justifiably be seen as causally deterministic. After all, a given cause of disability, polio for example, can be prevented by vaccinations and this commonly takes place in medically advanced countries. Disabilities caused by car accidents cannot be described as deterministic because many of the crashes could have been avoided by appropriate traffic

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arrangements, safer vehicles, and more careful driving. Nevertheless, from the individual perspective of people who have already had their lives affected by an unfortunate event, their lives are conditioned, even determined, by what has happened to them and the traffic improvements are irrelevant, being too late, for them, to recover fully or alter anything. They know perfectly well the difference between their physical abilities and those who are non-​disabled. Even if some illnesses or physical accidents could be prevented by better medical or traffic policies (meaning that we cannot talk about determinism here) a given illness or a given car crash does indeed determine the life of the person who suffers from them. Having access to medical technology is crucial. But in many cases, it does not resolve the mental or psychological dimension of the disabled person’s life. Even the disabilities that cannot be cured at our present stage of medical development, can be ameliorated, to some extent, so that the burden of disability can thereby be reduced. 7

Finitude

One of the most sensitive dimensions of biological determinism is the corporal death which every living body must confront sooner or later. A more general term, finitude, although it refers clearly to the end stage of life, also evokes other considerations. Most commonly, it refers to the natural course of aging and beyond, and aging signifies here that a given person has lived a substantial passage of time, more or less seventy or eighty years, which is the current average life expectancy in the West (longevity depends on living conditions, one’s lifestyle, nutrition, one’s genetic predispositions, luck, and good fortune). Aging inevitably involves the process of deterioration in the structure and functioning of the organism, and eventually a cessation. Dying may take a longer or shorter time. When highly advanced medical technology is accessible, it may take longer (here, we touch on the problem of the prolongation of life, a complex and specific bioethical problem in itself, especially when it involves a patient’s relation to one’s family or caretaker). Why discuss finitude here? Because, in a basic understanding of the term, finitude, or “a condition of the architecture of life” (sp 56), is a universal challenge for any individual. Within the framework of secular humanism, in which the posthumous perspective does not include an afterlife (unless it is a cultural afterlife of which I write in Chapter 5), biological finitude is one of the constitutional parts of our ultimate framework for agency, and this is why it behooves us to include it as an integral part of any serious reflection about a good and meaningful life.

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When one does not take posthumous existence into account, as many religious traditions do, one admits that, basically, “the wholesome message of finitude is that we don’t have all day, that time will run out, and that we just can’t do everything we want” (sp 56). The biological end of life is the conclusion of life at its final stage, so that we have “birth and death as natural termini of individual existence” (sp 57). Both are fundamental, yet different: the former is unconscious, as it were, and the latter may or may not be anticipated much in advance. sp stresses the importance of an agent’s being conscious of, or reflective about, the natural finale that is going to take place eventually, and not to lament about the inevitable, but to arrange one’s life in a dignified, gracious manner. Being conscious of our limits can be converted into an appreciation of what is available all around us, elevating the quality of a lifespan into the good and meaningful within these very limits, according to the dictum that a “mastery of life is to remember death and yet live joyously” (ll 123). This involves a strategy, a life plan, and a recognition of one’s talents, skills, and opportunities. It does not presuppose, let me repeat, that we should be constantly preoccupied with our own deaths, although it could refer to the concern of the possible death of those whom we love, the elderly, and the incapacitated. The final stage of life does not refer exclusively to the elderly who have completed their lives up to their biological maximum range; tragically, it sometimes refers to those who end their lives prematurely, without, so to speak, having their lives lived out completely. Some people, including children, suffer from genetically caused and/​or incurable illnesses, others die in car crashes or other types of lethal accidents, while others are killed in acts of gang violence, suicide, and war. Pro-​lifers might even add that abortion implies the dying and death of an unborn child, after conception and before even being born. The very process of dying may take years, as already mentioned, but it may take seconds as in vehicle accidents, gun killings, or by bombardment of residential areas in some Ukrainian cities, occurring as I write these words. All these aspects of finitude require special and separate attention and bio-​ethical reflection, and I cannot offer such reflection here. What I can focus on, however, is to suggest that the taking into consideration of a relatively complete life of conscious agents should not be undertaken while ignoring other cases, as I will discuss later (next chapter). One of the questions that arises when talking about agency and dignity is the following: Do the final moments of life exclude talking about dignity and agency? The answer to the first part of the question is easier. Since sp joins

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those voices that recognize human dignity, it refers to humans independently of their ages, hence, the answer is no—​we do not lose our dignity as we lose our powers to thrive in old age. Yet, recognizing agency is more problematic. What sp considers vitally important for its wellspring of reflection is, What are the options for us when we face our final moments as possibly becoming a painful and hopeless agony? Dying itself is a challenge, but what about a painful dying, painful even more so when no hope for any sort of improvement is on the horizon? If we are not able to use our agency to prolong life in conditions that allow us to maintain a relative autonomy in determining daily activities, how can we employ our agency to shorten our suffering when other options are impossible? Obviously, such an existentially difficult situation is experienced individually, and writing about it might seem irresponsibly easy or trivial. I do not want to make this mistake, or appear to be perfunctory. I merely wish to state that sp as such does not incorporate any religious or governmental policies or theses, if there are any at all, as morally justified in imposing grave consequences or unnecessary pain on a singular person, in a particular hopeless situation, to continue on, against one’s deepest wishes. sp claims that “telling others what they should do is for the most part wrong, but making others carry on the burden of a horrible life when they want to be set free is nothing short of wanton cruelty” (fl 466). This does not entail that at any time someone wishes, his or her suicidal tendencies should be tolerated as legitimate. sp embodies an understanding of the phrase quality of living, along with the phrase dignity of living, as an integrating agency. Agency, and this includes an individual’s moral autonomy and liberty, is more limited the more the quality of life is lessened. sp aspires to respect the maxim that “confusing a human life with the life of a human body is a pernicious mistake” (ci 131), and desires to convert it into helping people practically to live better and happier, and also die better and happier. However, let me ask again self-​reflectively, What to do in the event of our inability to maintain the good life in its closing moments? We all have certain potentialities and thanks to their augmentation we can thrive and enjoy our growth in order to make the most of them, to the benefit of ourselves, our families, and our communities. The recognition of the internal potentialities of humans is one of the most significant components that needs to be taken into consideration: “A generous reading of human freedom leaves it open for adults to finish the book of life at any time they desire. If they are young and healthy, their doing so is a lamentable error” (fl 471).

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A Good Life, a Happy Life, a Successful Life, a Meaningful Life: How to Assess Them and What Is the Difference?

It would be easier to refer to long-​established cultural traditions to characterize the key terms of this section. Most of these traditions have developed, in the course of their long history, specific vocabularies that describe ethical issues in detail, like Christianity, or Jewish theology, for example. However, the correspondence between their fixed dogmas and the dynamically evolving patterns of democratic, capitalist Western societies in recent years, is problematic. As is the functionality of traditional religions and fixed moral codes in globalized, liberal, secularized, culturally diverse, pluralistic, and technologized reality. This book does not include theologically codified or religiously salvation-​oriented understandings of a meaningful life, although it has been sacred and a given for untold millions of people living in the West, especially in previous centuries. Unlimited access to education has elevated the awareness in members of the public about their own life projects and the sense that we, not any moral authorities “above” us, should ask and answer the questions on behalf of ourselves. It is not at all easy, notwithstanding, to deal with such uncertainties on one’s own due to a vast array of unpredictable events, and a variety of contrariant experiences, that condition the life of each and every one of us, with the result being an assessment of our lives as good or meaningful, dependent on the accidental moment of the assessment. When something goes wrong, we become frustrated and depressed all too often. Perhaps this is one more set of costs that we are paying for, having rid ourselves of established religions, along with their norms, moral objectives, and weighty codices. The very moment we assess whether our lives are good and meaningful may seem problematic. Not only does such an evaluation not have a privileged moment, a mature look back at one´s life seems to be a most appropriate time for establishing it. It might sound trivial to mention, but we assess our lives in different ways when we are young and immature, before major challenges start to condition us as we become older and more experienced. An adequate assessment of any given life, together with its agency, cannot be carried out at a very young age. An individual, before becoming aware of one’s decisive interests and the effective ways of satisfying them, requires education, maturation, experience, and the test of time. To be an agent means being able to justify (not by imagination or wishful thinking) and to assess one’s competencies and skills amidst realities and social expectations enveloping one. A decision we made at the age of twenty can be understood empathetically as almost “not ours,” when we look back at it some twenty years later.

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It would be unproductive to discuss the problem of a good life at the end of one’s lifetime; such a reflection is needed more at the beginning of one’s adult life. Indeed, later on in this book I discuss a strategy and a life plan that represents a perspectival look at one’s future actions. To be sure, we will not demand from a young person to cast a general glance at life within a more expansive, long-​term perspective because to claim responsibly that life never tilts in a good direction, we probably should have a modicum of orientation in a plurality of contexts. We can talk about happy moments in life, or a succession of actions at any stage of life, even our youngest. Satisfaction and joy with one’s immediate condition, even for a child, is a wonderful realization of parental care and good upbringing and, quite strikingly on the other hand, its lack, signals deficiencies. The factual confrontation with challenges and the coping with obstacles is necessary for progress and development, and this requires time and experience. The Greek model (Aristotle, the Stoics) excludes a proper assessment of life (one that it is worthy and happy or not) when it has just started; instead, it expounds a more or less independent life as a condition for evaluation. “Independent life” means that life’s important decisions, its failures and its successes, made by an individual should be staked in that individual’s own account rather than in one’s parents (or other caretakers), as should be one’s own obligations, risks, and responsibilities. A happy life, in this case, would not be a life understood as an assemblage of happy or joyous moments, but rather a life that realizes and embodies what the Greek traditions have termed eudaimonia. Stoic teaching, both historical and modern, states that “happiness as understood by mature and fit agents is to be understood in the context of their whole lives, not only of transient mental states. We [the modern stoics] hold that it is achievable only through a proper balance of stability and control in the exercise of agency” (Becker 2017 [1998], 155). The differences amongst us, independent of our stages in life, make it even more difficult to be specific as to how to assess the good life. What criteria should be used here? We are distinct and unique by being in the generation we are born into, by living in different countries, and by access (or lack of access) to various goods that stimulate or block our ambitions and life plans. We cannot ignore the internal differences in the constitution of our bodies, or the unique complexities of our minds at different stages in the development of our natural talents and predispositions. Small wonder then that “stoic ethics is ultimately about particulars—​about how particular people in their particular circumstances ought to live” (Becker 2017 [1998], 13). With many of these particulars, we differ from person to person. Yet, to be sure we do not differ completely, and apart from particulars there are also some generalities that

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render us similar. Our cultural heritages and culturally sanctioned patterns of behavior incline us to follow some characteristics from generation to generation, and this within our living cultures. The wisdom that is transmitted by history teaches us that every human, living here or there, must confront death, discover and incorporate some answers to the questions about a meaningful life, and learn how to use our natural compasses that reveal if we live joyful lives or suffer from a painful set of misfortunes. Additionally, there have been so many people of various walks of life for whom a family life, full of love and support, does embody all the following positive characteristics at the same time: good, happy, meaningful, and successful. sp tends to contextualize the meaning of the successful life within societies and communities that appreciate commonly recognizable indicators of success. Success, as an important indicator of achievable goals, has a special importance in capitalist contexts and consumption-​oriented communities. It indicates financial achievements or living in the upper social strata of any given society that, in fact, can and does easily turn into financial success. The term successful life nearly merges with the term successful career, bringing with it a higher income or access to big money for oneself and loved ones. From the sp position, the problem arises when individuals who, having had a successful life did not (or do not) have a good life, which means that they (and, perhaps, their loved ones) were not happy or satisfied with life, even to the point of thinking it empty and meaningless. This is the argument for which the successful life may not imply the same as the good or the meaningful life. What is the good life, then? sp outlines the conditions for the good life in the following way: the good life has three basic conditions or ingredients. We must have desires and purposes, we must be fortunate enough to live in circumstances where they can be satisfied, and we must have the capacity and energy actually to achieve them. Without the convergence of will, luck, and power, the good life is impossible … The lack of power yields envy and bitterness; the absence of will makes existence meaningless; without luck, life remains a frustrated quest. fl 248

With these words the meaningful life and the good life are complementary, and these two terms appear as interchangeable in many instances of the present project. Yet, there are differences. These two differ in that the good life lacks a noble purpose, an aim that is weightier than mere living comfortably. In this sense, one may enjoy a good life without having a purpose in life, except

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perhaps one of more and more consumption of all kinds and types of goods, and not even attempting to fight for anything and giving nothing away. The internal attitude towards life makes a difference, and to stress the importance of this difference, the term meaningful life seems more appropriate. The meaningful life requires “the actualization of our potential, the satisfaction of our nature or, as Santayana sometimes phrases it, the discharge of what is latent in us” (gs 93). Using this potential as agents and creators do, according to Josiah Royce, we are the source of what determines that “what makes life worth living is not what you find in it, but what you are ready to put into it by your ideal interpretation of the meaning that, as you insist, it shall possess for you” (Royce 2011 [2005], 219–​220). This characterization stresses the agent’s internal disposition and causative power to render life meaningful, and places it in opposition to such an approach toward life that is frequently described as being a good life, and a life that is successfully dependent on external circumstances and having access to goods and services. The sense of the moment is important because a meaningful life normally has a purpose that includes a wide, embracing life perspective, minimizing the significance of the temporality of any success, or a good life at any given stage. An important distinction needs to be made as a response to the following question: The meaningful life (the good life) for whom? That life should be meaningful for any person who lives one’s life is patently the case, yet not obvious. After all, one’s life, meaningful or not, may have an important meaning for other people, as it happens with role models in public life. Another example, the unsuccessful, humble, and meaningless life of a father may appear to have an inspirational meaning for his children who see their father’s discontented lifestyle as a warning not to imitate in their own lives, revealing to them which things should be avoided (addiction, irresponsibility) and others apprized (dedication and steadfastness, care for loved ones). A meaningless life becomes a point of reference for others who try to make their lives meaningful. Conversely, there could be a meaningful and complete life that has not even been noticed by anyone due to various reasons. There are many people who have had meaningful lives, unnoticed by their contemporaries and rediscovered only years after their deaths by means of encountering new materials (unearthed documents related to that person, letters) or by the evolutionary development of new perspectives in which lives lived out long ago acquire a new dimension. For example, the meaningfulness of past female lives assumes new dimensions thanks to the revived sensibility and thetic claims of contemporary feminism. To give another example, the burgeoning sense of Ukrainian nationhood “rediscovers” past freedom fighters, largely unknown to the

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majority, as heroic role models for contemporary Ukrainians who fight against the present Russian aggression even more vigorously. The present project recognizes the difference between a meaningful life as an intrinsic part of one’s own personal life, and a meaningful life in public and cultural contexts. Chapters Three and Four will deal with the former, and Chapters Five and Six will address the latter.

Chapter 3

Appropriate Actions The very idea of “appropriate actions” (sp 45) refers, in some way or another, to Santayana’s ideal of the “harmonious and self-​improving life of reason” (sp 143)—​“reason” being here intelligence in action—​, to the pragmatist idea of intelligent action, especially Dewey’s “intelligence as the preferred method of action” (Dewey 1986 [1933], 101), and to the Stoic kathēkon or officium (Cicero 1918, 409). Multiple forms of appropriate action utilize our natural predispositions, talents, skills, and ambitions—​of which we learn more adequately the more adequate is our self-​knowledge—​and favor contexts that our cultural, political, social, economic, and technological ambiences offer. We learn from an adequate recognition of what occurs around us. Thus, making right choices amidst available resources in the circumstances we find ourselves in, can and should be instrumental for us to construct effectively a meaningful life in the face of challenges, some of which were outlined in Chapter 1. In a well-​ balanced response to externals lies the potency of sp: “On the personal side, pragmatism teaches drive, stoicism surrender. Both are necessary for living well; the former so that we may develop what is latent in us, the latter so we do not become slaves to our success” (sp 54). Instead of demonizing the externals that could endanger our sense of seeking a more secure shelter in some absolutist forms of (our) culture, old or new, sp claims that “an honest philosophy demands standards different from absolute certainty” (tr 10). As already discussed, sp does not share the metaphysical views of Stoicism, and tends to side with the pragmatist, naturalistic, humanistic, and secular responses to ontological, epistemological, and anthropological questions. sp appeals to what we know about the regularities and anomalies of nature and of social life, and to our “fitting expertise” (to use the Stoic phrase from the previous chapter) for using it in practice. In other words, the wisdom that incorporates both reference to knowledge and self-​knowledge, as well as life experience and cultural traditions that have stood the test of time, constitute a framework in which we can operate. By stating that “better thinking makes for better life” (fl 290), sp stresses that a part of appropriate actions is being able to navigate responsibly amidst ideas understood as “tools by means of which we accomplish what we want, so we can change them to suit the occasion and the demands of circumstances” (sp 9). Aside from the other strategies that make life better that can be found in pluralist societies, and without depreciating them, sp proposes the following one: it is by our own appropriate actions and by our attitude towards

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life that we can maintain an efficient and, often, cost-​free tool in making our lives good and (more) meaningful. 1

Approaching Wisdom as an Appropriate Set of Actions

In step with Santayana’s famous dictum, “To be happy you must be wise” (Santayana 1915, 152), the stoic pragmatists’ basic recommendation is to perform constantly a series of actions that allow us to become more conscious, or wiser, in skillfully using available tools to effectively cope with challenges, whatever they are, in making our lives good and meaningful. The phrase appropriate actions, in a stoic pragmatist interpretation, means that “intelligence is the effort to make response appropriate to situation or to apply one’s powers to achieve desired results” (gs 54). First and most importantly, we should be self-​reflective enough to be able to recognize adequately what we already have and learn how to employ our potentialities to appropriate and exploit enveloping opportunities. All of this should not be illusionary or self-​deceiving, and we need the test of time to show results. Coping with diverse modes of living, different than our own, is an example of appropriating an opportunity. It is not easy to achieve, for very few individuals can see through the complex web of factors. sp, with its reflecting on the good and meaningful life, never refers to a fixed catalogue of objective truths that needs to be accessed. It does not resemble, for example, setting out on a voyage to an unknown land that actually exists somewhere, waiting to be discovered. Instead, it refers to a skillful exploration of our natural dispositions, talents, interests, passions, aspirations, and, on the other hand, a critical assessment of the cultural, economic, and sociopolitical circumstances that we have found ourselves in. All of them together constitute the operational framework circumscribing our activities, making it possible for us to work and to approximate a meaningful life. It is sp’s claim that “practice and its context define virtue and it is futile trying to impose the good intrinsic to one manner of operating on the practitioners of another” (tr 52). The agent’s orientation towards the realization of his or her potential is even more complex due to an integral part of our knowledge and self-​knowledge. This is the sensibility to possible consequences of our own misconduct and mistreatment in case we should ignore what can or should be done for our own sake. We need to balance resourcefully between self-​knowledge, which focuses primarily on ourselves and general knowledge, which focuses on the reality that functions without our consent. Sometimes, as in the biological functioning of our bodies, these two imbricate. In other words, my self-​knowledge concerning the

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functioning of my body and mind overlaps with what biology and psychology could claim about them. Sometimes, however, they do not, as when I am not sure as to how I will function with ease in novel, unfamiliar cultural circumstances and what will be the consequences, positive or negative, of taking on new habits or discarding present patterns of behavior. The consequences I am referring to here are not related to legal obligations that we need to respect in general as citizens of particular states, or as members of particular institutions. This is important, but a different story altogether. What consequences am I talking about? Stoic pragmatist ethics “examines the relation of pleasure to the good life, the obligations we must meet, and the rights we have on account of being humans” (sp 12), and this includes the examination of what is needed to maintain our health, corporal and mental, while trying to keep in mind factors that condition our well-​being. Some of these factors we know from reliable sources, like science (medicine, psychology, etc.) that tell us about what happens when we forego diet, hygiene, physical activity, and a measured relation with the people surrounding us. Other factors that we need to take into consideration are the ideas and values that are constitutive of our self-​fulfillment. Bearing in mind Santayana, Lachs has written on this particular point: Obligation, Santayana insists, must be internal and vital. It is based on self-​knowledge, on the recognition of one’s good as distinct from, and equally legitimate with, the goods of others. Santayana’s imperative is identical with that of the Stoics. It is “Act in accordance with nature,” where by “nature” is meant the nature of the agent. Hence the first and ultimate commandment of morality becomes the Socratic dictum: “Know yourself.” afsl 340

The term “obligation” here embodies a moral and pragmatic character rather than a legal one, because there is no legally established moral or existential codex that we need to observe in order to make our lives meaningful. Although, for example, an (state) ideology or a (state) religion may serve as such for many people. Perhaps it would be better to talk about rules, conditions, or norms that we should follow if we wanted to enact the “know yourself” dictum as an effective plan of action. Such a plan limits (not deletes) the chances of miscalculations with our ambitions, expectations, and illusions as it reduces possible external risks that could affect us. For instance, to provide a commonplace yet tragic example: we should know that taking drugs or drinking alcohol excessively is quite risky for our organism, our minds, our children, our relationships,

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and our long-​term organizing capacity for a meaningful life. Our “obligation” should be to control intake, and in this example as in others, referencing reliably confirmed scientific knowledge (medical, psychological) or directly from others’ life experiences (e.g., ex-​alcoholics, ex-​drug addicts) which should be seriously taken into account. We may pay a heavy price if we ignore this “obligation,” and it is in this sense that the term is used here. 2

The Good Enough: between Meliorism and Perfectionism

These obligations, however, cannot have an absolutistic, dogmatic, infinite, or fanatical dimension. For example, in setting a lofty ambition to attain some kind of moral immaculacy, or cognitive omniscience, or professional impeccability. In the vast majority of cases, securing excellence is not carried out with an accompanying cost of turning one’s life into something twisted and anxiety-​ ridden. Besides, stoic pragmatists know very well, as Socrates did, that becoming wise in a holistic sense is impossible and that only a certain semblance of approaching this unobtainable state is realizable. At some point, we are free to say: “It is good enough.” The ancient lover of wisdom (philósophos) knew that simply approaching wisdom (sophía) was the most comprehensive state that could be realized, and even the Stoics, generally, “did not consider themselves to be sages” (Brouwer 2018 [2014], 134; also 112–​114; 164). Self-​improvements towards a sense of perfection are not interminable for a variety of reasons, and not only because the state of wisdom is unreachable and untenable. There exist no fixed criteria by means of which we could become aware of anyone who has reached a state of perfection (if ever attained historically), and one of the examples that contemporary social media can inform us about is that any recognized authority figure, if scrutinized closely enough, can be accused of this or that sort of imperfection: incompetence, neglect, misbehavior, malfeasance or stating falsehoods (lying, equivocating). Roman Catholic Popes, even those who are truly morally innocent, can be easily criticized for their political ignorance. Presidents and Prime Ministers, even when most effective politically, can be condemned for moral flaws in their private lives. Historians of Western philosophy, even the most thorough and excellent ones, can be criticized for their Eurocentrism and relative neglect of Eastern thought. School teachers, even the most patient ones, can be questioned for not understanding their students sufficiently, and parents, even the most loving ones, for imposing rules too strict on their children. Nobody should be free entirely from potential criticism concerning insensitive, careless, or thoughtless actions.

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This is why it is unproblematic for stoic pragmatists to link stoic (and Hellenistic) perfectionism with pragmatist meliorism and forge its position somewhere between these two. According to the latter, in nearly all contexts and situations, it is quite possible to make things better than they are, which, by the way, is the justification for optimism. This dovetails with the stoic belief in the power of agency to rearrange our own outlooks as to what happens all around us. This strain of optimism is not a superficially reached joyous state of mind that we may entertain from moment to moment. Nor is it naïve or innocent wishful thinking that things will move in a pleasant direction no matter what. Neither is it an optimism fueled by ignorance and indifference. Rather, this philosophically vindicated optimism expresses the conviction that it is a matter of agents’ skills, strenuousness, rigorous knowledge, and courage that certain things and states of affairs can be bettered and furthered. We encounter this optimistic tone in Epictetus’s well-​known teaching that “what upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things” (White 1983 13). Since our judgments about things often upset us, we can modify judgments in such a way that they do not unhinge us. A saner attitude towards life (of which I write more later) lies not only with optimism, but specifically with pragmatic meliorism. Epictetus’s teaching corresponds to sp’s claim that “we have the power to modify things by thinking about them in different terms” (rpl xvi). Through our efforts alone we are able to acquire a more comprehensive scope of our freedoms by altering unproductive judgments and, consequently, modifying our choices and the manner in which we realize these choices. This pragmatic meliorism in its original formulation by Charles Sanders Peirce, is the following: a “doctrine that the world is neither the worst nor the best possible, but that it is capable of improvement: a mean between theoretical pessimism and optimism” (Bergman 2012, 127). We can place this melioristic claim in the context of appropriate actions that need to be taken in our meaningful lives, and convert it into a normative statement to the like of “the human lot can be improved and our efforts should be focused on improving it” (sp 23). Here, we come back to the “obligation” that was mentioned above; namely, improvement in our lives is a natural obligation for us, just as nutrition and aiming at happiness are. The costs and risks of an agent’s devotion to the realization of obligations may appear to be too high to take on, and we need to accept that “there are sharp limits to what we can achieve in life and … some of the things that happen to us must in the end be accepted as beyond change or redemption” (sp 23). Aiming at my own perfection in some domains can be seen by others as socially alienating and unproductive, which may translate, in time, to me seeing it as such. Although we appreciate perfection at work, and we commonly

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call it professionalism, something that we call moral perfectionism does not sound acceptable to many audiences, unless converted into soft skills, like self-​discipline, resilience, loyalty, and dedication, which enable one to perform one’s professional responsibilities in a more effective way. As a result, bosses and supervisors most probably will be happy with one’s perfectionism since it is easily converted into a better job performance. Sport is also an area in which some individuals, at one given point in their careers, may attain excellence, usually at the cost of enormous dedication and self-​discipline. Yet in other contexts, this moral type of perfectionism may not work for either us or our loved ones. Many parents, I suppose, are puzzled and disappointed when moral standards, especially in the domain of sexuality, which they themselves strenuously cultivated all their lives and wanted their children to assume as the obviously decent attitude to embrace, have been later received by these children as oppressive, unjust, and the very thing against which they rebelled. There is also an argument having a predominantly psychological, or emotional, or even moral character. And this is it: “The perverse desire to heap infinite obligations on finite individuals guarantees moral failure. Similarly, demanding perfection of our experiences and relationships is a certain way of making life miserable” (fl 450). Frustration and a sense of being a lost cause may appear after some time of striving to be perfect, and if such a sensation does occur, it reduces, not increases, the quality of our lives, as it poisons our emotions and undermines efforts that have already been executed. Stated differently, not having reached any kind of finale need not annihilate the meaning of the entire process of aiming at a given goal. If we agree that setting one’s sights on perfection takes place within the domain of morality, then we can turn to William James’ term (in his Pragmatism, ii), of moral holidays, which is “a temporary turning away from moral demands and an inactivity that is morally justified” (sp 105). There is much meaningful space for the process of the realization of this aim, as is the fact of aiming at knowledge. It does not undermine itself when we realize that we cannot possess knowledge in its entirety. sp’s stance corresponds with modern stoicism’s position, according to which the following is the case: “It is an axiom of stoic ethics that an agent ought not to set unmeetable-​ for-​the-​agent standards (or undertake impossible-​for-​the-​agent projects), but this is understood to allow attempts to turn impossibilities into possibilities, and to use unachievable ideals instrumentally” (Becker 2017 [1998], 18). Simply put, it is unwise to posit unlimited standards for humans with limited powers, resources, and abilities, in order to realize those very unrealizable standards. What is the practical option here? One answer could be this: “We must be able to decide what is good enough and willing to embrace it as sufficient for our

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purposes, that is, adequate to satisfy our desires” (fl 450). But where exactly is the borderline at which we know or think we know what is good enough for us? A substantial segment of the answer to this question lies in our attitude towards life. 3

An Agent’s Attitude towards Life

One of the tersest articulations of the importance of attitude, understood as an agent’s internal disposition, comes from Wittgenstein’s Culture and Value: “If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important and effective, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, and we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty” (Wittgenstein 1998 [1977], 60). We learn from this quote that the important effectivity in the improvement of our lot is to be searched for not in external conditions, in the variety of goods, services, and institutional solutions surrounding us, but in the internal. And our attitude plays a central role here. The effectivity (and importance) of which Wittgenstein writes about has different forms, yet, if converted into a sp perspective, discloses a mayor enlargement of our free-​choice potential about meaningfulness-​oriented activities and goals. This free-​choice potential allows us to discern that alternatives are found at hand at any moment by the operational use, so to speak, of our own attitudes. For example, we, agents, can project importance or a lack of importance onto any given events, objects, or states of affairs: “It is the attitude of taking a certain matter seriously, but then at a certain point not taking it seriously after all, and declaring that something else is still more serious” (Wittgenstein 1998 [1977], 97). Attitude makes it possible for an individual to rearrange the basic ways that he or she assesses external things as beneficial, problematic, or indifferent. To be sure, it is not our preferences, likes or dislikes, or the supermarket types of choices that are at stake here, and that is why I use the phrase “attitude towards life” rather than “attitude.” We are not talking about a modification of our subjective, superficial glance at various goods according to capriciously setup criteria. We are not talking about accommodating our wills to a cultural fashion of the day and accepting or not accepting the business promotion of some products and ideas. Instead, “here too what is important is not the words you use or what you think while saying them, so much as the difference that they make at different points in your life” (Wittgenstein 1998 [1977], 97). This means that more often than not we have free choice to decide, within the power of our agency. For example, to blame or reject blaming, external conditions for our fate and to focus on

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our attitude towards these goods and the conditions for obtaining them. As another example, we can blame the “oppressive” Western cultural environment for our obesity, for our smoking addictions, for our lack of stable family relationships, for our meaningless job prospects, and so on and so on. On the other hand, however, we could do something to the contrary. Namely, we could choose to implement a set of appropriate actions, which the Western environment has nothing to do with. Our own good or bad habits, our wishes and goals (or lack thereof in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, to work on sound relations, and moving on with our careers) are individual choices. We can choose whether our actions should or should not be accompanied by patience or even fortitude, in order to secure successfully our goals, and a healthy lifestyle in the long run. Similarly, we can choose if we care and want to learn from reliable sources what healthy aspects of life are, rather than flippantly absorbing some from media echo chamber that which confirms our personal preferences and views, whatever they may be. We are talking about the improvement in the quality of our lives resulting more from changing or modifying our attitudes due to previous calculation of risks. This includes investing our energies, efforts, and hopes in achieving some goals or not wishing to at all. In other words, if our time, our energies, our ambitions, and our dedicatory efforts are worthy of being spent on trying to work and attain certain goods and/​or goals, then our individual concerns should be on these efforts. There may be a high price to pay for risky ambitions or ill-​chosen intentions. One of the options that free agents have is to ask, Why not just disregard the significance of these goals? Our attitudes are central in performing this kind of reflection, and at this point we can get back to the idea of good enough, mentioned above. This conveys basically that the things that are good enough for us are not necessarily perfect, and in other circumstances might even be better. It is within the power of our agency to decide if they serve us well enough for the realization of our aims, and to forgo the risks, the energy, and time to search for the conditions that would strengthen them, could in fact be the best thing after all. sp suggests that our readiness for such an assessment enlarges the possibilities of choice possibilities and decision-​ making relevant to our engagement (or disengagement) with given issues or about our attachment to (or detachment from) given challenges. The present deliberation suggests that the role of attitude towards life influences the issues connected with the problem of consumerism. This is not the case. Something similar refers to many other issues, including, for example, loneliness. Essentially it is the following: “We may have little or no control over the external circumstances that force us into being alone at some times in our lives. But (save for pathological conditions, for which one needs to seek

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medical help), it is our choice, our own attitude, that turns solitude into loneliness” (Pigliucci 2017, 184–​185). This means that there are many areas of our existence that call for improvements by means of changing or modifying our attitude towards life. In accordance with the idea of the widening circles of concern (oikeiôsis), the search should start with our attempt to recognize the precious elements that we already have inside us, such as talents, predispositions, and, perhaps, the very job we perform. I write about these a lot in this project. These talents and predispositions should be developed in concert with external opportunities, while recognizing the contemporary development of technology. A skillful adaptation of the technological revolution, digitalization in the first instance, can dramatically enhance the process of self-​assessment, which is an important part of self-​knowledge. For example, thanks to free access to technological tools (the Internet), we can know more about so many important things that concern education, health, job opportunities, not to mention the ways of strengthening our natural talents. Obviously, the ignorant and perverse use of these tools can end up in addiction and a detrimental impact on us and our families. Since, however, these are tools, they need, as all tools, sound practical training for us to understand them (an adequate expertise), and how to operate them to achieve goals we have in mind. It is an important element of appropriate actions to know how to operate such tools and act accordingly, and I put forward a proposal for stoic pragmatists in Chapter 6 that refers to using digital tools without risk of becoming overly dependent. The next circle of concern deals with our closest relations. Those whom we recognize should be taken care of, and those still unrecognized should be given closer scrutiny. We often do so after something unexpectedly goes wrong for us. I am always impressed by stories of victims of traffic accidents who, all of a sudden find themselves in a hospital convalescing, and start to appreciate the existence of their closest family members, whose affections they had neglected up to that point. Here, paradoxically, something tragic allows them to change their attitude and perceive already existing relationships as priceless. Similarly, and I am stressing here a tight circle for those concerned, the events surrounding us constitute a huge canvass for us to appreciate and celebrate (see the next chapter) within the social conditions that our cultures, our regions, our countries, or a group of states (e.g., EU), offer. They could, or even maybe should, become for us sources from which we are able to nourish our sense of meaning in our lives, something we might not have thought about before. For example, stoic pragmatists need to tap into their most natural resources: ancient (Roman), modern American, and contemporary Western.

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A circle of dis-​concern, a via negativa so to speak, would be limiting or reducing risks that are connected with assuming certain types of actions. The negative aspect lies in not taking on certain types of ambitions and expectations, and in viewing them as now worthy of our effort. In the commercial societies considered Western, these, despite their affluence, may become traps, perhaps paradoxically. I have already discussed a possible price we pay for the comfort of life we experience in Western societies; now, allow me to address another dimension of consumption-​oriented societies and the way we can deal with consumerism. 4

Appropriate Non-​actions: the Rat Race and the Consumer’s Fallacy

Since non-​action is a form of action, it is equally important to pay attention to what we should do, and also to what we should not do. We should not only talk about the positive aspects of appropriate actions. We cannot forget about negative actions, which is not doing something specific, or stop doing something in a situation when we are encouraged to, and it is easy to do it. This negative streak in our reflections about action is important, given sp’s claim that “many things riling people greatly really do not matter at all” (sp 2), and given the assumption that too much exposure to externals is risky, if out of control. Organized systems of power pose risks for us. Natural, and for the most part unavoidable, social standing is a form of a hierarchical arrangement of an access to power, prestige, privileges, and goods. We internalize these external markers in the process of our upbringing and education, although these vary from culture to culture. For example, I can recall the time when an ethos of being a part of the intelligentsia dominated my native culture, something that has been crushed by an ethos of making money these days. Social-​ladder climbing and the concept of the rat race are especially visible examples of external competitive patterns of actions that we could, but do not have to, take on. Should they turn out to be unsuccessful, we could end up frustrated, infected with a toxic radiation from our sense of loss. If successful, our cast of mind would depend on the cost that we had to pay for this instance of success. At any moment, reflection concerning the costs is a positive outcome, since a rat-​race success, without any serious cost, is improbable. In which direction, then, we can direct our attitudes? In the first place, it is highly unnecessary to get involved in many of the activities that the modern capitalist Western world tempts us with; it is very risky, even mentally unhygienic, to believe in so many of the lingering opportunities and illusions that we get bombarded with every day via the media, by

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commercials, by self-​taught gurus, by the movies, and by social media clips. What is the principal risk for us here? From the sp perspective, the danger has a definite character in that it promotes positions and attitudes that submerge us in unnecessary consumption, puffs us up with overblown pretentions, and constant desires to have more, even when we are comfortable enough in life and unable to consume more. An uncontrolled involvement in external ideas has much in common with our internal deficiencies. Lachs writes: “The probability of frustration and consequent disenchantment is directly proportional to the immensity of our expectations; the more we want to accomplish, the greater the chance that we will fail. Accordingly, stoic pragmatists tend to scale down their hopes even as they increase their efforts to make life better” (sp 51–​52). Access to and consumption of the good is not really the problem. The actual problem is our (growing) dependence on a still never-​ending desire for these goods, as if we were in a rat race. In this vein, we modify our lifestyles in such a way that we dedicate our energies, ideas, and time to earning money in order to be able to purchase goods and/​or meet the challenges that may not compensate our energies, ideas, and time that have been spent. In the case of the rat race, we dedicate our energies, ideas, and time in pursuit of a reward (dominations, prestige, inclusion) by trying to gain an edge in a competitive struggle in this or that area of social action. In this unfortunate way we get involved in a “voluntary bondage. We work longer hours than our hungry ancestors and take less time and energy to enjoy the fruits of our labor” (ll 41). Stated otherwise, one of major problems of consumerism is that consumers may become flustered with the quality of their lives even when they have access to a great variety of goods and have climbed up high on the social ladder (in the Preface, I described my personal post-​communist experience within this very context). Their pretentious expectations grow, yet their satisfaction with their own lives does not. The rat-​race phenomenon illustrates this quite often, although we cannot deny that a positive, happy-​ending example may materialize as well. There is an instructive side of the rat race for us. Namely, the image of what others have achieved reveals to us one extreme of the spectrum of possibilities open to us, and it is this side of the spectrum that many, if not most, of consumption-​oriented societies are exposed to. Many of us Westerners view images of billionaires as the principal point of reference in discussing social position in a society and our own situation. We feel deceived by the “system” when we actually realize how far below the top ten or the top one percent we are located in the hierarchy of wealth and privilege. We willingly compare ourselves to the wealthy, although they constitute a tiny fraction of the population. But why disregard the other side of all of this? Stoic pragmatists would like to

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highlight the significance of the other end of the spectrum, which is where the vast majority of those who have less than we have do actually exist, especially as opposed to those of us who reside in the West. If most of us compare our own living conditions to the conditions of people in most non-​Western locations, it turns out that we find ourselves to occupy very comfortable conditions. Such a comparison may have quite a soothing effect on our minds. In my case, I constantly compare my own Polish conditions of a public university professor with German and Ukrainian conditions, Poland being situated in between. If I exclusively compared my Polish academic salary with a professorial salary at a German university (or American), I might become nonplussed in learning that I earn three times less. Fortunately, for my mental hygiene, I frequently turn to professorial salaries at a Ukrainian university, and this immediately makes me feel quite rich by comparison. It goes without saying how fortunate I sense myself in not having to experience my city and university being bombarded by Russian rockets, as Ukrainian cities and universities are, as I write these words. Obviously, such comparisons are carried out in situations that vary from circumstance to circumstance, not all at once. Entering German academia one day might be an attractive option for me, if possible, but not being admitted into the professoriate would not produce a sense of inferiority or any other unhealthy feeling, as I am aware of many well-​ educated refugees and immigrants doing physical jobs in order to earn a living. The glaring inference being the following: every time one compares oneself to others, it is one’s choice to select the criteria of comparison and this very choice is most fundamental for an assessment of our place in any social setting. A consumerist attitude has prevailed in many segments of Western societies for decades, and what we can judge from this is that many actions we perform as consumers can appear to be empty and completely irrelevant in the context of a meaningful life. Our unnecessary involvement in so many aspects of the hurly-​burly world could be, indeed, exchanged for our free (costing nothing) decision of non-​action in many aspects of this sphere. It is fallacious to assume that producing and consuming goods is the primary wellspring for the lived sense of a meaningful life. sp’s attitude is antithetical to the consumer’s attitude, widespread in hyper-​consumption societies that understands the quality of living merely via measurable criteria of growth and material success. It does not mean that sp promotes a rejection of goods and services in the name of any kind of ascetism or an avoidance of goods and services as such. Instead, sp claims that “the cure for human dissatisfaction is not by concentrating on increasing our possessions,…but by relegating possession and consumption to their rightful and limited place in a comprehensive scheme of human values” (fl 306). Something we could call the “Consumer’s Fallacy about the

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Ends of Human Life” (fl 305), let me stress once again, goes against a hyper-​ consumerism way of thinking that to live life fully we need to have access to a variety of goods and services. The expectation of getting them is only growing, as is the sensation that life without them is miserable and satisfaction with life untenable. A proper assessment (and the appropriate actions that follow), then, is one of the basic rational calculations that we could exercise more adequately, the more self-​knowledge and more knowledge about the world surrounding us around we may obtain. As a result of this choice-​making strategy (in the sense of having a choice to become disinterested in this or that) we realize even more that non-​action or not doing something is no less important than what we do. sp pays attention to the risk of a possible dependence, sometimes a complete dependence, on such externals as: an addiction to having unnecessary goods, dependence on unnecessary services, and a vulnerability to important decisions about our lives, made by others. Obviously, this dependence is secure for those who do not have, for various reasons, their own vision and want to join and follow those already established at the cost of reducing their agency, and following already established patterns of living and thinking. 5

Dichotomy of Control and Immunity to Maltreatment as a Life Strategy

The divide, famously described in the first lines of Epictetus’s Handbook, between what we can and cannot control is still worthy of discussion, despite the impossibility of setting a clear and fixed barrier between these two (for this reason, some modern stoics propose a “trichotomy of control” [Irvine 2009, 89] adding the realm partially dependent on us). Nor is it possible to avoid the circularity of which I wrote previously. That is, to escape any cultural impact from the external world, especially one that we have become acculturated to and saturated with from external exposure since our youth. With this adjustment, we could think about the dichotomy of control as a sort of sapiential strategy to assume immunity to the maltreatment that comes from, or might arise from, the external world. Neither social standing nor most quotidian existence can negatively impact our meaningful lives, since these are externals that are out of our control and, thus, should not dominate our agency and our life goals. This theoretical assumption, clearly, should be put into practice in various ways, and what a Stoic called apatheia should be one of them, with the condition that we do not forget that Stoic indifference to the external (apatheia) would not be any form of apathy, understood in the currently conventional

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sense of the term but, instead, “a conscious strategy to achieve peace of mind” (ll 26), a sort of an individual policy of controlled detachment. The positive facet of this sapiential strategy is that our internal attitude, dispositions, skills, self-​knowledge, knowledge, and other attributes that we are able to control in our lives, constitute sufficient material for us to help us determine ourselves, in our own fashion, what is involved in maintaining a good life. Possible turbulences caused by external factors and relations, like the greater part of our social relationships, politics, the economy, and other forces, should be recognized and dealt with in a way similar to way we deal with agreeable or inclement weather. When good, use and enjoy it; when bad, be attentive to coming storms and prepare appropriate clothing or shelter or, if the storm appears more extreme, like a hurricane—​escape or hide. Having adequate information about approaching weather, to continue with this metaphor, and having satisfactory ways of responding, need to be necessary ingredients of our wisdom, knowledge, and self-​knowledge making our developed self-​determination and our dependence on external conditions reduced. It is an open question as to whether in trying to establish our own vision of the good life we should rely on, or at least refer to, the vision or visions that have already been established in the cultural collective, and thus, external to our own minds and attitudes. After all, it is nearly impossible to create a vision of our own lives out of nothing, without reference to the established culture surrounding us, and here I pose the question from Chapter 2 and attempt an even more ample response. And it is this: Why not assume as our own already existing models of the good and meaningful life, models offered by religions, ideologies, intellectual fashions, cultural currents, philosophical trends, and various systems of thought? Exhaustive sketches of the good and meaningful life have been worked out by eminent philosophers, historical figures, public leaders, and political strategists in some states in which a nation’s moral mission is proclaimed as a meaningful goal for members of the public at large. Sources such as these offer us different versions of the good life by explaining a task worthy of performing, or values in the name of which we can act, or concrete goals that we can dedicate our beings to. Or, on the other hand, given existential or geopolitical situations compel people to dedicate their lives to a cause. I suspect that many Ukrainians risking their lives for their country at this very moment would be unhesitating and firm about answering the question about a meaningful life and, perhaps, even laugh at the naïve deliberations of authors, like myself, living in relatively well-​off and secure countries in the West, and having too much free time to deliberate on such theoretical, abstract topics. sp, which itself derives much from its historical sources (ancient Greek and Roman, modern American, and European), hopes to provoke honest reflection

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on the extent of our autonomy by tackling head-​on the doubts as to whether by becoming immersed in external sources we do not become intellectually (and spiritually) dependent on them, which would collide with the idea of our own freedom and self-​determination. To make the problem even more problematic, sp could employ the term instrumentalization, taken from pragmatist vocabulary and ask if the visions offered by religions, ideologies, and various systems of thought do or do not tend to instrumentalize us in the realization of goals assumed by their beneficiaries. If they are for the most part our own, they can be something that could efficiently aid us in orientating our lives. We, stoic pragmatists, tend to think that it is more profitable to instrumentalize other traditions and systems into our own life projects, rather than be instrumentalized by others. Whatever the case, the trade-​off inevitably takes place all the time: “Stoic moral training aims to develop in each agent the disposition to seek social roles, conventions, and institutions in which she has more rather than less control over her own life, unless having less can be shown to make a countervailing contribution toward a good life for her” (Becker 2017 [1998], 20). Although a variety of factors demand adaptation in specific circumstances, it is impossible to discuss them in detail here. They probably do not obliterate the general idea of the dichotomy (or trichotomy) of control, as an immunity to the maltreatment life strategy. At the same time, we need to be honest and fair, and not forget our dependencies on externals. Many people frivolously declare to be free, but panic and call the police when somebody is robbing their house. Individuals demand “my body my choice,” yet call emergency when ill and seek out the physician’s knowledge. They declare having life plans, but readily give them up at the moment a prospect for a well-​paid career appears on the horizon. sp admits that an adequate recognition of the difference between the actions that we can or cannot control, along with their consequences, is one of the major challenges in our efforts to make life meaningful or meaningless. 6

The Meaningful Life as a Lifelong Project: Vision, Mission (on Values), Happiness (Eudaimonia)

As already mentioned in Chapter 1, something that can be called “the complete human act” (cc 43), contains three components: inception, performance, and effect (along with consequences of the realized or unrealized action). The chronological division does not always make sense. This is because both the intention of the process of the realization and the outcome could be the integral parts of the very intention of the act. I would like to return to this idea, but

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this time in the context of the life plan whose axis, or principal pattern, would be a meaningful life. Here, the complete human act, in all its essential phases, “serves us as the generating ideal of human freedom” (cc 13). Freedom, one of the most basic conditions for self-​determination, corresponds to the agent’s appropriate actions by means of which the meaningful life can be built. The assumptions implicit here are that the agent is an individual that has or wants to have a modicum of self-​knowledge and a basic recognition of the factual, not imaginary, mechanisms of the surrounding social and cultural life, and does care about such things as a meaningful life. We are relatively free in shaping our destiny and the quality of our lives, yet this does not mean that only by means of complete human acts can we achieve meaningfulness. It means, however, that people who have a limited sense of their agency and/​or do not care about thinking about what is meaningful may become more vulnerable to a sense of meaninglessness at some stage of their lives: As the child learns the simple facts of animal hygiene—​to eat only that which nourishes and to reject whatever does not agree with his nature—​ the adult has to learn, sometimes through tragic experiences, the importance of acting by a single principle and living by a single plan, assimilating and dissimilating as his nature commands. A healthy conscience is but the inner demand for consistency, which makes one’s life the history of a person instead of a disconnected series of events. fl 305

When we convert the complete human act into the context of a meaningful life, it just might be better to talk about vision rather than inception as the first step, the mission rather than performance as the second, and completion, self-​ fulfillment or happiness (eudaimonia) instead of the effect as the final one. Since the secular humanist-​oriented stance excludes the post-​mortem existential perspective, the life plan embraces our life as a project that has clear biologically determined time limits and culturally filled substance: “each lives its own life and experiences thought of its death as the end of everything worthwhile” (ci 142). The naturalistic background has to be emphasized at the start: “The good of each person is determined by his or her nature. This means that in attempting to create a satisfying life, we must work with whatever talents and desires we find in ourselves” (gs 100). This naturalistic underpinning determines the linear scheme of aiming in some direction, as growing, maturing, and dying. At the same time, it refers to the cultural contents that are “bigger,” or more significant, than biological life itself—​something without which life can be pleasant and decent, yet deprived of something much more meaningful.

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Vision. A vision of one’s life, understood as “an integrated, accessible and attractive view of the whole things,” taken from agent’s perspective and projected out into the future offers us an account “of the human world and of the nature and role of values in it, making personal orientation possible” (Lachs 2013, 82). It is perhaps not that important to create a final, complete, fixed and dogmatic version, as to be working on a vision, of fashioning a vision in progress. Such a process of realization of a vision would resemble a dynamic process of its own creation, and its constant modification being the dynamic of the ongoing responses from and to the world. Philosophy, understood pluralistically as a set of ideas and various systems of thought throughout the centuries of history, as such, can be a helping tool. To be sure, the solidity of philosophical thought can be measured not by the answers that it provides, but by the depth of the questions it asks: “The fact that philosophy offers no final answers is not an impediment but a lesson. That first great lesson of philosophy is that we must learn to live with uncertainty” (sp 13). sp does not assume a religious or religiously doctrinal position, but rather sees in philosophy a basic recourse for moral and cultural self-​orientation. Such a vision would have to, among other things, console clashing tendencies that we constantly have in our minds, since coherence or harmony would be one of the basic demands: one of the strongest impulses of a well-​knit, healthy man is the impulse for a rational harmony of impulses. Long-​range interests, desires that are life-​enhancing and comprehensive, compatible and biologically sane, are combined in a system with the formal impulse for harmony supervening. It is by reference to this humanized and harmonized mass of interests that we judge of the goodness or badness of individual desires. A desire will be good if it is compatible with, or conducive to, the enhancement of this core of dispositional interests, and evil if it conflicts with it. mp 137

Mission (on Values). The term mission can be misleading if we take it as something from the external world that we want to realize, like a political aim, or a goal of social justice, a religious vocation by missionaries, or a business objective, notwithstanding our limited possibilities to control the process of realization and its final effect. According to our present understanding of the term, it should be realized as within the agent’s powers, which does not preclude having missions in the external sense (of which I write in the following chapters). After all, an individual’s mission oriented towards a meaningful life often results in having that mission realized by homing in on wisdom, and performing, for example, a variety of educational actions in various ways (in

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Chapter 6, I propose a digital culture public intellectual set of actions as a sort of mission). Mission is not just the realization of an aim, since something existentially “nobler” is at stake here. What I mean is that something transcends the biologically determined course of individual living. As has already been mentioned, a solid reference to values constitutes an important element of what we do, and who we are, so that there is not that much exaggeration in the claim that “individual agents are the center and condition of all values” (ci 147). In sp there is no clash between value and virtue, or the perfection of agency, which is so pronounced within Stoic tradition (aretē). According to modern stoicism’s claim, virtue cannot be achieved without value-​oriented actions and activities: Stoic training aims to make it possible for agents to evaluate their own (and others’) values by (a) identifying the facts about an agent’s values relevant to choices in each situation and suspending, as appropriate, further discussion of irrelevant values; (b) making the relevant values into a coherent set (insofar as possible), or at least one that is not self-​defeating; (c) evaluating them in terms of their motivational forces for the agent; and (d) rank ordering those motivational forces. becker 2017 (1998), 15–​16

But how exactly can we do that? What set of specific values can we affirm as specifically ours and try to realize throughout the extent of our mission? The answer to this question is difficult because there are so many values that we can refer to and, even more so, there are many ambiguous understandings of given values, for example, toleration or activity. With traditionally religious criteria, it is quite clear what is to be followed: approaching sainthood, however vaguely defined, means to follow the rules of one’s religion, in order to be closer and closer to what God expected and begin a proper life in heaven. Traditional family-​oriented lifestyles have also a clearly stated mission for bringing up and educating children in the best manner possible, without spelling out exactly what the “best way” is. Patriotism also fuels itself with a narrative about a nation’s mission, or the hopefully successful democratization of the world, as in the case of Americanism and American exceptionalism. The capitalist understanding of the progress in happiness shows clearly the sense of possessing more and more goods and services. A happy person living out a meaningful life equals a person having a house, having a family, having a well-​paid job, having a strong credit card, having access to various services, having social prestige, and having access to many other things, including health care. The Western capitalist formula measures the progress of human

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development, both in individual and communal dimensions, with a commercial increase of products and the accumulation of material goods. The measure is rendered by gdp; high gdp, automatically, should translate as access for an individual to goods and services and a high probability of having a satisfactory life. Consumerism as a formula differs from that concept of happiness as eudaimonia, for example, which stresses the role of what a person is (rather than what a person has) in a life lived out on planet Earth. To be sure, economic progress does not automatically equal progress in human self-​realization, although it substantially may help. It is secondary to the eudaimonia type of progress which includes an “improvement or approach to perfection in some specific direction” (Santayana 1951 [1940], 499), or that aims at a more expansive, qualitatively better life. Since there are many directions that a given ideal can take to be realized, according to our natural predispositions and skills, we again enter the realm of the plurality of values: The idea that our nature determines our good opens a line of thought that helps us see and appreciate our diversity. For, to use Kant’s language, if nature is the ratio essendi or our values, our values constitute the ratio cognoscendi of our natures. The insight that who we are determines what life is good for us thus suggests the equally sensible notion that people have no better way of learning about their natures than by seeing what fulfills them. This way putting the matter leads inevitably to the conclusion that one human nature cannot accommodate all of us. If values emerge from nature, the wide and irreducible heterogeneity of human goods clearly points to a multiplicity of human natures. ci 55

The reason why, at least in some ethical and axiological contexts (not legal), discussing human natures (plural) makes sense is the following. If we want to develop our natural predispositions and skills in specific circumstances, it must mean that we will self-​fulfill in different ways. The plurality of values, already discussed, reflects both this spectrum of values we desire to realize and Western culture in general, which tolerates, accepts, and even promotes diversity and plurality on institutional and public levels (another part of the same story is to keep this spectrum of values within limits in order to avoid anarchism, chaos, and disorientation in education). Such development, if successful, could lead to a subjective sense of self-​fulfillment, yet this subjective sense must be vindicated by a social confirmation of the self-​fulfillment. We can easily imagine someone who intends to develop a pathological, self-​harmful

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life-​plan becoming quite happy with its realization. Yet, it is not what happiness is all about in sp. Self-​realization, although based on my natural predispositions, cannot thrive in isolation or, worse, in social condemnation. Since we are social creatures, it must be in some sense relational to others, and cannot stop at being one individual’s circle of concern. A happiness deprived of sharing one’s joy and meaning with others becomes a pygmy version of itself. The happiness that is shared with others may be the palpable evidence betraying our self-​fulfillment. Happiness (Eudaimonia). Happiness (eudaimonia) is an agent’s justified sense of good feelings about progressing with an undisturbed self-​fulfillment. Santayana’s formulation states: “Happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one’s life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted” (Santayana 1986, 259). Happiness in this understanding of the term is not illusory and self-​deceptive, as already discussed. It should not be seen as something like the finish line of a lifelong race, an ending that demands dedication throughout life in such a way that it becomes a torture unless somehow we victoriously reach the finale. It does not work that way. It does not make sense in a secular life, as it does in a religious life, that when the faithful, ready to withstand any maltreatment, and hoping to reach the final stage—​heaven—​where their terrestrial travail, however terrible it was, is finally paid off. In our case, it is the awareness of being on the right track, and performing the appropriate set of actions that brings us a justified and prolonged sense of satisfaction to what we do. And when we glance back and assess our life from a mature perspective, we can descry that it has had a culmination, that it has had a finale. I mean, the whole process of realization (mission) has its culmination at the finale when we look back and assess our life from a certain time perspective. Yet we need not wait until the last moment. After all, we can lose our life much earlier and more abruptly, as in a fatal accident, for example, and having been deprived of the completion of life, this does not necessarily make this uncompleted life meaningless. Probably for this reason many ancient sages recommended living out the present day as if it were the last one. 7

Philosophy as a Guide to Life Amidst a Pluralism of Cultures and Values

Previously I wrote about appropriate actions that deal with intelligent and effective responses to what happens around us. In an era of globalization and rapid technological transformations, a factual confrontation with patterns of

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different cultures other than our own belongs to such confrontations, real and digital. And these may turn out to be fruitful sets of resources in a variety of ways: positive as inspirations, and negative as warnings not to follow. That is to say, these patterns should not become dominations that stifle an agent’s views and lifestyle, which means that such a confrontation should not become an uncritical acceptance of foreign models or patterns of values. In any case, “the principles or categories in terms of which a given culture or subculture views an action are in some respects similar to the lighting conditions we may use on an object of perception” (fl 222). The agent’s knowledge of what to do, along with the recommendation of the appropriate actions need not be performed in abstracto, that is, without or outside of the cultural “lighting conditions.” It would be optimal if they could provide us with possible enrichment and empowerment, and the agent’s wisdom is to properly recognize the present cultural context, be it familiar (native) to the agent or unfamiliar (other). sp stresses the role of the humanities in general and of philosophy in particular as guides to life in the societies in which religion has been losing its sapiential role. These are helpful in the development of a wiser approach toward diversity and pluralism because “the creation of a meaningful view of the world out of materials obtained from other sources has always been an important function of philosophy” (sp 11). Stoic pragmatists themselves are using pluralist and multi-​cultural sources for approaching wisdom: ancient Greek and Roman, classical humanist, and modern American and European, in order to address contemporary Western contexts. Linking these cultural traditions—​or the philosophical currents within those traditions—​does not imply a random picking up of disparate elements in order to combine them into a theoretically coherent unity. Instead, it is an effort, first of all, to select those elements that we expect to use in our existential encounters; secondly, to combine those elements into a coherent set of practical views in the hope that they become a sort of guide to appropriate actions; and, thirdly, to move us closer to a wise and well-​balanced stance in life in the face of challenges we face according to our talents, predispositions, and life contexts. For example, sp assumes that the Stoic understanding of wisdom, along with the pragmatist one, are useful nowadays in showing a direction in which we should reorient our efforts. Accordingly, the selection of some stoic elements and some pragmatist elements helps us strengthen our practical stance under the threat of challenges, and one of the aspects of this stance, or internal disposition, would be this: “Stoics give up too soon and pragmatists make the mistake of never wanting to give up” (sp 23), together with this one: “The pragmatist in us knows how to build good habits for life and stoic consolation enables us to bear failure and inevitable death” (jlpp xxviii).

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sp, in contrast to dogmatists of all sorts, who live in “glorious and safe ignorance of alternatives” (fl 219), view those alternatives, real or imaginary, as a testing ground for appropriate actions. We do not have now, nor have we had in any historical epoch or geographical location, unlimited choices, and do not have control over most of the spectrum of the external world. However, we can focus on what we can do and what is realizable by, in the first instance, becoming aware of the choices that surround us, along with the possible consequences of these choices. In the contemporary world, there are opportunities and an access to goods and services unimaginable in previous generations. Ignoring our comfort in enjoying them and overlooking that we (the majority of the public) have more access to goods and opportunities than anyone ever before, and today those outside our Western world, would be neither rational nor appropriate. Just having this awareness makes it possible for us to appreciate the amount of the good (positive) things abundantly available, and to avoid bad (negative) things with a higher level of profound satisfaction. All these elements of appropriate action resemble the Ciceronian idea of culture, understood as the cultivation of the individual mind, previously discussed. Its significant part is in thinking how to render life good and meaningful and here, once again, we could turn to the practical dimension of philosophical reflection in its melioristic version. Stated otherwise, one does not practice adequately the cultivation of mind when this cultivation leads to nihilism, pessimism, despair, and losing track of the meaning of one’s life. Among stoic pragmatists, Santayana would be an iconic example on this point. Santayana’s life can be exemplary for stoic pragmatists to see how to incorporate and fuse elements of an alien culture, American in his case, into his native one and synthesize a uniquely constructed cultural “product” on his own, that is, a philosophy as a form of life, to employ the title of Daniel Moreno’s book on Santayana (Moreno 2015). He was a thinker who was very conscious of possible factual dangers in the confrontation between the American and the Hispanic worlds on one hand (especially during the 1898 Spanish-​American war, a time during which he was in Boston), and, on the other hand, the benefits resulting from the mergence between them. A Spanish subject all his life, he constantly referred to his Hispanic, classical, Catholic, Castilian, and Mediterranean roots. On other hand, he was also a Harvard student and professor, writing in English, running up against important trends within the tradition of American philosophy, that is to say, transcendentalism (especially Ralph Waldo Emerson) and pragmatism (especially John Dewey, William James, and Josiah Royce) as well as some trends of American culture, such as the genteel tradition and mercantile morality (cf. Skowronski 2007; 2011). Santayana’s in-​betweenness can be a lesson as to how to use intellectual resources of various cultures to

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transcend boundaries and whet our sensitivities in the confrontation with, or in reference to, different traditions—​all in order to benefit our insights. His understanding of wisdom reflects his unbiased and pluralistic stance towards various cultures, values, and traditions: “Wisdom lies not in pronouncing what sort of good is best but in understanding each good within the lives that enjoy it as it actually is in its physical complexion and in its moral essence” (Santayana 1995 [1951], 466). 8

Toleration and the Virtue of Leaving Others Alone

The stoic pragmatist virtue of leaving others alone recommends agents respecting other agents, so as to feel free: “To operate as they see fit, setting their own goals and working to reach them by their own efforts” (M 37). This corresponds to the previously mentioned widening circles of concern (oikeiôsis), according to which, the main object of an agent’s concern and care is oneself and, then subsequently, those one loves and feels responsible for (family), and finally neighbors, friends, country, and so on. This converts itself into a degree of responsibility for others, and the degree is more intense when we deal with those closest to us. In this way, the circles of concern become wider and wider, but the intensity of concern, the obligation, and the care do not. We are not obliged to take care of those living in distant countries more extensively than we are our own children or our friends (I cannot discuss, here, the cases in which we may choose, for example, to adopt a child from a foreign country and care about this child no less than we do about our own biological children, or that we care about this child even more than we care about some of our blood relatives; we do not seem to go against any natural obligations here if we, as agents, choose to do so and rearrange, so to speak, our circle of concern in our own way). The virtue of leaving others alone overlaps, indirectly, with the idea of toleration understood as accepting the freedom of other agents to deal with their own lives in the ways they think adequate and to widen their circles of concern, without overrunning ours. Toleration is one of the characteristics that has a melioristic dimension and, with an sp interpretation, it holds the following pragmatist vindication: “In turn, the more we see others busying themselves with their own lives, the less we are tempted to believe that what they do is of significance to us. The result is improvement in the moral tone of society and a corresponding increase in human happiness” (M 14). On the other hand, the more we are concerned about the quality and the meaning of our own lives, the less we desire to impose on others. Being preoccupied with thinking

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about (and realizing) one’s project regarding a meaningful life may indeed, hopefully, reduce one’s wish to meddle in the lives of others, which could have a melioristic effect in the social and public realms. Specifically, weaving together toleration and leaving others alone, while concomitantly putting these two into practice, may limit an agent’s oppressive wish to impose willfully on another. There is an undeniable battleground where my concern and obligations meet those of other agents in my midst. At the same time, leaving others alone does not translate into abandonment or any degree of indifference to the fate of other people who happen to be in need. Nor does it mean that we should be insensitive and non-​reactive to the fate of others. sp does not evoke indifference and egotism: “To leave others alone is not to abandon them, but to permit them to lead their lives by their own lights. When they need help, fellow humans must come to their aid and ease them over the hurdles they cannot clear alone. Leaving others alone, therefore, is perfectly compatible with providing aid to the needy” (M 89). Dramatic events today, as in the past, should serve as teaching lessons for us and for the humanity within us: The ultimate measure of human beings is the humaneness of their souls, their readiness to aid others in their struggle for the special treatment they deserve. I put myself in the shoes of the guards of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, the railroad workers of Soviet Russia carrying trainloads of people to Siberia, Serb soldiers commanded to slaughter Kosovars and bureaucrats processing people unconcerned about their private griefs. Would I, would we, be able to rise to the occasion, on every occasion of possible help, and even at great personal cost treat human beings humanely? U 36

Those others in trouble or suffering greatly who live surrounding us should be helped when needed and, personally speaking, I am proud that my Polish compatriots received 2 million Ukrainian refugees within two or three weeks of the Russian invasion. Polish borders, private homes, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and institutions became open and ready to help in this most dramatic European movement of people since wwii. This does not mean that they are stoic pragmatists or are acting according to its recommendations; it means, however, that sp recommends and admires this type of help as the best example of a practical implementation of the idea of humanism. At the same time, helping others, when the help is needed, should not convert acts into an instrumentalization of those whom we help or an abuse of them for our own

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aims. When they do not need help, we should be wise and tolerant enough to let them be and do what they think proper for themselves: “Moral wisdom consists largely in knowing when to leave people alone and when to help them and, when helping them, how not to subvert their aims” (M 10). The same applies to the question of searching for ways towards a good and meaningful life. sp does not recommend imposing its one’s own vision of the good life on other agents. Instead, “the best response to the efforts of others to find meaning in their lives is to cheer them on. Under certain circumstances it is appropriate to aid them, but at the very least we should not present an obstacle to their independence” (M 73). Accordingly, this book does not intend to impose any moral message on those who do not see it as interesting or relevant to their understanding of a meaningful life. It proposes a set of views, and its author (myself) is and will be happy to promote it amongst those who want to listen. Yet, its content does not want to discredit many other options and proposals for a good and meaningful life, if they are what work for other autonomous agents. I say “if they are what work,” since there are so many short-​term sensational proposals, especially in social media, that are unworkable in the long run and even perilous for many audiences, especially for youth. 9

What to Do during the Pandemic?

In the later years of Marcus Aurelius’s life (and rule), a terrible plague spread across the Roman Empire. The so-​called Antonine Plague, in all probability smallpox or the measles, caused the death of about 7–​10 million people (Littman 1973, 254). Interestingly for the stoic pragmatists, the time period of the pandemic (in the years 165–​180 ce) coincided with the time of Marcus composing his Meditations (161–​180 ce) and we read in the lines of the text little focus on the pandemic, even though it was far more devasting that our current coronavirus pandemic (covid). Did the Emperor not care about the catastrophic pestilence and its ominous impact on the empire? Or, perhaps, the pandemic, the military campaigns and the battles, and the harsh material conditions of social life all together comprised a cultural and intellectual ambience that already had assumed that life was tough, and one should turn inwards, to what was within one’s control, to what was more stable and reliable in reference to life? Perhaps in such a light we should interpret his views that the plague, or “mental cancer,” understood in moral terms of “dishonesty, or hypocrisy, or self-​indulgence, or pride” was far “worse than anything caused by tainted air or an unhealthy climate? Diseases like that can only threaten your life; this one attacks your humanity”? (Marcus Aurelius 2002, ix, 2). Similarly,

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Galen, one of the most famous medical researchers of that time, and closely related to Stoic thought, had first-​hand knowledge of the plague (the term “The Plague of Galen” is also used in the literature), and transmitted to history very brief and scatted information about it as he was much more interested in how to treat it medically (cf. Littman 1973, 244). Is this an informative message for us today? I include such matters because right now, in our own day and age, I feel a sort of unity with the human lot. Despite the enormous stretch of time and the technological differences between antiquity and our contemporaneity, people then and now seem to suffer from similar things, and the current pandemic brings out this even more clearly. For a person interested in the diversity of cultures and the plurality of values, as myself, many questions have arisen. Do we suffer more than they did? Or, just the opposite, for those of us who have survived the current pandemic (covid), should we feel lucky to have paid much less of a price for a calamity of this sort? In our attempt to face up to the pandemic, “Will the pragmatist demand for improving the world breathe courage into us? Will stoic indifference to pain enable us to act with fortitude?” (U 36). Should we dismiss this attitude as a tool in even more appropriate action towards the pandemic? Or, instead, should we blame the “system,” or our governments, and become angry that despite tremendous developments in medical technology and access to health care today, many people suffered and died anyway? And, by the way, do such historical and cultural comparisons make any sense at all? An additional issue in play is the following. The coronavirus pandemic (covid), together with the accompanying lockdown, was a huge challenge for all of us, and we knew very well what doctors, nurses, teachers, among other professions, did for the general public. On the other hand, one may ask whether there was actually something substantial that philosophy could have offered in these circumstances. Does sp have any message concerning an individual’s strategy in relation to the developments encompassing one? The coronavirus pandemic is the kind of problem of life that philosophers, stoic pragmatists and all others, need to address and come to grips with. The stoic attitude towards times of trouble in general, as well as the pragmatist way of finding out what is possible in order to elevate the quality of living against all odds, if skillfully interwoven, could become an important tool, for example, in maintaining our mental health, which is a vital condition for having a sense of a good life. If this be the case, stoic pragmatists could indeed offer an interesting example of practical philosophy. The principal idea of sp would be to form a sort of approach toward life by strengthening individuals and providing them with a more efficient orientation toward their actual situation, and more

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optimal ways of self-​fulfillment even in possibly traumatic circumstances, such as the pandemic and lockdown. So, what is the fundamental message here? We do not have unlimited choices in life and, tragically, the pandemic has limited them even more. Nevertheless, we can focus on what we can do by, initially, becoming aware of the choices that surround us. In the first place, this includes all sorts of medical, hygienic, and therapeutic sources of information accessible via the Internet at almost no cost, and/​or other official and reliable institutional sources. Depending on the country, this also includes access on the part of individuals to national health systems. The degree to which there is accessibility by a significant portion of a country’s population to health care, has never been equaled to what it is today in the West. I have some remarks on a personal note here. The coronavirus pandemic began at exactly the time during which I was writing this book and thinking, among other things, of whether it makes any sense to refer to Marcus Aurelius’s reaction to his own pandemic and to compare our contemporary situation with situations and contexts of the past. Most definitely, it was helpful to realize that the most appropriate action in this context was to listen to what medical authorities had to say. For example, I kept practicing sports on a daily basis (in my room, if jogging in the park was forbidden), having learnt from them how much physical activity could reduce the risk of overweight morbidity. I tried to maintain a diet, having learnt that obesity is one of the major causes of death. I set out to read and write to reduce stress, having learnt how much stress debilitates the immune system. I gave up risky behaviors like moving around in a crowd and going to restaurants. I followed medical procedures (vaccinations), and have been quite satisfied with the Polish health system that has offered me free of charge assistance during the entire time of the pandemic, even though I spent most of that time in Berlin, Germany, respecting all the instructions and recommendations of both systems. Merely by having my awareness more heightened about opportunities available to me made it possible for me to become cognizant of the amount of salutary social wealth in existence, and the ways of dodging malevolent influences. Another appropriate action for my mental hygiene was to realize how lucky I am (and my family too) to find myself in the contemporary West and to be able to use its medical and technological achievements and progress, although, on this very point, once more, I needed an additional reflection. After all, vaccinations and medical solutions belong to the externals that the Stoics treated with reservation. Converted into the present context, the external world, to which the Stoic tradition recommended a sort of emotional disengagement (apatheia), embraces contemporary health service, medical

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technology, the Internet full of medical expertise, our educational systems and so on—​after all, these are the externals against which the Stoics warned us. Here we can see the need of modifying and updating the historical Stoic message with the contemporary pragmatist approach according to which the sophisticated, up-​to-​date achievements of the Western world can be appreciated and taken seriously, when needed. I say appreciated, not uncritically indulged in, and used when needed. We should not reject externals, yet we should use them or better, instrumentalize them (to use the pragmatist vocabulary again) in order to make our lives better, all the while knowing very well that on many occasions, dependence on these external factors may be risky. It is our wisdom that should be our main operational tool here.

Chapter 4

Activities, Spirituality, and Self-​Therapy Suggesting pragmatism with a “stoic accent” practically means, among other things, that free and rational agents want to bring life “under intelligent and effective human control” (sp 44), and this includes prioritizing agency in particular moments of life—​in daily, ordinary life. Apart from what I presented in the previous chapter about appropriate actions, an agent’s ability to convert everyday occurrences into meaningful moments is an important and complementary part in making life more meaningful. I say “complementary” because these two, actions and activities as they are called below, do not have to be seen as incompatible or contradictory: “At one point we can seek success and at another discover the joys of immediate absorption” (jlpp 15). Our ability to elevate some contingent and seemingly trivial happenings into something meaningful, or more profound, is one of the most effective cost-​free ways of bettering the quality of quotidian life. It not only transcends mediacy into the immediate, it lifts the ordinary into the extraordinary and also offers self-​therapeutic elements. Despite the fact that such phenomena as diverse cultures, the plurality of values, the digital revolution, and contingency all spawn uncertainty and cognitive discomfort in many people, stoic pragmatism sees them pragmatically, as available resources or as possible inspirations for a meaningful life, according to John Dewey’s dictum: “Hindrances must be turned into means” (Dewey 1917, 10). This is not because sp champions these phenomena as such, either contingency or the digital revolution. It does not look forward to their manifestations. They should be bravely and stoically confronted, due to their unavoidability: “If contingency rules the world, we must face it bravely as one of the ultimate facts” (tr 11). Focusing on contingent, present moments is a part of our meaningful life-​oriented strategy. Even so, in some really tedious and uncomfortable circumstances, we are able to self-​ therapeutically inflict a sort of revenge on unfriendly and brutal reality without slipping into deception or self-​illusion: “Even if we have no power to improve our material condition, we can make the terror disappear by reducing the most frightful force to an appearance of itself and savoring it as a glorious or a comically self-​important picture” (ci 81). With the help of philosophy, understood stoically as “a medical art for the soul” we can even try to “become capable of doctoring ourselves”—​to employ Martha Nussbaum’s (1994, 316) translated phrase of Cicero’s Tusculanes (iii, 3.6). We are capable of exercising self-​ therapeutic techniques as part of a self-​treatment strategy. When applied in

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a more profound and systematic manner, our focus on meaningful moments is even converted into a sort of secular spirituality with deeper insight into existential affairs. This specific idea of spirituality has much to do with Santayana’s doctrine of essences, with Dewey’s idea of an experience (Dewey 1934) and, indirectly, with Charles Sanders Peirce’s idea of Firstness (Peirce 1931) as well as with Schopenhauer’s idea of the eternal present (1969 [1818–​1844]) and Goethe’s famous claim (cited by Pierre Hadot in his Philosophy as a Way of Life): “Only the present moment is our happiness” (Hadot 1995, 217). 1

Activities and the Fallacy of Separation

sp claims that there is enough space and enough opportunities for individuals living in contemporary Western culture to arrange their lives in a meaningful way, and that the agency of individuals is the wellspring of resources. One of the ways in which agency reveals its potential is something that we call activity, that is, any deed performed for its own sake as opposed to an action performed to obtain or further an ulterior end (cf. fl 309). The bringing about of the former does not require any “physical object beyond the organs of the body (such as speech making),” while the latter requires “both skilled body parts and external instruments” (Lachs 1985, 6). At this point—​I am coming back to the spectrum of values outlined in Chapter 1—​we need to take a closer look at the difference between values that are instrumental in achieving something and, on the other hand, values that allow us to pause and alter a clear utilitarian application. I recall that according to the original Stoic division, some values are instrumental in doing something else, which is why they have a price, and other values that do not serve further actions and have dignity (the same terminology was used by Kant and Santayana in their own versions of this division). The term action, or appropriate action, discussed in the previous chapter, refers to the former, and the term activity, to be discussed below, refers to the latter. What sp proposes here is the following: we need to overcome something that can be called the “fallacy of separation” (cf. fl 308–​311), that is, the conviction that aiming at the realization of a goal must be different from the goal itself; it may be the case, but it does not have to be so. “Activities are always self-​contained and satisfying, for in them the mediation of achievement through our acts ceases, and means and end are married in a single deed. In this way, we attain immediate contact with our goals” (im 43). If we agree with this characterization, activity is directed at nothing else other than itself, and it might be better understood in following the argument in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book i. He distinguishes between actions

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and activities “in order to call attention to moments of life not broken into means-​ends relations” (jlpp 212). Not being broken into means-​ends relations signifies that while performing activities we avoid something that we frequently employ while performing actions, which is to say intention, which has a realization and effect and consequence. The whole process of carrying out an activity is done as if these three necessary ingredients were realized all at the same time. In this way, these two (actions and activities), are not self-​exclusive and can be meshed in ways similar to cultivating flowers for commercial reasons (action), and from time to time meditating about their beauty and contemplating them without thinking how much profit we derive from cultivating them (activity). To be sure, it is difficult to deprive an activity of any usefulness whatsoever since it is an important part of a meaningful life and, thus, has an instrumental character, at least indirectly. However, its instrumentality is not intentional, does not go beyond a given moment, and does not translate into any achievement or success understood as the realization of a given project, and that is why “this uselessness of activity is the best indication of its great value” (fl 309). To illustrate the action-​activity divide, we can say that such an idea could have its application in the context of a boring work and tedious life. If we ignore terrible and extreme examples of a really dire plight in which some segments of Western societies struggle (e.g., absolute poverty), we also witness that in most cases the sense of meaningfulness is predominantly dependent on our attitude being capable of shifting focus on what we do in terms of actions to be performed by utilitarian criteria, or as activities that do not have an immediate utilitarian character. To this extent, we can say that much depends on us and our attitude towards life, and the things that occur around us: The difference between being a means to some end and simply causing a result is one of intention. In viewing our acts as mediating means, we strip them of their worth and inner meaning. If we shift perspective and let the act be its own end, its efficacy is not at all impaired. It may still cause effects it would be good to have. If it does not, at least we have enjoyed the doing. And if it does, we will not think the act was worthless cost and the waiting for our goal a time of pain and longing. im 41

In contrast to actions, when the realization of the goal is clearly at stake, activities center, theoretically at least, on a deed of any moment without regard to the practical effects external to that deed and those moments. This point is crucial in understanding the totality of the idea of meaningfulness of the moment.

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The Meaningful Moments of the Present

Something that William James (James 1977 [1899]) called “human blindness” can be defined as the “failure to see how others view the world” (sp 88). This seems to be a natural and necessary endowment inherent in the human condition. Among the many types of this failure (of which I write more in the following chapter), here is the place for talking about two of its most lamentable types: the first is being unmindful of the present moment (cf. sp 92), and the second, the inability to see the world in any other terms than as “old and boring” (ibid., 90). This takes place because many of us are preoccupied with either remembering the past or acting with the aims and goals of the future in mind. We rarely focus on the depths of the present moment. The present moment, when “detached from its relations to the future and the past, holds a permanent promise of momentary satisfaction” (sp 36) and, depending on our abilities and tendencies, this satisfaction could lead to a more meaningful perspective. I do not want to claim that we can freely fabricate fantasy and celebrate it as if it were reality. After all, an alcoholic trance or narcotic ecstasy is a momentary elatedness that could be seen as an example to best capture how fantastic our life can be. I am not saying that we openly convert a given, momentary instant into a longer stretch of time: “The delightful absorption doesn’t last—​nothing does. But so long as it fills the mind, it feels free of the temptations and the disappointments of the world” (sp 36). Inattention to the present moment or, as William James put it the “specious present” (James 1890, Chapter 15), is perhaps the most lamentable “blindness,” since it deprives us of activities that are easily realizable without financial cost. To be sure, this type of activity is not effortless, yet the effort is predominantly subjective, without requisite external conditions, something that allows us to pause, perhaps even derive delight from, and deeply reflect on whatever we want. Obviously, being constantly hurried and preoccupied with endless exertions of different sorts does not help us find place and space for such activity. Nevertheless, the possible payoff, to use a utilitarian and pragmatist turn of phrase, could be being able to have a more penetrating look at the surrounding world at given moments, and could provide us with more profound and longer lingering satisfactions in our lives. Such actions would be relatively independent of the plight we might find ourselves in. I am not talking here about escapism, procrastination, or simply giving up on the monotonous and brutal reality as it might seem to us at any given moment. Instead, it would be a technique by means of which one could pause for a while, take a more transparent glance at things or the state of affairs surrounding one, and elevate this very moment to a plane of something special and/​or meaningful:

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Meaning in life is not to be found in the future and the characteristically human malady of trying to find it there leads only to disappointment and despair. Caught between the incompleteness of striving and the essential insufficiency of the possessions which flow from desire and hard work, the future-​directed man lives with a pervasive sense of anxiety and defeat. The symbol of this mode of existence, so widespread in our society, is the grotesque figure of the man who works so hard to provide for his retirement that he dies of a heart attack when he is forty-​two. im 39

And we might pay a price for possible negligence in appreciating the present moments in different forms; namely, the following: And whoever is committed to the future tends to cease to live in the present. Yet it is impossible to live in anything but the present. The person who attempts to live in the future ends by not living at all: his present is saturated with impatience, a sense of worthlessness, a longing for the morrow. His concentration on what is yet to come blinds him to the satisfactions that are possible now. His desire to come closer to his goals makes his present a chamber of horrors. By hastening the passage of the days he wishes his life away. And not only his longing is agonized. im 39

How do we achieve this and why should we try to do it at all? Theoretically speaking, every moment of the process may be converted, at least for a brief moment, into an aim in itself; an aim that is not considered as part of a sequence or a development that requires processing. On some occasions, we can imagine converting a given moment or a state of affairs into something different, by which we could descry another dimension to things by thinking and feeling in a dissimilar, non-​utilitarian, state of being. For example, this transpires when truck drivers admire the landscape through which they are traveling (I was impressed to watch yt clips made by some truck drivers describing this). Neither scenic landscapes nor an admiration for them is a part of the job, yet both can turn the monotonous work into something more meaningful, interesting, and joyful. This thing, or a state of affairs, need not be exotic, sensational, or unusual, like a landscape we typically would ascribe to tourist brochures capturing vacation scenes in a distant land, where we intentionally pause working and relax for a longer period of time. Such spectacular moments cannot be experienced all the time, and such moments are difficult to attain on a regular basis either because most of us cannot afford it or, even if

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we could, the whole thing, sooner or later, becomes boring and trite. In a case like this, sp proposes thinking about our regular lives, looking for such unique moments amidst the pedestrian things we do daily, and trying to descry something special in the given present moments as they are. This seems to be a bona fide effective strategy in the whole economy of a good and meaningful life. To have access to meaningful moments on a regular, even daily basis, rather than on rare and special occasions, is a luxury within our grasp. We can focus our attention on almost anything and view it as separate from the process that leads to a realization of some definite aim. I say “almost anything” because, in practice, these deeds and these moments must somehow be selected according to the potential they have to evince certain emotions in us, to stimulate our imagination, to activate our memories, and to furnish us with impressions unavailable elsewhere. For example, a beautiful landscape or breathtaking view of an architectural masterpiece is more sated with inspirational material for making us pause and remaining still for a more prolonged look, than an ordinary view of some barren and arid area would be. To provide another example, a loving relationship, ours or someone else’s whom we know, most probably is more significant and meaningful to us than a stale one of someone we do not know. Similarly, a dynamic lifestyle may offer us deeper insights than a boring one, although not always. As an example, those who practice a solitary, cloistered type of spirituality would disagree by claiming that in a cloistered life, a monk or a nun, glimpses God’s omnipresent, miraculous interventions as always indisputable in contemplation. We need not realize actions separately, or understand activities as playing out in two distinct realms of operation, as, for instance, a professional life (actions) and, separately, a hobby or recreation (activities). It means, to keep with this example, to be able to convert some aspects of professional life into hobbies or recreation so that we descry beautiful or suggestive elements apart from their utilitarian or instrumental function, making our job more harmonious. The same can be done with our non-​professional lives, and with our relationships with loved ones. As such, the potential of particular moments (situations, states of affairs) is ascertained by the power of the subjective conditions of our agency, which consists of a vivid imagination and sensitivity to aesthetic constituents. Thanks to these we are able to experience the natural beauty in the world at large and non-​illusory excitement surrounding us. It is a vital part of our activities to have and to develop finer subjective calibers (like imagination and sensitivity), and to be more attuned to what occurs around us. If these subjective calibers of our own agency chance upon objective, not illusory, latencies of interesting segments of surrounding life, we have what we need to be able to recognize

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that “somewhere around us, life is always in flower; if we can focus on that and see it as our own, a measure of delight can take the place of pain” (ll 34). If we have not developed this subjective capacity, the possibility of taking in good and beautiful things surrounding one are limited, like the reception of great books is reduced for those who can barely read. Apart from the number of sources, there is something peerless in the history of philosophy, the liberal arts, and the humanities as a whole, that teaches us to be able to perceive and become absorbed in present, meaningful moments. These sources give us insights into a spectrum of perspectives and a plurality of views that bolster the development of the imagination, which is “a vital organ of the moral life” (M 46). They are also nutrition for expansive, growing minds. The development of these two subjective modes of our potentiality (mind and imagination) is especially important because a key value of philosophy “lies in expanding our minds by developing imaginative new ways of looking at things and in sharpening our critical skills by offering rigorous objections to every theory” (fl 289). In different contexts, different people, possessing singular minds and sensitivities, as well as disparate attitudes and approaches, rarely enjoy unanimity of mind as to the possibilities of living. This does not degrade the efforts of others to unearth common moral platforms for all of humankind. Each of them carries through with efforts to develop visions, criticisms, and ways of making lives happy and socially fruitful within necessary limits for cooperative activities, interhuman relations, and communal well-​being. Claiming that “letting others pursue their goods according to their own lights is a vital condition of autonomy” (M 8) means, among other things, that other philosophers’ thoughts are articulations of other frames of reference, and this is quite valuable. 3

Joy

What is the role of having pleasure during those special moments? Are they compatible with having a good time and, if so, is it not the hedonistic motif that makes these moments significant in life? In the first place, we need to differentiate between pleasure and joy. In the common vernacular these two are often used interchangeably, but in the philosophical tradition there are subtle differences. In most versions of hedonism, pleasure (hēdonē) is understood as the highest good for individuals and, accordingly, the hedonistic tradition recommends a pleasure-​oriented lifestyle as the vehicle for a good life. sp entertains reservations about it, especially if we have in mind pleasures that can be reached by means of having access to, and consuming and appropriating

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external goods. The cardinal reason for this reservation is that it promotes a structural dependence on these external and hard-​to-​control goods. sp is especially critical of one of the most popular manifestations of contemporary hedonism, hyper-​consumerism. This focuses on having access to superficial pleasures and temporary satisfactions. It is critical of it because by focusing on pleasure, irresponsibility may be the end result, and if one totes commitments, public or private, in one’s life, they could suffer. Life deprived of positive emotions is not really a life at all, and it does not make much sense to live a life without some hedonistic digressions. A life devoid of smiles and satisfactions would have been a misfortune even for the historical Stoics who, actually, understood joy (chara, gaudium) as one of the good feelings (eupatheia) that a wise person acquires in life. In sp, joy, defined as “as state of mind unburdened by attention to means-​ends relations,” is “the spontaneous, that is self-​generated, condition of liberated minds” (jlpp 149). What sp recommends is learning to grasp the joy in things in a more satisfying way, in two aspects. The first is the accessibility of joy in ordinary situations, and the second, the rewarding power of joy that goes beyond the momentary and fleeting. A “joyous absorption in the present” (ci 78) can be a welcome additive to activities that make the present moment meaningful. These two are not identical, for it is easy to show that both can be had separately from each other. For example, one can experience joy over things that have nothing to do with activities and, on the other hand, one can engage in activities that turn one pensive, even sad. Nonetheless, if these two overlap each other, a given present moment can afford us additional rewarding dimensions. It is our attitudes that make the biggest difference, because it is our attitudes and the attention to what we have around us that move us closer to immediacy and its joy: This center, the present where reality reveals itself, is the source of energy and the home of a love that knows no longing. In exploring it, we trace the geography of joy and receive the lesson that the incommunicable doesn’t need to be communicated because it is shared. Enjoyment of the present does not take the place of understanding the past and planning for the future. It completes the circle of human life by offering something that can stand on its own and whose value, though not whose existence, escapes the grave. sp 40

There is inconsistency between the stoic type of meditation and the Epicurean, and also between stoic pragmatism and a hedonistic type of enjoyment.

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Interestingly, the same dilemma has been discussed by Hadot concerning Goethe’s idea of the happiness in the present moment (cf. Hadot 1995, 230nn), and something similar can also be found in case of Santayana’s idea of essences that are objects of spiritual life without which happiness (eudaimonia) is impossible. If we take these theoretical considerations away, and focus on the practical side, we can reach the following deduction: the skill or capacity to elevate an ordinary moment to the level of something extraordinary, without specific reference to a realization of the (appropriate) action, results in a source for joy. This is not the reason why we should explore the present moment. If we wanted to explore the present moment because of the joy that such exploration could afford, then we could assume a hedonistic attitude in this exploration. This would be instrumental to our experiencing a sense of joy and, perhaps, pleasure and satisfaction: The means to what we want is always some action; yet the more our actions serve as only means, the more we lose our one sure source of joy. In an existence firmly guided by purposes, then, we find our actions interposed between our longing selves and what we want to be. The actions mediate our dreams and move us toward the objects of desire. But they also separate us from our true life, from the warmth and joy of immediate achievement and from the glow of spontaneity. im 40

4

Self-​Therapy

The ability to ascertain the extraordinary in ordinary present moments may have, additionally, self-​therapeutic effects. The therapeutic element involved here is not exclusively the equivalent of a pill to be taken to reduce pain, anger, or discomfort; rather it is a regular diet, everyday hygiene, and a routine, perhaps boring at moments, crowned by a healthy lifestyle that guides us in living well. In moments of trouble, it helps us overcome tempting immoderate indulgences. It reduces a negative impact. It has much to do with the art of living that Hadot famously wrote about when referring to the ancient way of practicing philosophy: “It is a concrete attitude and determinate lifestyle, which engages the whole of existence. … It is a progress that causes us to be more fully, and makes us better” (Hadot 1995, 83). A joyful engagement in the present moment is not, as some may claim, idle free time for the wealthy or economically privileged who do not have to work, and have far too much idle time to relax and search for new impressions.

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On the contrary, it is a strategic response in confronting reality, including hardships and setbacks. We can even claim that it is as necessary as mental hygiene and physical health. Everyone should enjoy a quality life independent of its material dimension: “Not only meaning in life but even sanity requires that from time to time the rush recede and permit the inner voice to sing. These are the moments when everything feels right, when silence flowers and the wounded soul is healed” (sp 38). That is why we call it therapy and self-​ therapy rather than vacation or leisure. This self-​therapeutic dimension does not end here, and there are some other satisfactory (and cost-​free) tools that can be accessed separately. One of them could be called negative visualization in plain English. It refers to the method that Roman Stoics (Seneca’s Letters, lxxvi) recommended as a protective armor against possible troubles. The idea was to try to imagine the worst possible scenario of a given situation that could expect to occur and, in this way, reduce the impact of a possible sudden blow when something does in fact go wrong. The assumption is that a setback is far more disruptive for us the more it is unexpected. We can prepare for the worse by imagining it as real, and experiencing something as happening, though not really happening. We lose control over things that challenge us in a problematic way, or hurt us unexpectedly. To alleviate the pain and the undesired consequences of a misfortunate event, we can use our imagination and experience to visualize any possible unfortunate course of action and prepare ourselves for coping with it beforehand. This is a method “to regularly focus on potentially bad scenarios, repeating to yourself that they are not in fact as bad as they may seem, because you have the inner resources to deal with them” (Pigliucci 2017, 151). The objective is pragmatic, preparing ourselves for the most extreme crisis, and generates a positive relief, a sense of victory, even gratitude when this worst-​case scenario, although counterfactually possible, has not occurred. It is not painting reality in dark colors as some critics might shout out. Actually, it is viewing the world in bright colors by imagining that the world could have been black and grey and (alas!) fortunately, it is not. What is, then, the connection between negative visualization with meaningful present moments? To be sure, negative visualization can be had independently, as a self-​therapeutic exercise, but also may be joined with an even more joyful appreciation of the present moment when we realize that the black scenario has not materialized and, relieved, we take a more appreciative look at what surrounds us. Then we feel a spontaneous joy in things that surround us and even try to search for something that reveals a deeper significance embedded in the world. We are able to initiate something that some

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people would call a spiritual life. Below I explain more what spirituality signifies in the context of sp. 5

A Transcendence-​in-​Experience Spirituality

Apart from what I have written already, we can also discuss activities by which we are able to transform a given moment into a meaningful moment. Additionally, we can locate these moments in the context of a spiritual life. It is possible to transform them into something that corresponds to a spiritual, or higher awareness of mind, whose realization makes our lives more complete. Why are we talking here about a spirituality of the everyday, and not about the spirituality that comes from great metaphysical systems or the most widespread traditional religions in the Western tradition? Because we are talking about a non-​religious moment. And just because sp does not refer to any religion and maintains a secular worldview, it does not mean that spirituality cannot play its part. Lachs confirms this: “It may be the only spirituality open to nonreligious people, though it is probably the same spiritual experience religious people interpret in religious terms” (sp 37). sp recognizes that contemporary Western culture is mostly secular, and proposes secular responses and affirmations. It acknowledges questions about God and religion in the same manner that humanists and pragmatists have done so, which is by stating that humans are unable to have knowledge about God. sp, although deprived of theology, affirms that spirituality is an indelible ingredient of a good and meaningful life. This type of spirituality does not transport us into some otherworldly metaphysical realm of reality, as sp’s naturalist ontology excludes this. This spirituality can uncover a deeper and more complex dimension of the natural world, including its cosmic vastness and beauty, so that “if only we opened our souls to the world, we would find ourselves surrounded by beauty” (ci 78). Descrying beauty has subjective conditions, presumptions, such as imagination and sensibility, and there are also objective conditions, independent of our individual perception, allowing us to ferret out breathtaking beauties in certain circumstances. and at given present moments. There are simply out there some realities that are more charming, and some that are less charming or not charming at all, in the same way as there are more spectacular panoramic views and more spectacular mountain ranges that give us pause, especially when openly sensitive to such things. Concerning this, sp is parallel to Santayana’s idea of spiritual life, encapsulated in the following claim: “This world has a spiritual life possible in it, which looks not to another world but

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to the beauty and perfection that this world suggests, approaches, and misses” (Santayana 1940, 279). Attention paid to certain things that occur around us, bracketing temporarily past and future, corresponds to what Hadot writes about Stoic spirituality: “Stoicism will insist on the effort needed to pay attention to oneself, the joyous acceptance of the present moment imposed on us by fate” (Hadot 1995 [1988], 69). However, there is a big but involved, which is that spirituality has a direct reference to experience within a naturalistic framework: “Transcendence today is the search not for a reality beyond the everyday but for a value of unquestioned finality in daily life” (ci 75). Although the term transcendence calls out a metaphysical or religious connotation, in sp it embodies a naturalistic dimension, since nothing supernatural, or transcendental in the Kantian sense, is at stake here. Nothing ontologically hidden or obscured can be cognitively discovered, but perhaps the natural, commonly unnoticed beauty of innumerous and spectacular things surrounding us tilts us toward the spiritual. Terms like “beautiful” and “spectacular” are not used in a conventional sense. We are referring here to phenomena whose uniqueness is open to sensitive and self-​aware individuals, as in the case of the color-​sensitive painter who feels himself or herself incredibly fortunate to notice a breathtakingly, irreplaceable combination of colors in the afternoon sky, for a split second. This very moment, never to be replicated in the future, is a pure joy in the moment. However, this very moment can be remembered or recalled innumerable times in the memory of this artist, conferring on him or her an intuitive sense that existence is enriched by the moments. Perhaps, in the stillness of a spell of quiet and peace, the artist will want to hearken back to the memory, and even with something similar welling up within, the experience will not be identical. Nevertheless, let me repeat, the uniqueness of a given special moment is not its most important characteristic. More important is the awareness that we can access such moments on regular basis and, in this way, always hold out the possibility of something more vital, more edifying. Having stated this, we must admit that it is not always easy to describe such moments. This is because language as such is a mediator that encodes these difficult experiences and, for the most part, captures them (freezes them) into language, understood as a public mode of communication. Thus, the difficulties of rendering such moments in an acquired, for the most part, social inheritance: Language is crucial, then, for human life. But it functions at the cost of a great loss in immediacy. The person to whom I attempt to convey my feelings gets but a pallid copy of what I live and breathe. The more accurate the description, in fact, the cooler it is, the less it engages the feelings.

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A precise, clinical description of one’s pain may be of scientific interest and intellectual value. But it has little immediacy: it does not motivate us to sense or feel or do. An inarticulate scream, by contrast, evokes alarm and sympathy. What it lacks in specificity it makes up for by the way it shakes us into empathetic action. im 53–​54

Is the transcendence-​in-​experience that sp recommends a sort of religion? The answer to this question is unequivocal and clear. It is not religion and cannot be, at least in the traditional understanding of this term, because it has no theology, no theory of the divine, no dogmas, no rituals, no ecclesiastical structure, no ministers, and no expectation about having dedicated believers. Instead, it is a human possibility that promotes inspirations, what commonly is called spirituality. What it provides is a modicum of the spiritual life that makes our everyday life more profound, more replete with reflection on existential questions. These existential issues refer to life itself, to experiencing present moments in their specific time perspective. Spirituality, in one of its numerous aspects, offers “the privileges of spectatorship, of taking joy in seeing the contest from a great distance or under the form of eternity” (tr 86). Eternity? This term, so central in Santayana’s idea of spirituality, in which the idea of viewing things from the perspective of the eternal (sub specie aeternitatis), is highly important. This Santayanan absorption-​in-​the-​present-​moment spirituality (sp 143) refers to a somewhat pictorial, kaleidoscopic, momentary, even impressionistic glance at things already known, but lived anew from an unknown perspective—​exactly as some impressionist painters did when they painted an object, the same landscape for example, from various perspectives and at various times of the day, with different degrees of sun illumination. They descried possible variations of the same objects, by going back, again and again, to investigate unique and unrepeatable moments. If drafted into the sp context, the kind of subjective activity would become an everyday ability to see things and matters in certain perspectives, as if eternally frozen, which would make seeing ordinary things something spectacular. And this everyday experience, this activity would take on an aspect of transcendence: “This is transcendence of this care-​laden life—​an embrace of whatever there is that, though imprisoned in the moment, touches eternity” (sp 39). Transcendence in this sense becomes an absorption in the present moment that is timeless rather that short, and kept in memory as an image that can be revisited later on, distinct from other images and other absorptions in present moments, according to Santayana’s dictum that “eternity, taken intrinsically, has nothing to do with time, but is a form of being which time cannot usher in

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nor destroy; it is always equally real, silent, and indestructible, no matter what time may do, or what time it may be” (Santayana 1923, 112). Understood like this, absorption in the present moment as well as momentary absorption in those revisited images or impressions can be a priceless reward in the spiritual life that makes life fuller, without futilely attempting to discover absolutes—​a momentary diversification of life, intensifying its profundity and more often than not a fortunate contribution to the quality of life. 6

Is Religion Irrelevant?

In the West, for centuries, Christianity dominated the public sphere by furnishing a comprehensive vision of human life, from birth to the grave (and even after) and its fuller meaning. It was successively absorbed by humanism, the Enlightenment, by science and technology, then democracy and other sociocultural phenomena that rejected deities and the Almighty. In our present-​day, advanced secularization in the contemporary West, there have been many efforts to establish thoroughgoing secular substitutions, be it an institutionalized replacement for ecclesiastical organizations with civil services or some societal movements that form semi-​religious communal cults, not to mention the numerous groups that function on sectarian principles. Also, philosophers and philosophies of different stripes show ambition in this regard: for example, sixteenth century neo-​Stoicism was characterized as “a kind of Christian philosophy for non-​believers” (Miller 2002, 148) and Santayana openly claimed that his philosophical system of thought was “a lay religion” (Santayana 1940, 273). American pragmatists, especially William James and Josiah Royce, recognized the profound role of religion in life, both in private and in public, amidst a new, post-​metaphysical cultural context. James thought of it as an individual experience, and Royce more as “community-​dependent in its depth-​structure” (Nagl 2021, 159). There are even voices claiming that the historical Stoics and the modern pragmatists have much in common in understanding the public role of religion. For example, “Cicero was a convinced atheist, but thought religion and belief in the Olympians played a vital part in promoting social stability. Long before William James, the Romans had invented the pragmatic argument for religion” (McLynn 2010 [2009], 228). Small wonder, then, that it is William James’s argument for religion reworded here. In some passages of his Varieties of Religious Experience, he presents a view not incompatible with the Stoical view on the divine: “We must interpret the term ‘divine’ very broadly, as denoting any object that is god—​l ike, whether it be a concrete deity or not” (James

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2009 [1902], 30). And, deliberating on the possible link between the earthly and the heavenly: “The divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions” (James 2009 [1902], 369). Such claims are not contradictory to some Stoic claims and to the modern stoic claims about religion. As an example: “To a Stoic, it ultimately does not matter if we think the Logos is God or Nature, as long as we recognize that a decent human life is about the cultivation of one’s character and concern for other people (and even for Nature itself)” (Pigliucci 2017, 10–​11). Stoic pragmatists may be justified in ascertaining ambitions to apply their philosophy in at least one function that religions exercised in the past, and that is to offer answers to the questions that religions used to offer answers. Stoic pragmatists try to fashion an individual vision of the world, along with making sense of one’s own place in it, while providing us, individual agents, with answers to the questions that religions frequently put forward, especially about the meaning of life. Does this mean, consequently, that sp understands organized and established religion as something incidental? Is religion irrelevant, and thereby expendable? There are different ways of understanding the term irrelevance, and, in the context of a good and meaningful life, none of them implies that institutionalized religion does not matter at all. Independently of the discussion of whether religions and their dogmas refer to objective reality, religions have always had a great significance as cultural matrices for offering orientation in the lives of their devotees, also a sense of their identity, and consolation for millions of believers and those who do not believe, yet in moments of distress or a menacing threat, seek help in religious communities (texts, priests, rituals). Religion establishes and gives stability to social, moral, and oftentimes political dimensions of public life. Indeed, religions may have an immense significance for populations today, as they did in the past. It should be added that this significance is neither absolute nor everlasting, and depends on the given stage of development of a given culture. Nonetheless, it is possible, and perhaps even necessary, to interpret religions as forms of culture, at least in countries where religions have monopolized the tentacles of public life to such a degree that religion and culture seem inseparable. The characterization of the term culture (as proposed in Chapter 1) is a more or less established way of living and thinking of a given group of people, and this includes religion. We need to include religions in our reflections and considerations about the multicultural diversity of contemporary life in the West and, in all honesty, everywhere else. For example, a highly secularized culture in the West will have different points of view on how to interpret a meaningful life than Muslim countries with Islam, Muslim

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communities living in the West, even countries like Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and Greece with a strong Christian influence. Without dealing with theological questions here, we should be taking under advisement cultural eventualities, or rather intercultural exchanges of arguments, about the shape and future of our public life in common. For example, there was a pronounced condemnation of pragmatism by Pope John Paul ii, who, before becoming the Pope, was a professor of philosophy at Poland’s most prestigious Catholic university. In the encyclic Fides and Ratio we read the following: “No less dangerous is pragmatism, an attitude of mind which, in making its choices, precludes theoretical considerations or judgments based on ethical principles” (John Paul ii 1998, sect. 89). The Pontiff even accuses pragmatists of an uncritical promotion of democracy: “In particular there is growing support for a concept of democracy which is not grounded upon any reference to unchanging values” (ibid.). As a result, he continues, we have “a one‐dimensional vision of the human being, a vision which excludes the great ethical dilemmas and the existential analyses of the meaning of suffering and sacrifice, of life and death” (ibid.). We may wryly dismiss such criticism from the debate as pledging a theological, religious type of argumentation. However, we can also affirm that such argumentation is proper or adequate for certain types of religious traditions or religious cultures and, in this way, includes religions in the circle of cultures, discussing their claims and accepting or rejecting them. By viewing religions as relevant forms of cultural life, we do two things: first, we become more inclusive in our recognition of the importance of the ways in which some (religious) people live and think; and, second, we can include in our outlooks and viewpoints those elements of religious cultures that fortify us, making us more attentive to aspects of life that require answers if we want to live as thoughtful agents. Yes, religion is culturally important even when we, ourselves, are not religious persons. I will develop the relation between agents and cultures, secular and religious, in the following chapter.

Chapter 5

A Meaningful Life as a Collective Culture Project The goal of the present chapter is to establish possible relations between a meaningful life, which is most often associated with an individual and, on the other hand, culture, understood collectively as a socially established way of living and thinking. Although both are interdependent in various ways and both stimulate each other, it is the former’s contribution to the latter that is my concern here. That pragmatism emphasizes sociopolitical contexts of individual life is no surprise given the abundant efforts of some of its classical figures to examine this relation, especially George Herbert Mead and John Dewey. The Stoics had a notorious reputation of being egocentric individuals indifferent to what happened around them. Against the current of conventional thinking—​ perhaps due to the commonly misunderstood terms of apathy, autarky, and ataraxia (tranquility) that Stoics were cold individualists indifferent to the fate of others—​they actually did engage in social and cultural issues. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca were the most notable examples. They did consider social contexts, and some of the crucial ideas of their doctrines have a strong cultural, public, and sociopolitical character. To these ideas belonged oikeiôsis, already discussed, and kosmopolitēs, initiated by the Cynics (Diogenes), further developed by the Stoics, and recently updated by Santayana. These ideas refer to social aspects of purposive actions, in the strong sense of Marcus Aurelius’s claim that “rational beings exist for one another” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, iv, 3) and of his dictum: “Care for other human beings” (ibid., vii, 31). In reality, all Stoics seemed to agree that there was an important role to play for a virtuous, decent man in society, which is the natural ambience for each of us to live in and thrive in (cf. Kenny 2010, 82). The temptation for stoic pragmatists to wed these two sources together and formulate a concept centering on a meaningful life individually considered, and at the same time strengthening it by giving it a public and cultural significance, is an inspiring one. 1

The Meaningful Life as a Meliorative Contribution to Collective Culture

An agent’s appropriate actions and activities, as well as the individual undergoing a cultivation of the mind, contribute to culture understood as an established way of living for a large group of people. Such a claim does not

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undermine or discredit the role of the cultural ambience in which the individual agent is born into, becomes acculturated, and from which s/​he develops many existential points of reference. We first imbibe and appropriate some cultural sources in order to be able, later on, to contribute to the collective culture. For example, a renowned author of books learns first, as a child, the mother tongue that years later s/​he will contribute to with original pieces of literary art written in that language. In this way, the individual contributes to the collective culture. However, a given agent’s cultural contribution is neither obligatory nor obvious. Not everyone adds value to the collective culture. Nevertheless, sp prioritizes one side of this relationship between the individual and the social environment. Stoic pragmatists know very well that focusing on agency is only a part of the picture of how an individual relates to the cultural environment, yet they do it for good reasons. They evoke the role of the individual agent in using his or her energy, potential, intelligence, experience, and wisdom to be able to state things in public life without being discouraged by possible predictions about negative feedbacks or unanticipated results. We should not forget that during all the time we go on about a melioristic dimension to this relationship, there is a slim chance that, unfortunately, our contribution to the collective culture could have a negative effect. In some cases, we could spread our frustration, unhappiness, and sense of impotence. Spreading confusion, harm, and toxicity deteriorates the quality of the lives of others, most painfully in the case of our families (our children most of all), and transmitting cultural impotence to future generations goes against sp and its melioristic ambitions. On a positive note, trying to construct our own lives as meaningful does not equate to ignoring external contexts. For example, public opinion. We have all been, throughout our upbringing and education, under various sorts of influences from external sources. This does not preclude us from doing our best in attempting to impact others independently of the predictable success or impotence of our efforts. Especially so in the case of influencing others in a way that turns out not to be our aim, but rather a consequence of our appropriate actions. We select aspects of culture that inspire us—​for example, Stoicism, pragmatism, Santayana, humanism, and the Polish and Eastern/​ Central European philosophical tradition in my case—​and grant them priority over others. Such a selection has a circular character because we—​I in this case—​choose traditions that have already been established in culture. We utilize elements of cultural obtainability to make our lives meaningful. Next, recognizing the result, which is our own meaningful life, could be another contribution in furtherance of cultural life. Of course, there are eminent figures in the history of culture whose original impact is enormously profound and

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lasting, and some of them, thanks to their genius, revolutionized our communal way of thinking and even, in some cases, our way of living. Let me continue with the agent-​towards-​the-​public direction of action (oikeiôsis), as outlined in Chapter 2. To be sure, an intention to secure an impact on cultural life is fraught with risk, for we transgress the zone of external contexts. We practically obviate losing our control over our actions when we redefine our utilitarian intention and decide that having an impact should not be our principal motivation. Rather, it can be a side effect, so to speak, an unintended consequence, of our efforts to perform appropriate actions and activities. After all, the process extends outwards, starting with our own attitude towards life and our own doings, which is central for us. At the same time, the scale of the agent’s impact on the public may be many-​sided in scale and degree. It just might begin with a parent showing a child that life is worth living against all apparent odds. It might move through an unrecorded influence of a schoolteacher sharing with students meaningful moments, and it could end up being a public figure having international audiences (more about public figures in Chapter 6). Much depends on the power that results from our involvement or lack thereof in this or that institutionalized mode of public life. Our ideas are listened to and heard more clearly when we function within strong institutions. For example, being a part of a prestigious university rather than a secondary college in a faraway country. The present book will have more visibility thanks to the strength of my publishing house and to the fact that is has been written in the most important language globally, which is English. Its importance is so widespread that English is also the language of instruction for me at my Polish university. Obviously, the power of our ideas also will depend on the specific content of the ideas to be transmitted to others. However, and most important here, it is not everyone’s obligation to dedicate their energies, ambitions, and skills to shape public life, as it is not everyone’s lot to deal with a meaningful life in a reflective, pensive lifestyle. But one may ask, What exactly would be the main contribution of meaningful life-​oriented actions for cultural life understood collectively, apart from generating serious texts (and serious videos or serious podcasts) that would stimulate others to think and remodel their lives into meaningful lives? For stoic pragmatists, the most natural entrance into social activity would be teaching, political advising, or public speaking, all which could offer suggestions about living our lives in a meaningful way. Oftentimes, these types of action can be performed separately—​and I describe them separately below and in the following chapter—​and sometimes, they can be done all at once, according to the following recommendation:

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Teaching the young involves activities that pull in different directions: the culture’s practices and values must be handed on, but they must also be criticized and suitably revised. In doing the former, teachers act as servants of the past, giving a favorable account of the fruits of long experience. In doing the latter, they labor for the future, presenting ideas for how our practices can be improved. The first activity is centered on sketching the geography of what exists and explaining the rules governing it; the second is about the ways the possible can bring improvement to the actual. The first without the second yields stagnation; the second without the first creates chaos. When properly related, the two preserve what is of value from the past even as they encourage active dreaming about a better future. sp 84

2

Humanistic Rhetoric

Before I say more about the role of teaching, allow me to mention the role of rhetoric that sp brings to bear. sp intentionally uses the vocabulary taken from the tradition of humanistic rhetoric. It embraces the classical, the naturalistic, and secular narratives. Also concepts such as dignity, humanism, reason, wisdom, responsibility (duty), and, at the same time, classical pragmatist vocabulary that expounds such terms as pluralism, value, culture, to show its universalist or cosmopolitan scope (at least in the Western context). It does not make allowance for religious types of narratives that place hope in the divine arrangement of the world’s affairs, according to theocentric claims such as we find in Augustine’s Confessions: “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee” (Augustine 1999, i, 1). Nor does it refer to Marxist categories, popular today, such as oppression, supremacy, and victimhood. It does not condone polarizing tendencies that are so often employed currently, espousing types of bellicose vocabulary and confrontational narratives. sp rhetoric sides much more with Marcus Aurelius’s directive: “Work: Not to rouse pity, not to win sympathy or admiration. Only this: Activity. Stillness. As the logos of the state requires” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, ix, 12). Another version of this quote sounds even more powerful: “Work yourself hard, but not as if you were being made a victim, and not with any desire for sympathy or admiration. Desire one thing alone: that your actions or inaction alike should be worthy of a reasoning citizen” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 141).

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sp is not in agreement with the most recent populism and neo-​tribalistic class of narratives, frequently found in social media, which highlight division and the polarization of groups of people against other groups of people as the very axis of argumentation. For example, sp’s rhetoric shuns victimhood, both as a political category, as a psychological tool regulating one’s relation with the external world, and as a moral tool to deal with injustice. There is solid logic behind this. Roughly speaking, it goes like this. The recognition of one’s singularity (know yourself), as well as that of others (humanism), disallows stoic pragmatists to immerse uncritically in a surrounding culture or cultural fashions. It impedes them from falling into victimization narratives about their fate. At bottom, it is our own choice to collapse or not to collapse into victimhood narratives, standing up to our human blindness and the limited perspectives we can secure. In the long run, victimization debilitates us. It especially imperils youth who are more fragile and impressionable, in general, when facing obstacles. Apart from obvious examples, when we indeed deal with victims of crimes, wars, accidents, being a moral “victim” these days, more often than not, relieves you of responsibility for many of the aspects of your life that have gone wrong. It also entitles you to special treatment: victims need time and space in which to recover and maybe even some kind of monetary compensation. At the same time, though, playing the role of victim is likely to increase the anguish you experience as the result of the wrongs that are done to you. You will feel emotionally helpless. A resilient person will refuse to play the role of victim. To play this role is to invite pity, and she doesn’t regard herself as a pitiful being. She is strong and capable. She may not be able to control whether she is a target of injustice, but she has considerable control how she responds to being targeted. irvine 2019, 61–​62

sp eschews the nationalist type of narrative that centers around the role of a given nation or an ethnic group. When a comparison of cultures (present and past) is made, the objective is to frame mentally the scale of opportunities for making our lives meaningful. The themes of cultural diversity and the pluralism of values are not brought into consideration to divide people, but to empower people in their meaning-​oriented activities and actions, independent of their backgrounds. sp’s focusing on contemporary Western culture is not done as a way of disregarding non-​Western cultures, in the same way as discussing digital culture does not mean disregarding non-​digital cultures, or focusing on a Ciceronian type of culture does not set it against non-​Ciceronian types of culture.

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Contemporary Western culture, understood as an operational framework for stoic pragmatists, only stresses the fact that in Western culture the opportunities to realize meaningful aims are more accessible for a major slice of the population than anywhere else on the planet, and stoic pragmatists recommend recognizing this, honestly and without chagrin. By no means is sp’s narrative directed against anyone, or any culture or subculture. sp’s humanistic rhetoric is not intended to have a polarizing effect, in creating a divisive splash. Instead, it accentuates the positivity of our internal potential: skills, talents, and reasoning. It does not employ the narrative of conflicts and altercations among states, nations, ideologies, sexes, genders, races, communities, generations, social classes, and others. When bellicose terminology is used at all, it is only in the positive sense of fighting and laboring for the good and meaningful life, against obstacles and intentional obstructions. Indeed, sp pays attention to the effort, even the fortitude, that needs to be exercised realizing goals. 3

Teaching as a Cultural Project: Positive Pluralism, Appropriate Choices, and Role Models

With teaching and instruction of whatever form, the problem of clashing philosophical or cultural positions is far less important than dealing with what lies behind particular positions. The priority is locating where the path towards fulfilled and happy human beings is to be found. From this point of view, teaching has a much greater importance than mental immersions in specialized philosophical puzzles and problems: “If contributing to the growth of human beings is its ultimate aim, teaching is a sacred activity” (ci 18). We need not take too seriously particular isms of philosophy and culture, be it pragmatism, Stoicism, existentialism, Marxism, transcendentalism, feminism, or capitalism. Fascism, Nazism, communism, and nihilism are necessary exceptions though, for they help define ourselves as what we are not. Feeling at home with what we have or could have at the moment does not mean that we should forget about cultural development, social changes, political reforms, and economic growth. Individuals who are involved in academic life, or another educational enterprise, have more obligations toward melioration and reform, for “people search blindly for a worthy life. Few see reason for life-​giving self-​control. It is simply intolerable that a profession with the potential to help in such matters should stand idly by in the academy” (sp 22–​23). Accordingly, I outline three types of action that stoic pragmatist professors, instructors, or teachers may want to perform if the occasion allows.

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Positive Pluralism. The term positive pluralism stresses that sp links pluralism with its normative dimension in order to signal “not just the toleration of diversity but also its encouragement” (fl 17). It is, however, a hazardous thing to encourage responsibly diverse and pluralist forms of a good and meaningful life since some of these forms may turn out to be catastrophic for any one given person, especially when young, and when placed uncritically into practice. After all, teaching refers to imparting knowledge to individuals (students) who have less experience, less knowledge, and probably more trust in what teachers have to share. Positivity towards pluralism justifies talking about different assemblages of values, for example, family life or privileged social status, to which certain sectors of people are dedicated in their efforts to make life better for themselves. At the same time, it may indicate that there are many changeable variants, or conditions, that contribute to outbreaks of a good life and self-​actualization. To take a practical example: we just cannot claim, in an absolutist tone, that “the family life is a worthy way of making life better,” because it has to be added immediately that such a state of things depends on numerous factors, economic and societal to begin with. After all, the generally low economic status of women and lack of social support is a frequent argument for abortion, or the right—​negative freedom, to use Isaiah Berlin’s phrase (Berlin 1969 [1958])—​of women to refuse to carry through a pregnancy, even for not having families, understood in the tradition sense. Stated differently, family life, when lived out in trying economic and social conditions, can make existence a vale of tears and not worth that much of anything, which means that family life in itself is not a value in these circumstances. It could become valuable if and when such circumstances changed. Another dimension referring to positive pluralism is in the question, What does family life mean? From the pluralist viewpoint, the phrase refers to many, not one (traditional) way of understanding the entity involved. On the other hand, positive pluralism does not mean the promotion of an unlimited anarchy of values, or treating incommensurable values on equal terms, such as in the context of their possible implementation into the practice of life. There are limits and some priorities in having this solution rather than that one. Social practice is one of the most serious and reliable testing grounds. For example, if we view individualism as a value and care to promote subjectively defined goods, we risk depreciating communal values or the common good at the price of an anarchism, radical or tempered, of individual positions and subjectivist opinions. Unless of course we want to state that our common good is to be free to define subjectively, each of us in our own way, what is good for us. An anarchistic approach often does not play out well, as the

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covid pandemic has shown most patently. Suddenly, in the face of a common danger, the majority of populations became motivated to follow governmental recommendations about a health strategy, and motives to enforce discipline grew. This is even more so the case with a violent upheaval, like war. The recent Ukrainian example reveals this incontestably. In such cases, individual freedoms and subjective assessments need to be subsumed under the umbrella interest of the group as a whole who are fighting for their existential survival. If our pro-​social predilections stem from the assumption that individually identified values are derivative and secondary to the values that our society or culture recognizes as values, then we can justifiably entertain reservations about those positions and attitudes that do not contribute to the enhancement and strengthening of a community’s life. In this sense of the term, pluralism is not nor ever should be pluralistic, so to speak, or ad infinitum in public and social reality, so as not to turn into suicidal anarchism. Apart from the positive pluralism understood as the promotion of thinking about innumerable paths that lead to a good and meaningful life, we have the plurality of goods, services, and ideas that alter life for the better, or worse. Mulling over this dimension of positive pluralism is significant because goods, services, and ideas constitute collections of conditions that determine, to no small degree, the quality of our lives. To recall again an example given above, favorable socioeconomic conditions could reinforce the claim that family life, on the whole, is worth living. A host of procurable goods and services should be an integral part of the discussion about pluralism in general, and this includes the pluralism of values. Again, a plurality of goods and services drives away most absolutist thinking about this or that type of goods or services as the best or uniquely proficient to satisfy most of our needs. Furthermore, we need to be careful because an unlimited plurality of goods and services, as having a multitude of choices at hand is not always such a propitious situation. We cannot always be sure if having an illimitable go at choices in the greater panorama of life translates as appropriate actions. After all, having constant alternatives at our fingertips can paralyze us and cause our dedication to be less constant and definitive. It might very well sap our stamina and, instead, we could become undecided about crucial choices which may, in turn, taint our mood of tranquility. And here a modicum of reflection is helpful. Too vast of a spectrum of choices, accessible at any moment, just might mean chaos and disorientation for those people, especially the young and immature, who simply would not know what to choose. A plurality of accessible goods may not be a problem in a supermarket situation, and a price probably will not have to be paid, either literally and metaphorically, for choosing this or that type of product out of dozens of available ones on the shelves.

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It is a dramatically different story when we deal with more serious, existential choices. By “serious” I mean choices that have a more lasting or long-​term effect on our sense of a meaningful life: the type of education we want for ourselves (or for our children), a profession, the geographical location to pursue a career, a life partner, our closest friends, having or not having children in the first place, choosing emigration to another country, or staying put, choosing public engagement or disengagement and accepting the consequences, involving ourselves in serious money investments, and other moments of utmost importance. Certain activities that offer us short-​term satisfactions cannot compare with the ponderous, meaningful-​life-​oriented and life-​altering issues. I mean, they can most definitely furnish us with more intense comfort, especially when they enmesh with a meaningful-​life-​oriented lifestyle, but they represent a totally different category of choices, and hold out a different category of prices that we would pay if something went wrong. Revealing Appropriate Choices. sp strongly recommends that teachers do their best in making available to students an array of particular possibilities that could make individual lives better in the long run. In administering their most sincere efforts, teachers (instructors, coaches) fulfill their role as educators, and develop their own vocation imbued with a sense of mission each and every moment they are in the classroom or giving online courses. Students should not be left alone, or kept at arm’s length. They need always to have the security that they have access to a teacher at any moment they might need it. Transmitting a heritage that has stood the test of time, as is the case with the humanities, the liberal arts, and philosophy, is privileged work. Apart from education in general, the role of philosophy becomes important because “philosophical thinking spreads a feast of alternatives. It opens the mind to the values of other people and enriches our sympathies for what may seem alien forms of life” (sp 9). Despite overwhelmingly commercialized and business-​oriented institutions of education today, there is plenty of space for an education that would offer searching for a good life, oriented by both ideals and practical savvy. There is a permanent debate concerning the character and aims of education, especially higher education, the humanities, and the liberal arts. The question always arises of whether it should be understood vocationally, as a preparation for professional employment, or understood as a preparation for a good, meaningful life. Santayana’s case is an excellent illustration of the dilemma. He left Harvard (1912), in spite of his established position there as a professor, and never returned to academia, attractive offers notwithstanding. This took place in a time of educational reforms at Harvard, under the presidency of Charles Eliot (tenure as President 1869–​1909). Santayana held

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entrenched views on the role of liberal arts in a society, and part of this view were his expectations of Harvard as a leading institution of higher education. Yet he ended up disappointed with the relegation of the liberal arts to “the mechanism of some great business bureau” (Santayana 1967, 60). Eventually he slipped away from Harvard and its administrative, business-​oriented arrangement, and embarked on a voyage as a quester for a good and meaningful life in Europe. He lived a hermit-​like lifestyle. Indeed, most of his voluminous literary production appeared after he left Harvard and the academic life. Times have changed, but basic questions remain and his case leads to a specific challenge: Should Western universities, especially in the area of liberal arts and the humanities, become commercial-​based in the sense of producing professionals for the job market or, on the contrary, should they cultivate the traditional model of generating original thought and scholarship, including ideas about a good life independently, untethered from a market demand for those ideas? In other words, should education, especially university education, be reduced to vocational preparation for commercial or administrative activities, as in its early stages at Santayana’s Harvard, and as it takes place now in the universities of the world, mine included? While pondering the role of the university as a vocational institution or as a place to explore the possibilities of a good life, sp, without ignoring the former, pays special attention to the latter. And this even though the capitalist mechanisms of the educational sector have little space or patience for such options. Since “the function of education is to enable people to live longer and better lives” (fl 426), the exceptional focus of teachers, philosophers or not, should be their contribution to making their own lives, and their students’ lives, better. An education that embraces moral themes on many levels of complexity, and within a wide breadth of perspective, should be a significant part of education understood generally. We should not think too much about philosophical technicalities, as they have been the showcase in the scholastic philosophy of the past, and are still very much alive in the analytic philosophy of today. But at the same time we should not distance ourselves from the real needs of the students engrossed in these enterprises. By punctuating the importance of a given institution’s curriculum over the recognition of the ambitions, idiosyncrasies, and temperaments of particular students, humanistic education as a whole should not fall short in its historical task. More flexibility in the projects to be tackled, and the recognition of particular, individualized needs should be there not only for students, but for instructors as well. Education should, first of all, be focused on answering the question of what factors are more important in the realization of a good and culturally vital life, and here we must deal with the

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problem of the relativism of human needs, aims, expectations, and the methods that would be appropriate for the realization of these needs, aims, and expectations. Students should be recognized by teachers as singular human beings who appear in the classroom, and who are open to discuss the sort and scope of ideas that can realistically be implemented in ways that make life better. This dynamic has both positive and negative dimensions. The positive dimension involves providing students stimulation, guidance, knowledge, and opportunities for development; the negative, or the via negativa, implies avoiding at all costs “failing to connect critical thought with the concerns of daily existence in the minds of their students,” and thereby contributing “to the impoverishment of personal life and the persistence of social irrationality” (fl 390). Manifesting in the actual flesh practical and breathing examples of a good life in the long run would be more reliable and more convincing, but this would require the teacher to assume a role model perspective. A Role Model Perspective. One of the ways to imagine teaching as a cultural project is to assume a role-​model perspective. Being a teacher or an instructor or a coach of whatever stripe is a culturally important function. On a pessimistic note, the classroom, be it a traditional one or one that results from online classes, can, interestingly enough, make the lives of teachers and students worse off. As when they spend tedious hours on memorizing unwanted and unneeded material, all reduced to the requirements of the curriculum. They then exit the classroom out into the greater world, a world in which the learnt material has no germaneness. Contrary to this, sparking interest, if not enthusiasm, in both teachers and students on interesting issues about a good life, seems a bold alternative here. Practically important issues can be addressed, conceivably making life better with the help of thoughtful agents, which should include “offering oneself as a living exemplar of what one’s ideas can accomplish” (sp 26) to illustrate, in a most profound sense, a good and meaningful life. What is attractive in a frustrated and boring teacher who tries to teach others how to live well? Let us consider for a moment the role of institutions of higher education in providing students a range of autonomy in their thinking about a meaningful life. It could be the case that these institutions, as so many other institutions and corporations in our world today, are so omnipotent that they shape individual minds in an overwhelming way, and students not only feel themselves secondary, but are in fact secondary, accommodating the aims and values imposed by the systematized arrangement in place. sp admits that this is the case factually in so many places in Western academia today, and is in disagreement with this awkward situation, for at least two reasons. One is the

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anthropological assumption of individualism. Since “social influence flows from person to person, and the actions it incites are performed by individual agents,” in reality “there are no magical social causes other than what individuals singly or conjointly do” (M 26). This means that individual efforts to shape the discussion make sense. Therefore, “speaking of institutional actions is just a shorthand way of referring to masses of individual activities” (M 31). In other words, the role of the teacher is to lay out for the student, ably and trustworthily, possibilities of action. Secondly, aside from this anthropological assumption, there is also an ethical assumption, and it goes like the following: “If we want to retain a system of moral responsibility, we must reject the thought that organizations or states are the ultimate agents in the world” (M 34). This indirectly demands that educators should develop their own sense of responsibility and demonstrate that they are conscious of what they are doing with their own lives. They should in turn stimulate a similar awareness among students, who frequently place their own passivity into the hands of omnipotent (in their own views) academic institutions, thus leaving them (the students) with scarcely anything to claim as their own. This generates irresponsibility among students and augments their disengagement from their educational self-​development. Stimulating responsibility, maturation of the self, and self-​orientation is paramount to stressing their own importance, even by occasionally paying the price of underestimating the significance of these institutions in the lives of particular members of the public. It is not my intention here to minimize the role of social persuasion beyond its recognition by individuals. We live under immense social, cultural, economic, media-​related, and political patterns of pressures, and probably few of us have the requisite tools to understand the mechanism of social forces that shape these pressures. For example, the role of social media in the lives of young people seems to be especially profound and constant. It is one of sp’s arguments to claim that these staggering pressures need to be seen by us as external, from a distance. While discussing education, humanistic or other, it is especially important to ask to what extent all spheres of culture and literature (including discourses and descriptions) are in the public and social domain, and to what extent they are in the domain of individual development. The creation of an individual’s worldview, together with singular imaginations, innovative sensitivities, unique ways of seeing things, and the cultivation of personal qualities, all contribute to one’s identity and specificity. The question as to what degree the particular student (and educator) is influenced by the social context is especially important with regards to education. After all, any system of education is a product of the interhuman life in all

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of its dimensions: economic, social, historical, political, cultural, religious, not to mention linguistic, the varieties of using narrative, symbols, and so on. All of these have social origins rather than individual or private ones. Moreover, any knowledge, opinion, or view that is acquired during the process of education is the result, inevitably, of the operation and functioning of sociopolitical institutions. Any kind of personal education requires a social milieu as the receptive ground, without which these views and opinions would narrowly be anything more than the impotent claims of some more or less educated mind. Moreover, this knowledge, these skills, views, and opinions will more often than not refer to such issues as freedom and suffering, which have both individual and social dimensions. All these complex issues need, at least on some occasions, is a more general overview of our culture and the forces or mechanisms that shape its ways of operation. The philosophy of culture, or cultural criticism, may offer insights. 4

Practicing Philosophy as Cultural Criticism: Cultural Relativism, Cosmopolitanism, Pluralism of Cultural Perfections, and Culture Wars

Philosophy as cultural criticism, or a more profound and systematic reflection about cultural issues, may move us to serve “as critic of beliefs and practices” (sp 10), and the reflections presented in this section have this very character (to be sure, I hope this whole book is a contribution to the contemporary philosophy of culture or cultural criticism). It is the role of the philosophers of culture (cultural critics) to vindicate the claim, among other things, that championing diversity of culture and a pluralism of values does not mean that any social system, or any lifestyle, or any cultural policy, is equally good for everyone. We should openly discuss the indicators that reveal to us which systems function better than others, according to given criteria, and social practice is one of such criteria: “A philosophical examination of our culture may well identify the outgrown, the nonfunctional, and the perhaps even pernicious among our values and practices and, exposing them, contribute to their elimination” (sp 10). Social practice shows, in the course of time, that some systems function better or more effectively as helpful tools in the realization of some aims, and others are wrong or inaccurate and fail us, as, for example, the Soviet political, cultural, and economic system in the twentieth century. There are other systems of thought (and systems of governing) that work well for many other people, and we need to respect the criteria that given groups of people see as the correct criteria of what is good and what functions well. And here is the

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clash—​because the same criteria of assessment could seem pathological or dysfunctional by some, as opposed to others who view it as salutary. So, which are the mechanisms according to which we can assess the role of various cultures? One of the most obvious seems to be group interests. Primarily, “the question of how desire for a good can itself be a bad desire reduces to the problem of how we can make judgments of comparative value. Comparative value judgments are based on conflicts of interests and presuppose ultimate adherence to one group of interests in preference to all others. From the perspective of any one impulse, all conflicting impulses are categorically pronounced evil” (mp 137). Moreover, the category of “interest” is culture relative and, for example, in well-​developed capitalist societies with a commonly accepted commercial attitude towards most aspects of life, interest must mean something different than, say, a “national interest” in societies where national identity still matters. In this example, these two criteria may clash and the present discussion within the European Union about the role of nations and national states (especially Poland and Hungary) greatly illuminates this, as did Brexit a few years ago. At this stage, the role of a more or less detached cultural critic (or philosopher of culture), not involved in promoting this or that ideological option, would be helpful in providing us more panoramas of alternatives and possibilities. In cultural criticism, an open access to alternative ideas and models does not have to be the equivalent of chaos and disorientation. Instead, it can provide us with less biased and more panoramic views of the realities that can be found in public life. What is more, “we can gather evidence and assess the value of rival theories without the need for a final commitment. Admittedly, this may leave us uncomfortable, but it offers a much more accurate picture of the world than any alternative. It denies us the right to a cock-​sure attitude, but replaces it with realistic maps for navigating the waters of life” (Lachs 2015, 3–​ 4). A stoic pragmatist needs to face such a multi-​alternative scenario in assessing the role and weight of cultures, which is something that many philosophers call the problem of cultural relativism (understood as an attempt to answer the question of Whether values and ways of the good life are culture-​relative?), which itself requires comparisons of different cultures and the assessment of their functioning in a variety of aspects of public life. Cultural Relativism. An adequate assessment of cultures requires comparisons and taking into account proportions and contexts, without which it is difficult to maintain any orientation points and, instead, it is easy to fall into rashly absolutist assessments of cultures, and an uncritical approach towards our own cultural ideals and avatars. I mean, without a critical assessment, we elevate our views and our culture to serve as an absolutist criterion of what

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is right and wrong, by means of which we assess other cultures: those that function these days and those that functioned in the past. Such an absolutization of our contemporary Western perspective, or parts of it, shames other perspectives and monopolizes one viewpoint: ours. On the other hand, making comparisons with other cultures, present and past, is both pragmatic and stoic; pragmatic because it shows us the current status of our culture in light of its achievements and failures, and stoic because it distances us from those conventional fashions that assess cultures, ours or others, in simplistic, superficial, black-​and-​white, ideological, and/​or absolutist terms. The cultural norms, standard evaluations, and established preferences depend on, are relativized by, or are contextualized by, ethical and cultural circumstances so that “we cannot meaningfully speak of the value of persons, actions, and consequences without reference to the categories of a culture and the standards and commitments of the man who judges” (fl 222). Cultural relativism as a topic itself is controversial, especially in its practical and normative dimensions. On the one hand, there are those who think that relativism in ethics and culture is dangerous because it undermines fixed common standards, refers to the incommensurability of values that relativism is supposed to advocate, which can practically paralyze the overall functioning of social life. For example, if different groups who live in one political entity understand differently, say, what is valuable in life, it is difficult to formulate a common cultural policy and common educational policy with which to respond to such issues as abortion, euthanasia, crime, suicide, assisted suicide, justice, and others. On the other hand, however, it is possible to detect some benefits of relativism, for example, more toleration regarding values and lifestyles: “Condemnation of other persons or nations becomes difficult in proportion as we see the legitimacy of differing ideals” (fl 228). Whatever the case, a comparison of cultures must include contextualization, or the recognition of the specific character of a given culture at a given stage of its development. However, it must not fall into radical relativization. The most dangerous threat in maintaining pluralism, diversity, contextualization, and relativism in their maximum, or extreme, versions, is the loss of any common criteria according to which we can measure and assess human nature, society, morality, political actions, a meaningful life, and anything else that serves us as a common platform or issue for assessment. An important part of this story is to what extent relativism is limited by universal claims, and, if it is limited, whether it is relativism at all. It seems that such terms as dignity, humanity, happiness, and wisdom do not appear, at first glance, to be all that relative, yet they constitute the main substance of the stoic pragmatist position in the philosophy of education. If we maintained a cultural relativism

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that states that cultures should be assessed according to their own internal criteria of excellence, we, to be consistent, would also have to claim that cultures have their own distinct criteria by means of which the good of any sort (including dignity, humanity, happiness, and wisdom) could be measured and assessed. That being so, there would be no common ground to contrast them with cultures that have different (or none at all) internal criteria about the good or justice. We could not rely on a metalanguage that would subsume all of them according to one standard, because any metalanguage is itself a product of a given culture. Cultures, along with the good they cultivate, would be incommensurable and any comparison would be impossible, and we would be hesitant to put forth any sort of claim that some cultures are more developed, and others less. Perhaps, then, Leszek Kołakowski, a Polish philosopher of culture, is on target in claiming that assuming a neutral or objective stance is simply impossible, and anytime we assess cultures we openly or in some hidden manner assume this or that cultural standard anyway. We inevitably prioritize one culture (or group of cultures) over another or others, even when we, for some reason, criticize our own in the name of another. He writes about the impossibility of the “abandoning of judgment,” and the impossibility of assuming a neutral position from which we can provide a hierarchy of values and normative claims that are based on this hierarchy of values. He writes that “what we call the spirit of research is a cultural attitude, one peculiar to Western civilization and its hierarchy of values. We may proclaim and defend the ideals of tolerance and criticism, but we may not claim that these are neutral ideals, free from normative assumptions.” He continues with the following: Whether I boast of belonging to a civilization that is absolutely superior, or, on the contrary, extol the noble savage, or whether, finally, I say all cultures are equal, I am adopting an attitude and making a judgment, and I cannot avoid doing so. This does not mean that it makes no difference whether I adopt one position rather than another; it means that by adopting one I reject or condemn others. kołakowski 1997 [1990], 19–​20

In some cases, such doubts and the criticism of the practices of other cultures, despite their long traditions, is unavoidable and we, inhabitants of contemporary Western culture, are accused of being critical toward some cultural practices of other cultures. To an equal degree we should be critical about our own, that is evident. There are many examples that can serve us as an illustration of the problem. If we say that cultures are equal, then, we have to confront the

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following dilemma: either accept them as they are, including those that practice the caste system in India, or the public executions in some Muslim countries, or Russian or Chinese authoritarianism in social life, or, in opposition, claim that certain practices of those cultures are unacceptable. Then, inescapably, we would have to explain from which point of view they are unacceptable, and this implies that there is a sort of metaculture that assumes a bird’s-​eye view and objectively assesses which cultures in given respects are not acceptable and disrespect human rights and human dignity. Then, the question becomes: Who are the people who are predisposed, if not privileged, to do such an assessment? Which culture do they represent? Or, perhaps, it is us, denizens of contemporary Western culture, who dominate the discourse of Western and global institutions and who want to impose standards on everyone else and, in a new form, practice cultural imperialism? Some representatives of American pragmatism, Dewey and, especially, Rorty, were sometimes accused of such an attitude (cf. Skowroński 2009, 151nn). Among the central issues in such debate, also from sp’s perspective, would be the role of the individual and the scope of individual freedom and responsibility. No other culture, in the present or in the past, guarantees, or has guaranteed, so much freedom to so many regular members of the public as takes place in the contemporary West. If this is the case, one could ask if so much individual freedom is culture relative and if it is, whether other components of individual life (e.g., children’s rights, happiness, dignity, whatever) are cultural relative as well? Is Meaningful Life Culture Relative? sp follows the Socratic model of an intellectual position that searches for self-​knowledge and, at the same time, is conscious of human cognitive limitedness. To be sure, an inherent part of Socratic wisdom is the knowledge, or rather self-​knowledge, that I do not know or that I am unable to transgress my cognitive limitation. In other words, I cannot be either omniscient, completely unbiased, or fully objective in my claims and the same refers to the collected knowledge of the group that I identify with. For example, a Polish culture’s perspective differs from a Spanish one, the young generation’s worldviews differ from the older generation’s worldviews, the perspectives of the wealthy about life achievements invariably clash with the perspectives of the poor about them, and so on. Modifying our cognitive and perceptive abilities at some point or another is one of the aims of education, socialization, acculturation, and social melioration. At the same time, however, overcoming our cognitive limits on some points, generates problems on other points, so that despite enormous progress in the Western world in multifold aspects of life, technological, medical, economic, educational and others, prejudice and bias still constitute an integral part of our condition, irrespective of our backgrounds and our level of

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our development as a society. This does not mean at all that we should give up and not go on with our efforts at making it better. It means, though, that it is impossible for anyone to assume a neutral, bias-​free, bird’s-​eye view or God’s-​ eye view about human affairs (though some ideologues and utopians claim the contrary). It is not possible for any one group of people, be it a culture, a tribe, an ethnic minority, or any majority, to gain such a status that its pretensions to having access to the objective truth are fully vindicated. Due to historical reasons, however, some cultures have a more sophisticated level of technological and medical development, which means that generations of its citizens have developed forms of communal life, with technology for example, which function in more competent ways than they do in other cultures. Scientific solutions and explanations are more rigorous and thorough and function better than other alternative solutions or explanations, and the way we know which one is “better” is to verify them by precise, comprehensive measuring tools. Even so, human limitedness may be overcome in some areas of life, and, undoubtedly, medical solutions are much more sophisticated today than they were previously. This means that they work, they function better, they heal and cure better than alternatives. Let me come back to the problem of William James’s idea of “human blindness,” as mentioned in the previous chapter. Among multiple versions of human limitedness that can be discussed in the context of sp (cf. sp 88–​92; Pinkas 2018b, 156–​157), the following are perhaps most relevant for our present discussion. The first refers to our inability “to see the world the way others see it” (sp 88), which means a lack in our disposition to share with other people the picture of the world and values as those others see it. This lack may result from previously existent factors, some of which are so deeply rooted in our minds that they are impossible to erase. Something that is taken as obvious in one cultural tradition, a group of values for example, does not necessarily mean that they should not be taken as being very strange in others. In many contexts, this indisposition does not refer to our unwillingness to assume another’s viewpoints, but rather to us not being prepared to understand and to appreciate a position or viewpoint different from what our tradition of seeing and interpreting the world tells us is proper and true. The other limitedness is “closing our eyes to the divergent devotions of other people” (ibid.) so that much depends on our will, our efforts, and our subjective predispositions to be able to open our eyes to what some other people devote their energies and their hopes to. Here we can mention toleration as a virtue of leaving others alone, already discussed, but a problem that could appear in this context is the following: there are some cultural traditions that have developed the idea

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of toleration, but there are others (e.g., traditional religions) that have not. Is it, then, fair, to tolerate groups living in our midst who are not tolerant of us? Another refers to being emotionally distant to “the way life feels to other people” (sp 89), and this emotional distance can have individual aspects as well as social and cultural ones. With some groups of people, certain types of actions and activities inspire enthusiasm that cannot be fully understood outside of the group, and religious devotion or sectarian devotion in some cultures are good examples here. On the other hand, it is difficult for one group of people to understand the pains and joys that afflict other groups of people, and thus there has to be an abundance of misunderstanding in contemporary Western culture about, say, the heroism of mothers who raise children and maintain the family in some traditional cultures, and the struggles and concerns of single women. Moral Cosmopolitanism and the Cultivation of Native Cultures. sp’s idea of humanism does not follow the trajectory of radical relativism, although it appreciates pluralism and diversity, of which I write more below. At this point, let us return to the idea of oikeiôsis, but this time in respect to diverse cultures and traditions, promoting different values. Although cosmopolitan ethics has much to do with universalist ethics, or seeing the universe as a kind of commonwealth, as Marcus Aurelius put it in his Meditations (iv, 4), one of the main distinctions that sp wants to highlight is the question that results from the widening circles of concern. First and foremost, we should “distinguish our obligations to those near and dear from duties to unknown multitudes around the globe. If I owe everything I can provide to everyone who can use it, I must not prefer meeting my children’s needs to feeding the hungry in East Timor” (fl 446). We, as individual agents who operate within a contemporary Western culture framework, are not able to serve equally all people and when willing to help, we need to choose whom we want to dedicate our sympathy towards and, most importantly our money. We can do it according to our preferences and wishes—​and practice philanthropy and charity in very different forms—​but there is something that refers to the natural course of events which I described in previous chapters. According to this natural course of events, it is our agency that must be seen as the cynosure of our care. From this focal point we can and should move outwards in recognizing the plights of others and helping them, if our assistance is needed at all. One of the nearest circles of concern is one’s fellow countrymen. Enrichment by recognition of other cultural achievements and using them for our own aims would be one such solution, and I agree with David Dilworth on this point:

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there is nothing sacred in any of the past philosophical (or religious) systems in themselves—​nothing that renders them impervious to reinterpretation. On the other hand, I maintain that it is foolish to think one can refute or even deconstruct any of the great philosophical texts. That would undermine the ground on which we now stand. Rather, the task must be to repossess—​to remember and to re-​appreciate—​past philosophical accomplishments as they relate to present and future developments in philosophy. dilworth, 1989, 3

Cultural diversity (or cultural pluralism) is not an idea that claims that we necessarily must be religiously or ethnically diverse in spaces where a given culture is traditionally monolithic, or majoritarian in case of ethnicity and religion. Cultural diversity means that, especially in a time of globalization and intercultural exchanges, we should recognize the fact that apart from our specific culture, whatever it is, there are plenty of other culturally sanctioned ways for fashioning a meaningful life. For example, if somebody’s cultural tradition is religious, Christian for example, this does not mean that one should renounce it, and enrich one’s worldview with Buddhist ingredients, or Islamic elements, or agnostic tenets. Instead, it means that the recognition of the fact that there are many other people for whom religions are important (and irreligious people too), and that peaceful, respectful coexistence is a challenge that needs to be explored. This coexistence is not an ousting of one religion by another (or by atheism), or reducing the importance of one by elevating the influence of the other. It means that we need to search for solutions that allow us all to involve ourselves in diverse forms of cultural activity as smoothly, and with as much mutual respect as possible. Moral cosmopolitanism (cf. Kleingeld and Brown 2019) is not directed against boundaries that divide people living in different states, and does not have to be directed against patriotism or a loyalty to one’s state, region, or native culture. Patriotism can be an integral part of a given culture. As mentioned, there needs to be a central point for everyone from which the affairs of the world can be observed, and it may very well be the case that our native land and its culture deserve our attention and loyalty most of all. This, however, does not prevent us from having a moral sympathy with our fellow human beings who happen to live elsewhere. This does mean, though, that the degree of this sympathetic energy towards them will be less than to our compatriots. sp recommends acknowledging Santayana’s attitude in this respect: “The full grown human soul should respect all traditions and understand all passions; at the same time it should possess and embody a particular culture, without

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unmanly relaxation or mystical neutrality” (Santayana 1986 [1944–​1953], 464). Concurrently, moral cosmopolitanism, if we want to take up such a position, at least within contemporary Western culture, should avoid the appearance of hypocrisy by, for example, discrediting the cultural achievements of our country or culture established in the name of human rights, even though human rights might be most developed in our country or culture and constitute a pillar of its identity, as in many nations in the West. Pluralism of Cultures as a Multiple of Cultural Perfections. There may exist little understanding of other cultures, other than ours, for different reasons—​ some of them already discussed—​and of the most recurring seems to be the following: when we study or have contact with other cultures, or other ways of thinking and living, or other worldviews, we do so by means of our own terms and experience (our culture), our own interests, and we employ ideas prevalent in our own culture to help us understand. As a result, other cultures are perceived through the lenses of our own culture, external to the culture being studied or experienced, which, in turn, deprives this other culture of “talking to us” by means of its own language from the start. For example, if an adherent of a secular culture assesses religious cultures as a pipedream of myths, prejudices, and fables, he or she imposes a secular pattern of thinking from the get-​go. This prejudiced approach is utterly alien to religious cultures. Proportionately, the misunderstanding and misrecognitions burgeon. Paradoxically, even if contact between different cultures is more frequent now due to the growing communication networking of our age, understanding is not easily established. One of the ways to approach culture diversity is by appreciating a culture via its achievements and sterling attributes. Most cultures, in all probability, have developed their own models of excellence, according to their own standards. I suspect that there are very many traditional cultures that have worked out, throughout the centuries, models and outlines for a good life according to their own norms, worldviews, habits, and interpretations of the roles of specific groups within their cultures. One of Santayana’s tersest formulations of the idea is the following: “But human virtues and human forms of society had various natural models, according to differences of nature or of circumstances. Virtue, like health, has different shades according to race, sex, age, and personal endowment. In each phase of life and art a different perfection may be approached” (Santayana 1995 [1951], 337). This view corresponds to his position that is even more applicable to cultures of given social groups when that culture is understood as an established way of living and thinking. It could be in any geographical region or historical era: “I see no reason to deny that different races, epochs, and climates might

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develop different regimes with equal success and without mutual recrimination, if only they understood the place of their respected virtues in the universe, and did not attempt to legislate, on their particular principles, for all men and for all ages” (Santayana, in: Dawson 1979, 454). The consequences, even the price that is paid for introducing selected excellences into other cultures, should have an accompanying degree of serious reflection. In the quote that follows, attention is given to the moral and social costs of elevating a given form of culture, or a given model of a good life, to the level of perfection. The social cost seems to be one of the basic measures by which some cultures can be appreciated and others punished, and it refers to the effective functioning of a given culture, to which I return frequently in this project. I come back to it again: “If any community can become and wishes to become communistic or democratic or anarchical I wish it joy from the bottom of my heart. I have only two qualms in this case: whether such ideals are realisable, and whether those who pursue them fancy them to be exclusively and universally right: an illusion pregnant with injustice, oppression, and war” (Santayana 1986 [1944–​ 1953], 227). Is there any normative or practical implication to this position? One of them could be that we attempt “to overcome moral and ideal provinciality, and to see that every form of life had its own perfection, which it was stupid and cruel to condemn for differing from some other form, by chance one’s own” (Santayana 1986 [1944–​1953], 170). sp, focused on the perennial wisdom of humankind in many of its versions, follows Santayana in his claim concerning the respect for a deep wisdom of the past that should not be limited exclusively to our wisdom. For an unprejudiced person “there is no more reason for swearing by the letter of the Gospels than that of Homer or the Upanishads or the Koran. We may prefer the spirit in one or another, but the moral beauty in them all is equally natural, equally human” (Santayana 1946, 5). Culture Wars: Anything New? To avoid an unjustified absolutization of our contemporary Western perspective, we need not only look at other cultures, as discussed above, but also to look back at our own histories—​and, in this way, to use, once again, a culture comparative perspective. From this hindsight, wars, conflicts, and tensions of whatever sort, may seem to have been an unavoidable part of social life in general, despite utopian projects of various strains—​Communism (along with its utopian ideas and its injustice in practice) being the one I remember well from my youth in the then communist Poland. Social reality seems to go something like this: conflicting interests and clashing visions of progress occur in political bodies having too little space and too little time to settle them convincingly, and inevitably a clash is the result, and an honest, decent, and illusion-​free outlook should recognize this. This

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recognition, however, does not entail an acceptance of forms of oppression, slavery, and injustice. Instead, it should recognize brutal, Darwinian realities, but also the brighter sides among which is an appreciation of the fact that today cultural clashes do not necessitate or call out for death. This is a precious gift in the contemporary West, and ours to lose should we not care to cultivate it carefully. Forms of evil and injustice are constantly repeated in history because we lose sight of the most recent ones that have sprouted. The Nazi atrocities were the next step in successive atrocities that some groups of people perpetrate on other groups of people, though technologically and logistically performed at such an advanced level that it would have been impossible in previous times. The scale of evil differs due to a variety of factors, and the technical consideration as to how to murder more mechanically others may be one of those factors. The Nazis had more technical possibilities to aid in killing others, yet this does not establish that the evil they carried out was more sinister or more disgusting than the evil unleashed by groups in the history of humankind who did not possess such advanced tools of slaughter. Accordingly, Nazi Germans proficiently used gas chambers and railway cars to quickly transport victims to those chambers of mass death. However, as I have mentioned in Chapter 1, an even higher efficiency of slaughtering people occurred in Cambodia in the 1970s, and it was without such technological sophistication. An even more horrendous loss of life transpired in Rwanda’s genocide in 1994, where approximately 800,000 people were slaughtered mainly by machetes and rifles, with little high technology needed. Witnessing wars, with the most recent one being in Ukraine, provokes thought and discussion as to the limits of an individual agent’s actions and sincere attempts to make a difference. On the one hand, it looks very Stoic if we assume that we, individual agents, do not have much influence on the course of events that play out in a highly institutionalized world. Conflicting interests of all kinds, especially political, economic, and social make us feel that these events have their own dynamics, their own infernal logic, and are impossible to change by individual thought and effort. To be sure, we could collectively jump on a bandwagon to ease the frustration, and join a popular movement and claim that we are culturally contributing to something. But this seems illusory. The respectable space for our individual activities should be our attitude towards the external world, rather than the external world itself. As it turns out, perhaps the most we can do in a time of political or cultural turmoil is merely to be wise enough to find our proper place in which we are best able to realize our interests without, however, investing too much hope in changing anything external. Or perhaps, there exists a practical suggestion, expressed

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metaphorically, that Santayana himself wrote (in The Life of Reason) about uncertain times and situations. That in difficult times it is better if we are able to adapt to current weather conditions, whatever they may be, and if this is not possible, to search for a better place and a better climate (cf. Saatkamp 2021, 227). By no means should we be passive. Social events, wars, conflicts, the fits and starts that drive history, all continue on, and are parts of the world’s affairs independent of our willed intervention. On the other hand, there is a call to make the external world better by means of our actions, and some of us even have ambitions to leave some contribution to culture before we pass away. 5

Cultural Immortality or Cultural Afterlife as a Form of Secular Immortality

An irreligious sense of immortality according to which students, adepts, followers, and sympathizers carry on a part of their teacher’s moral teachings in their memories and, perhaps, in their actions, even after death, is probably illusionary in most cases, but it may well serve as an example for a more general idea. After all, Epictetus, a teacher who instructed his students some two thousand years ago, can be said to be culturally immortal, or everlasting. After all this time, his ideas are still discussed and even implemented into the lives of some contemporary people who study what he thought ages ago, as if he were somebody living and offering us pieces of advice about a good life for us today. New textual guides to life appear, like Pigliucci’s or Irvine’s (and other modern stoics), often mentioned in this work, that refer directly to his teaching as if he were a living master. James Stockdale (1993) is an even more spectacular example for having Epictetus’s book as a guide while a prisoner of war, for more than seven years in Vietnam. He was routinely tortured during that time, and he credited The Enchiridion for having given him strength to survive. This cultural immortality, however, has its technical, so to speak, conditions apart from his high-​quality thoughts. For example, it would be impossible to know anything about him (Epictetus) if his student, Arrian of Nicomedia, had not written down his lectures and, in this way, transmitted them to posteriority, where we are free to access them. If we agree to employ the term immortality in a non-​religious and a non-​ absolutist way, as a contribution to culture that outlasts the author’s earthly existence, then we could think about a secular version of transcending life posthumously. I leave the problem of one’s intention to be remembered in future generations to others to decide for themselves whether it is megalomania or something else. It does dangerously magnify our egotism and also

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creates an illusion about a realm (posteriority) that cannot be controlled by us completely. To be sure, such a reflection may have a consolatory significance in the sense of establishing hope to bequeath something significant once we are gone, that our travails may inspire someone else, that not everything that is ours during our lifetime will perish, and that the perspective of what we do may be wider and more prolonged in time. If so, and if what we do is leave texts, images, or memories in other people’s minds, our contribution may continue even when we are no longer here.

Chapter 6

Digital Culture In the digital era, nobody should complain that there is no place for philosophers, humanists, and intellectuals to practice the so-​called field philosophy (cf. Parker 2018, 30–​32), which is one that deals with real-​life problems and whose language is understood also by a non-​academic public. The Internet, with all its dangers, traps, and deficiencies, has given us a unique chance to reach wide and culturally diversified audiences as never before. Obviously, there are many problematic issues that relate to social media and the Internet in general, and we should not ignore their negative and even tragic aspects, such as hate speech, fake news, polarization, echo chambers, a feudal sort of domination of the big digital corporations, among others. At the same time, it must be admitted, they give us a chance to promote good ideas on an unprecedent scale . As such, it possesses a set of perfect tools that bolster sp’s main ideas, one of them being that “the ultimate purpose of teaching philosophy is to reach a broader audience” (sp 185). In this way, the present chapter deals with the problem of digital-​culture public intellectual action as a possible response of those stoic pragmatists who see a need to address the technological challenges of contemporary culture. In particular, it deals with the visual aspects of digital communication, as visuality seems to constitute no less an important part of the Internet cultural space as textuality. It is a challenge because textuality has been, up till now, the basic form and format of philosophical communication within Western traditions, and the philosophers’ main cultural input (output also) has been to write texts: (great, dense) books, (long) articles, and (scholarly) papers. It appears that this is changing now. Such public action would need to, among many other things, modify and broaden the traditional mode of communication by expanding its textual, or mainly text-​ related mode, into an aesthetic and visual mode. More precisely, stoic pragmatists would have to learn how to aestheticize and visualize their philosophical, ethical, and cultural narratives by using digital tools, and YouTube clips, for example. If we want to stress the role of reflection in increasing the quality and meaningfulness of individual lives, we cannot just talk about it: it behooves us to be able to show it in an attractive way so as to be more convincing to a variety of audiences. In this manner, philosophers’ public missions would be furthered despite the possible perception that their content may have little relevance due to a dependence, more and more, on algorithms arranged by Big

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Tech giants and imposed on Internet users. To be sure, it is nothing new for contemporary stoics, who know very well the teachings of their Stoic mentors concerning the unavoidability of the hierarchical arrangements of public life, independent of the current reality, to voice their concerns as to why we should be so careful about externals. 1

Digital-​Culture Public Intellectual

I would like to arm myself with a stoic pragmatist attitude and, perhaps, similar attitudes, and confront the most recent challenges of digital culture (dc). I do not want to get into a methodological discussion about the status and character of dc in the entirety of its complexity. I follow Charlie Gere, who claims, in his Digital Culture, that “digitality can be thought of as a marker of culture because it encompasses both the artefacts and the systems of signification and communication that most clearly demarcate our contemporary way of life from others” (Gere 2008, 16) and I place this remark in the context of this text. Although we can, for the most part, roughly characterize dc as a set of commonly accessible cultural products generated and transmitted by digital tools, and employ it as a general characterization of dc, I will here modify it and make it more specific and normative, for reasons I explain below, into the following formula: dc is an array of practices that explore digital tools in order to allow philosophical, ethical, and values-​oriented content to be recognized by wide and culturally diversified audiences. Since I cannot contrast the relation between these two meanings of dc here, allow me to state that the former meaning embraces the latter. We do not talk about two different types of digital cultures, but only about the more general and the more specific ones that are used in philosophical and cultural contexts. I evoke dc because a confrontation between philosophy, ethics, and values-​ oriented content on the one hand, and, on the other hand, dc, is becoming increasingly important in the age of the rapid expansion of cyberspace in all aspects of our lives. To the point: I want to think about the place of stoic pragmatists (and similar stances and currents), who want to define their role as public intellectuals in dc. Let me add that I am not talking about institutions, such as universities and research institutes, which employ philosophers (perhaps stoic philosophers), humanists, and intellectuals in general, and have their it departments, their pr centers, and their own public strategies as to how to perform specific projects in various segments of cyberspace. This is

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an entirely different story. Nor do I address, at least in this text, the digital humanities (Budrick et al., 2012) as a fast-​growing area of highly institutionalized and computationally engaged research. The idea of digital humanities, in its various versions, reveals different aims, tools, and methods that constitute a separate way of doing things. Thus, the present proposal has little to do with digital humanities, and I stress this since the name could be misleading. Perhaps, in order to better explain my intention, I could conceivably propose an alternative title for the present chapter: “Should Stoic Pragmatists Become Digital-​Culture Public Intellectuals? If So, Should They Aestheticize/​ Visualize Their Work?” Feasibly, this long title could show more clearly that I want to reflect on the contemporary generation of intellectuals who see their impact on culture as an important challenge for themselves, yet who, unlike an older generation of intellectuals, have happened to encounter the large-​ scale technological changes and are overwhelmed by their dynamics and their omnipresence. Many of these intellectuals have turned their backs on the technical onslaught. One of the most visible aspects of this dynamic is the newest generation of students who, hardly ever having their hands smartphone-​free, are already deeply affected by the technological transformations in what they think and what they do. I am suggesting that one of the ways of coping with these challenges would be becoming a digital-​culture public intellectual. Such an intellectual would have to, among many other things, modify and broaden traditional modes of communication. For example, one of textual modifications would be a simplification of philosophical content so that viewers (consumers) would want and be able to understand the texts that could assume the platform of a blog form, an Instagram form, or a Twitter form, which is a major challenge in itself. Such an intellectual would have to expand his or her textual, or primarily text-​related communication mode, into an aesthetic and visual communication mode. More precisely, stoic pragmatists would have to learn how to aestheticize and visualize their ethical and cultural narratives by using some digital tools, blogs, including movies and clips, for example. If we want to stress the role of reflection in the quality and meaningfulness of individual lives, or if we want to try to self-​develop during an extended solitude (e.g., the pandemic lockdown time), we cannot just talk about it in a (digital) classroom or merely write scholarly papers about it. We should also be able to display it in an attractive way so as to be more convincing to various audiences. Why the aestheticization and/​or visualization of the public intellectual’s content is an important dimension of dc will be explained later on in this chapter.

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dc’s 90-​9-​1 Rule and Public Intellectuals as Superusers (within Their Circles of Concern)

Should intellectuals creatively use available digital tools to be actively present in cyberspace so as to shape its content in some of its segments, even in microscopic circles of concern—​to get back once again to the idea of oikeiôsis, this time in the digital context—​so that we could talk about culture-​related actions, even if on a small scale? As individuals, we hardly have any chances of making a difference on our own, given the immense scale of digital activities carried out by super wealthy institutions and foundations. Nor have we any chance whatsoever of going against the algorithmic strategies of Big Tech. Should we, therefore, feel encouraged to try to do it and entertain intentions to effectuate differences in the character and nature of the thoughts and ideas to be encountered in dc? After all, if interesting and competent, they would win over audiences, some larger and more culturally (and intellectually) diverse than a university classroom audience setting at any rate. From the stoic perspective, the answer is not that difficult to sense. After all, anticipated results would stem from the external world, one that stoic pragmatists are not preoccupied with, given its uncontrollability, and what one should be preoccupied with is our readiness to offer something in the best way we can, against all odds, and under control. From the pragmatic perspective, the efficiency of this action may be disputable, yet it will grow the more competent we become. As a result, we would have to learn, among other things, some new ways of communication and to be able to use basic technological tools that would enable us to evoke and promote what we want to say. It would involve, say, the ability to teach online, to record a clip, make a podcast, write a blog-​post, create a www, and similar capabilities. Many of our university colleagues perform this already, employing a variety of tools. The crucial issue here is, and this is my central idea for the present chapter: learning how to use these tools and, indeed, using them, would modify the textual mode of communication in which most philosophers have been saturated with up to the present. By the term textuality I understand the mode of communication in which the basic reference source for everybody involved is a written text (or rather hundreds of written texts). However, many parts of the Internet that impact communication have mostly a visual character rather than a textual one, and, therefore, philosophers willing to participate in the digital world more actively, by all means need to embrace the visual dimension also. Before I explain the visual character of dc communication, allow me to discuss a no less important feature at present on the Internet, the so-​called 90-​9-​1 rule.

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According to the 90-​9-​1 rule, approximately 90% of the users on the Internet are passive lurkers who make no contribution to the cultural context that they see on the Internet. Approximately 9% of the participants sparingly contribute to the content, primarily by commenting on some issue on a forum, posting a blog-​post, sending a photo on fb, recording a clip on YouTube, and/​or doing other minor activities. It is only approximately 1% of all the Internet participants, sometimes called superusers, who create cultural content, and it is thanks to them that we see what we see on the screen of our computers, laptops, or smartphones as far as any cultural contribution is concerned (van Mierlo 2013). In more specific segments of the virtual world, the rate is even lower. Wikipedia, which in 2018 was the fifth most visited webpage in the world with over 18 billion page views per month (Otechworld 2018), is co-​ created (according to data from 2006) by much less than one per cent of participants, specifically by 0.003% of participants (Nielsen 2006). This type of rating merits serious discussion. On the one hand, cyberspace is very democratic. Everyone has access to many segments of Internet content. To enter many platforms, at any time and usually without cost, is quite easy. On the other hand, cyberspace is highly undemocratic because only roughly 1% of creative superusers decide what the other 99% of participants see, listen to, think of, dream of, discuss, and refer to: “Superusers generate the vast majority of traffic and create value, so their recruitment and retention is imperative for long-​term success. Although Lurkers may benefit from observing interactions between Superusers and Contributors, they generate limited or no network value” (van Mierlo 2013). Practically speaking, superusers have a factual monopoly in shaping the cultural content of cyberspace despite the masses of disparate and mostly unnoticed cultural content that is accessible. This may suggest to most participants (that is to say, to lurkers and contributors) that the world being depicted on the Internet by those superusers has a representative character and presents reality as it is. This stunning inequality of participation in this seemingly open and free form of culture is a cause of great concern, even worry. It is also a challenge, and intellectuals who are concerned about values in dc should want to help co-​create its content, its concerns, its references, even when there is a minimal chance of reaching those who could truly benefit from it. I do not have any illusions as to the role of philosophers, especially since there are many other superusers, and the most influential—​like international large technological corporations or the Chinese government, which makes the Chinese state itself a superuser of sorts—​will have an overwhelmingly larger impact. Philosophy, however, and liberal arts, and the humanities, at least in our Western tradition, have always had something important to say. These should be cultivated

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amidst the new conditions of contemporary knowledge, and it is in the face of these new technological conditions that modified modes of communication are warranted. I think that it is vital that intellectuals, at least those who aspire to secure any public visibility, should be among those candidates for superusers, perhaps local and small-​scale superusers (a small circle of concern), if such a term could be relevant, rather than selected from among passive participants who only use and/​or share already existing digital materials, be they pdfs or yt clips or whatever else is used in the classroom, digital or traditional. And I am not referring here to the technological or software sort of activity that requires advanced technological training and expertise. Nor am I recommending philosophers to become business model-​based influencers, since commercial activity is not a very noble reason to become a public intellectual. I am talking exclusively about a stoic pragmatist type of intellectual for example, whose actions include self-​development, a meaningful life, manifesting diversity and a pluralism of culture and values. This is the reason I propose to use a modified characterization of dc, already mentioned, which is, I repeat, an array of practices that explore digital tools to make philosophical, ethical, and values-​oriented content become recognized by wider audiences. This characterization stresses a couple of things. First, it stresses the role of practices that enable the intellectual superusers to produce material and introduce it into cyberspace. It refers not only to the technical or technological dimension of the dc-​related actions; more importantly, it refers to the social practice that is essential to such philosophical traditions as Stoicism and pragmatism (and possibly some others) with their focus on the practical actions of a given individual in the name of social amelioration. Among the new practices that a philosopher should want to implement are those that intend to shape dc according to some standard of values: intellectuals have to understand that they are on the payroll of the community in order, among other things, to warn us about our ways, to help us see our practices in perspective, to present arguments against what we are bent on doing and, again and again, to present interesting alternatives. Their job is to shake up state and institutional orthodoxies, instead of working to preserve them. ci 9

Second, this characterization stresses the role of recognition of the content by a target audience. Just interjecting material into cyberspace does not make a huge difference, since we have a vast array of materials already in existence.

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Publishing a text on a personal website, for example, may result in nothing more than a sporadic moment, and an even shorter moment of reaction by viewers, the very text itself and its ideas fleeing by a larger public, and having no impact whatsoever on any segment of dc. The same is the case with putting some video recordings of a lecture delivered in a classroom, or an interview conducted at a scientific conference. These are mutually related because the recognition of the public intellectual’s content is related to the public intellectual’s recognition of the audience to which the content is directed and the means of communication by which the content is disclosed. If a stoic pragmatist professor writes a text with a very specific audience in mind (usually his or her students and colleagues) even about the most important of social concerns and affairs, most probably this text will have a very limited circulation and will not make any difference to other audiences, and this is because, among many other reasons, this very target audience has a limited impact on culture in general. This has a close connection with the final point. Finally, the proposed characterization stresses the role of target audiences, or the specific groups of people to which the given material is addressed in terms of the sort of content they receive and the sort of narrative they understand, which are multifold in having different types of imagination, different communication skills, as well as differing expectations and wishes that need to be met. Pragmatists are especially predisposed to recognize the communication needs and expectations of various audiences, and also the narratives they are used to, given pragmatists’ focus on anti-​essentialism, pluralism, toleration, contextualization and vocabularies, narratives or discourses as efficient modes of communication. The challenge here is that there are many target audiences, and the modes of communication differ from target audience to target audience. Many non-​academic audiences are non-​textual content-​oriented, and they understand communication best when visual elements of a certain kind play the central role. Especially those visual elements that refer to emotions. This is the case of mass audiences, and, in my view, public intellectuals, philosophers included, need to take this into consideration. 3

Public Intellectuals’ Courage to Teach Possibilities and to Confront Hate Speech

In previous chapters I have referred to knowledge as a tool for an adequate choice of options. Now, I would like to discuss the intellectuals’ courage to show up publicly and, possibly, to teach these options in cyberspace. The main idea here is that if, as in any normal classroom, a teacher should “explore

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possibilities so that a suitable ideal may be found and enacted” (sp 84), then public intellectuals should perform something similar in cyberspace. The public sphere, not just the university, should become the battleground for intellectuals who utilize effective tools in helping people become more aware of their potentialities, be more rational in their choices, less vulnerable to misfortune and chance, and more firmly oriented in what a good and meaningful life actually is. Social media platforms seem to be capable of outdoing other public forums these days, including academic ones, in becoming the most influential, the fastest in transmission of communication, the most interactive, the most attractive, but unfortunately, the most vulnerable to acts and trends of misconduct, and hate speech, for example, even by those who claim themselves to be anti-​hate speech activists. It is a novel situation for everyone, both for teachers and intellectuals. I mean, it is not a new area for philosophical development because, as already mentioned, sp does not tend to be a philosophy that comes across new facts or uncovers unknown truths. Instead, it aims at educating those who care to listen by “expanding their imaginations and honing their critical skills so they may become courageous members of their communities” (sp 16). What is new is that cyberspace, with its enormous power of creating impacts on the lives and the ways of thinking of many people, especially youth, is still a relatively unsettled frontier. Why courage? The word sounds old-​fashioned in digital contexts. There are various reasons and hate speech is one of them. Despite the fact, as some would argue, that “safe invisibility is the preferred condition of academics” (sp 20), there has always been a danger of limiting freedom of speech on the part of governing entities (states, Big Tech), apart from the fact that freedom of speech in our contemporary West has never been greater. Nevertheless, it is not guaranteed, and the predictable reactions in cyberspace come from anonymous or non-​anonymous haters and their insults, which considerably discourage many interesting people who otherwise would be willing, from participating. No less concerning a phenomenon is the appearance of millions of voices coming from individuals who have completely different perspectives than those well-​ established in Western academic traditions. As a result, we have a cacophony of voices, mostly without any responsibility for the claims they make, and the consequences that are engendered. Hate speech has many variants and the one I am distinguishing here is the intentionally offensive and/​or threatening ad hominem (directed at a given person as such) speech or writing posted most often anonymously. This form of offense and the ways of defensive capabilities against it are mentioned by modern stoics (cf. Irvine 2009, 144nn), who use their Stoic mentors’ teaching about offenses. This suggests that the problem of offense is perennial and

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independent of the historical period. Only technological circumstances evolve. Inflicting offense is protracted in public life, in the res publica, yet the technological tools that transmit offense differ now, as do the criteria according to which something is taken to be offensive. Modern stoics, bringing into focus the Stoic tradition, recommend ignoring external offenses as being an uncontrollable part of life and, instead, propose learning how to cope effectively with offences should these have a non-​criminal character. For example, when the offense assumes the form of the straw man it should not really concern us, as when it assumes a form of an intentional lie (calumny) to harm us. Why should we be concerned what somebody says something untrue about us? Hate speech, even in the form of a false accusation, could damage, even destroy, a reputation, as in the case when our reputation is an integral part of our professional position. This means that our reputation should not be something indifferent to us. Losing a reputation could mean losing one’s livelihood, and this is what is at risk here when we talk about courage. It seems unpragmatic to risk one’s reputation when one’s job position depends on it. I cannot find a better answer to the predicament of a tarnished reputation than the following: one needs always to leave a legal way to defend oneself and definitively prove that what one really did (or said, or wrote) was lacking malice or criminality. If this does not work out (e.g., one loses one’s academic position, despite having done or said or written nothing wrong), perhaps the institution one works for has changed, in its character and function, being no longer the place it once was. This is an unenviable dilemma, and one that needs to be backed up by having a plan B for one’s professional life. Having no plan B and risking one’s professional position is unpragmatic. Perhaps this is the price we must pay for open access to the Internet, where anyone can humiliate or falsely accuse anyone else. What is not justified is a passive stance by those who are supposedly teaching others about responsibility and life’s best options, especially stoic pragmatists who instruct others about indifference to such externals as public opinion. It seems incongruent when one aspires to be someone who teaches others how to strive to live well, who then is unwilling to say or do anything publicly. One faces two major temptations: “The first is to agree with the crowd, the second to elect safety as the highest value” (sp 139). A tendency to side with predominant opinion leaves current social and cultural values unchallenged; on the other hand, safe silence may force ourselves and others to think that our culture is the best expression of human nature (sp 139). Contemporary technology, as never before in history, is a very efficient tool that leads us to consider novel ways of life, as do educational realities. The duress of the covid pandemic has brought out, among other things, the

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enormous potential of online education in all its possibilities. At the same time, nobody denies that the Internet is a very efficacious, attractive tool in seducing us with controversial, yet unacceptable lifestyles, especially when one happens to have children around and growing up. For example, digital celebrities’ lifestyles that many of our children are fascinated with on Instagram or TikTok are like roadmaps as to how to retard and encumber the mental, and at times physical, growth of children quickly. The downside is that it is practically impossible to block this content. Given this situation, what could be a more compelling reason to speak out in the public sphere? This opportunity of using a digital public space opens up our obligation to announce publicly what are the decent things to do and care about in the res publica. Allow me to conclude by stating once again that since digitalized ways of communication have entered a more intensive stage, and the recently disbanded covid lockdown measures have accelerated (2022) technological revolutions in education, we really need to pause, breathe deeply, and take stock. Traditional philosophical discourse based on textual modes of communication seems to be evolving into more visual and digital formats in order to be experienced by and shared with wider audiences. A public philosopher, in order to be actually influential with a more extensive audience, needs to become a sort of a digital-​culture-​public-​philosopher. This should not be reduced to merely publishing in the traditional manner, and speaking in front of a digital camera. However, this is a good start. Below, I propose some options available for stoic pragmatists to express options and possibilities for a good life. I will do so after sharing a few words about the important role of imagery in all such activity. 4

Images, Visuality, and the Aestheticization of Ethical Content

The expanding role and growing omnipresence of images in commercials, in films, and on tv, is not anything new. Cinema and tv have had an indispensable role in promoting pictorial communication globally in the twentieth century. After all, Hollywood is often claimed to be America’s most influential ambassador in the world. Also, many profound sociopolitical changes in the US took place in the late 1960s, when the mass of American viewers could witness on the television set the nightly tally of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. One wonders if these sociopolitical changes would have been possible without the television images of what was going on with American young men in a battle arena, far away from home. Cultural content on the Internet develops this pictorial tendency, and many examples of public discussions in cyberspace reflect the role of images. These

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occasions sometimes embrace ethical and philosophical themes, like, say, abortion, the dignity of refugees, patriotism versus nationalism, to name a few. Given a particular context, one could ask: Does not anti-​abortion discourse (often referring to “evil” and “negative values”) impact more among audiences when its proponents show X-​ray images of the fetus as a part of their story? Conversely, are not their pro-​abortion opponents much more persuasive when their narratives (frequently referring to “freedom,” “non-​suffering,” and other “positive values”) display the images of deformed newborns with terrible-​ looking physical birth defects, expecting a reactive shock effect, at least in some audiences? Do not tv scenes play a large role in the discussion about refugees, and are not these scenes (for example, a lifeless boy on a beach for one side of the issue, and, for the other, terrorist attacks by Muslim immigrants), rather than pure argument, that which really counts in public life? Are not discourses on nationalisms and anti-​nationalisms strengthened by symbols and well-​arranged, visual images that appeal to the senses and the imagination in a powerful way for many audiences? Is it not the case that, even when disputants themselves avoid using images, a growing majority of the public have them already in their minds, and very often react to these images more than to the argumentation that they hear, if they hear it at all? So, if we agree with Nicholas Rescher, that the cardinal rule of pragmatic rationality is to “proceed in a manner that is optimally efficient and effective in realizing the purposes at hand” (Rescher 2004, 95), my question then becomes the following: Do not more attractive, clearer and more inspirational discourses make for more “efficient and effective” realizations of “the purposes at hand” in communication with some types of target audiences, especially non-​academic and non-​intellectual? Those contemporary pragmatists who want to use the legacy of the great classical pragmatists, while also looking for future challenges with the help of their ideas, would do well to respond to this. There are many studies of Internet content that analyze the role of images in promoting texts and textual material. For example, people following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations; tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images; in an analysis of over 1 million articles, BuzzSumo found that articles with an image every 75–​100 words received double the social media shares as articles with fewer images (Mawhinney 2019). The challenge for stoic pragmatists that emerges out of such studies, in my view, is the need to link content on ethical values with the aesthetic values of the narratives within them. If dc public intellectuals, stoic pragmatists or not, want to have a say on the important issues of the day—​and this includes values, culture, education, a good and meaningful life—​they should pay much more attention

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to the aesthetic dimension of their content, which is directed at various audiences with various sensitivities to pictorial communication. I do not wish the Reader to think that I would like to promote forms of psychological impact on viewers, or superficial effects that are acceptable, even desirable, for a mass audience. At stake is the rational means by which a meaningful and rigorous debate concerning values should be conducted. 5

The Main Thesis

My main claim here is this: in order to face the challenges of digital culture more effectively, it is necessary to refer to aesthetic values (e.g. clarity, simplicity, style, attractiveness, excellence, uniqueness, originality, stimulation, inspiration, provocation/​shock, elegance/​gentleness, and others) by means of aesthetic modes of expression (textual, oral, pictorial, visual, cinematic) in narratives that address ethical values, be they social or individual. Many philosophical narratives on ethics already involve some aesthetic and visual (and rhetorical) factors. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is one of the best examples. In evoking such visual factors, the author of narratives pregnant with those pictorial factors can modify the whole communication about a given ethical issue to a given target audience. I would even dare to ask that if merely discussing Plato’s ideas, that is, without visualizing them at the same time, does not deprive Plato’s message of its hidden visual dimension, as if sticking to merely textual (and/​or oral) content is not incomplete? The same refers to many other thinkers and their styles of philosophical narrative. For example, Santayana’s works have been described as impressionistic (Beltrán 2008: 28, 143; Skowroński 2013, 25–​27), as if full of photographic images taken from a certain perspective, yet rendered by textual modes of expression. 6

Selected Practices for Stoic Pragmatists’ Visual Presence in Digital Culture

The Internet offers an impressive number of possibilities of practices for individual philosophers (apart from institutions with their it experts, as mentioned above), and the number of modes is rapidly growing. It is not possible to discuss all of them here. Below, I propose some selected visual-​presence-​oriented practices that explore digital tools that can be employed to create philosophical, ethical, and values-​oriented narratives recognizable as attractive by target audiences. Each of these practices can be created and developed separately.

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They can be combined and practiced all together. Let me insist, this is not a full catalog of such practices. Rather, I want to indicate the most popular ones, and, at the same time, those most accessible for a humanist who has not been trained as an it expert. The judgment as to the ease and popularity is exclusively mine, although there are some objective criteria, for example, the number of entries and commentaries, to mention just one. While collecting this material I relied, to some degree, on my personal experience as an occasional blogger, online speaker, online life-​coach, video-​clip maker, Zoom Webinar-​ maker, podcaster, e-​teaching instructor, and everyday university professor who extensively uses digital tools in the process of teaching. Nevertheless, there are other viewpoints of other colleagues who practice other types of this kind of activity. One more remark: I do not present these practices as methodologically competent ways of accumulating knowledge, although this is not excluded. However, these practices form modes of communication for philosophers with various audiences, so as to be able to impact the content of dc and its participants. Here are the selected practices. Video-​image of a good speaker in action. A philosopher himself or herself is presenting philosophical content in a video-​clip, being interviewed, lecturing, or presenting the material to a particular audience on a particular occasion. The living image of this figure, along with the gesticulations, facial expressions, voice modulations, and other enhancing attributes that can be utilized (books in the background, fragments of texts visible on the screen), are important parts of the show. At the same time, solid oral skills are a requisite, along with such aesthetic qualities as clarity of speech, attractiveness of the topic to a given audience, and the inspirational nature of what is said. The living image of the speaker strengthens his or her reliability, and therefore, the image of a philosopher in action is at stake here. The most popular platform to do this is probably YouTube, the second most visited website in the world (Otechworld 2018). Successful examples of professional philosophers exercising this form of practice are: Bogusław Wolniewicz (Elzenberg’s former student) in Poland, Hans-​Georg Mueller (German philosopher working in Macao), Slavoj Žižek (Slovenian recognized globally), Fernando Savater in Spain (especially his series Aventura del pensamiento), and Darío Sztajnszrajber in Argentina. The first, despite the fact that his audience is much more limited than the others, primarily for his speaking a language that does not have global range (Polish). Some of his numerous, half-​an-​hour-​long clips have gained much popularity among large audiences, reaching 80,000+​entries and thousands of comments, and this despite his maintaining a philosophical, ethical, rational, and intellectual character in his videos.

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Images showing authorship of ideas, texts, books, projects, debates, or attitudes. A stoic pragmatist, himself or herself, can visualize his or her work by revealing its many aspects at various stages of its creation and in a plurality of contexts. Such an approach towards the process of creation of philosophical work runs against the grain of the traditional way of doing philosophy, wherein only the final result—​namely, an officially published text (book)—​embodies a meaning that warrants discussion, criticism, review, and references. In this case, a website, a blog, a vlog, a fb page, Instagram, a yt channel, could all be appropriate places to offer pieces of texts, along with photos, videos, graphs, Webinars, even an exchange of discussions and comments. What can be achieved with this form of presentation is a more astute and more direct insight into the following: the authorship of the project, particular people and places that are relevant to the project; its expected impact on a given community; a possible debate over some passages of the text and controversies surrounding particular stages of its development; a discussion over attitudes towards particular ideas that seem crucial; an explication of its historical background; and an explanation of the significance of the work to particular audiences. The gist here is to complement the work (a text and the ideas behind it) with the images that help the audience acquire a (better) sense of the meaning of a philosophical work and its possible impact on social and/​or individual life. Commoning visualized by Webinar, video-​ interviews, and conference-​ recording. The term commoning refers to cooperative work by various people with the aim of producing a common good to be accessed and used for free. Here, the term commoning stresses the continuity of the process of creation of a common good by a group of people. Although the term was popularized by a book dedicated to history (Linebaugh’s The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All), it has recently gained traction in the digital context and can be, I think, applied to dc. For example, Wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy are seen as results of this type of work: they are prepared by a host of people and the present editions are (and future editions will be) a common good to be used by those who are/​will be interested, without any financial cost (things may change in places where more wealthy actors prevail). This collective process of preparing something that can serve the public (both specific audiences and general audiences) and be shown on videos, with photos, and images, and so on, could include the work of agents (philosophers, teachers, ethicists, humanists, etc.), their relations and interactions during the entire process. All this effort is to present the work of philosophers and to achieve results that are important to the public, rather than keeping this whole process hidden in a closed circle of insiders, as has usually been the case.

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Visualized storytelling about ideas, issues, texts, and thinkers. Storytelling is originally an element of oral culture, yet its visualization assumes a very distinct character. The main ability of storytelling to create and bring to life stories (plots) that have common characteristics with novels, screenplays, and movies, is astonishing. Various stages of sophistication are to be found here: starting with a philosopher who is telling us a story about a given idea or a figure, and then through a group of philosophers who tell us—​as was the case of Phillip McReynold’s American Philosopher (2013) that can be seen on yt—​a story about American pragmatism. As mentioned, such storytelling about philosophical issues, ideas, lifestyles, and meaning, resembles the ability to create literary works, cinematic works, fairy tales, and narrative works in general, and can become a very useful tool in biographical narratives that describe philosophers’ lives in an especially attractive way. Storytelling offers many possibilities for using a variety of rhetorical devices and persuasive techniques, which can be instrumental in reaching wider audiences: specific types of words, figures of speech, comparisons, metaphors, and references. Texts decorated with related images and graphs. A text that includes relevant illustrations gains more readability than the same text without relevant illustrations. By a “relevant illustration” I have in mind one that has a direct connection with the text, not an accidental one. It would be necessary for an author to have a good recognition of what is a relevant illustration and what is not. For example, a photo of a philosopher under discussion is definitely a relevant illustration, whereas a photo of a man or a group of people unrelated to the text is not. A graph that visualizes the issue(s) discussed in the text, explaining or showing a part of its content, is relevant; a graph that explains hardly anything at all is not. Visual rhetoric would be an area of competence that would need to be accessed by the author, if strong results were what was desired. A common example of using relevant images of all kinds are entries in Wikipedia, where photos and graphs illustrate content in an explanatory way and have contributed to its popularity. Simplification of the written text making it more attractive to wider audiences. A text written for an academic, literary culture audience has a very different form than a text written for other audiences. Distinct say, for example, from a blog that popularly discusses philosophical topics. The length of the sentence, the use of the words, the phrases, the metaphors, varies considerably. This difference can be smoothed over if we use various editorial software, for example, the Hemingway Editor application (in English). These cost-​free online editing tools can check any part of a written text for readability by a general audience or specific types within a general audience (e.g., youth). Indeed, the creation of the Hemingway Editor was based on the analysis of

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the language and phrases in recent best-​selling novels indicating which parts of the pasted text were unacceptable or difficult to read by general audiences, and then suggests corrections. Thanks to these digital tools we are able to catch which parts of the text need simplification or modification, and change the text to appeal to broader audiences, without distortion of the meaning of the content. Visualization as creating an image to communicate content. There have been many attempts to visualize philosophical concepts, and many of these attempts were done by painters long before computers appeared. Some vanguard artists of the early twentieth century famously referred to philosophical ideas as if to express clearly a substantial correspondence between the textual language of philosophy and the visual language of the fine arts. For example, a Polish philosopher-​logician and painter, Leon Chwistek (2018 [1921]) intended to argue philosophically and, at the same time, artistically demonstrate his idea of the multiplicity of realities. Contemporary computer graphics offer more complex, faster, and more-​capable-​of-​being-​shared possibilities in linking textual ideas and visual representations. Other interesting examples are Maria Popova’s Visual Dictionary of Philosophy or the Philographics Project that can be accessed at Studiocarreras.com. These and other similar visualization sources can serve philosophers in rendering their ideas through pictorial discourse, or help them better explain their textual content. Showing a more practical approach rather than a theoretical one. Exhibiting a practical approach towards philosophical issues is one of the main differences in communication between academic and scientific audiences in philosophy, which are theory-​oriented, and other types of audiences. Philosophical modes of communication, especially since the time of logical positivism’s and, later, analytic philosophy’s general domination in Anglo-​American philosophy, have dramatically separated themselves apart from wider audiences as already mentioned. Despite the notable theoretical achievements of these movements, the impracticality of philosophical deliberations has continued to be proverbial, and the chasm between philosophy departments and the outer world has become wider. This is one of the most serious obstacles that philosophers deal with today, and the Internet, with billions of its users, is a great opportunity to reach out to more people. Looking for inspiration in religious painting. According to some interpretations, Richard Rorty’s criticism of ecclesiastical institutions was based on an assumption that “religion is essentially a conversation-​stopper” (Stout 2010, 536). Rorty thought it difficult for a serious conversation to take place between a religious dogmatist and a liberal democrat (and he was right on this point), yet he did not think about a highly elaborate set of pictorial discourses,

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including a visual language of religious art that religion (and theology) has produced throughout the ages, at least in the West. Why has philosophy not been able, with some exceptions, to produce similar effects? Stated differently, why has philosophical wisdom resisted being demonstrated by the plastic arts (although it has been very successfully rendered by literature)? One possible answer could be that the textual and intellectual character of philosophical reflection reduces the possibilities of converting it into a visual language. As this answer is not convincing to me, because the Allegory of the Cave and other examples clearly show that some philosophical ideas can be visualized quite adequately, I propose another answer. Religion has had a sense of mission directed to all audiences, even the illiterate (Biblia pauperum), and it was necessary for religious authors, whatever their intent, to promote a way of communication that could be understood by all recipients of religious and theological content. Whereas philosophy, in most cases, has been directed either to academic audiences or high culture, intellectualist, elitist audiences that did not need artistic images. To put it more simply, philosophers, with some notable exceptions, tended to direct their thoughts to elites, and not to a more all-​inclusive audience. They used the language of the elite. If my answer makes sense, the main obstacle for philosophers to communicate well with non-​philosophers would be a philosopher’s effort, or rather a lack of effort, to reach given target audiences other than the elite one. The philosophers always furthered a speculative nature to philosophical content and discouraged its convertibility into pictorial discourse. Some examples of ineffective visualizations. I do not suggest that each and every philosophical or ethical text can be successfully converted into an image or a visualization. Nor do I suggest that all that content that has been successfully visualized for a given target audience, will be equally capable of being recognized successfully or adequately understood by another target audience that uses, for example, a different ethnic language and has a different cultural background. Similarly, putting philosophically sophisticated material into a blog does not mean at all that it will gain popularity, or that it will have an impact on anything or anyone else other than just evoking some attention among blog readers. Therefore, if a given philosopher video-​records his or her lecture and uploads it onto YouTube, this does not automatically imply that this recording will be seen by anybody except by a very few. A consummate recognition of the target audience, as well as the possibility of reaching wider audiences, needs to be assisted by additional, yet essential factors, such as a systematic manner of presenting material, the ability to position the material in Google (seo), and many other factors.

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Side Effects: Methodological Reliability of Aestheticization and Visualization in Question

There are possible side effects in the implementation of these practices that demand discussion here. Visualization and aestheticization as such do not result in methodological reliability in presenting a given idea or content, although their potential to do so is significant. There were many attempts in the history of philosophy to aestheticize philosophical ideas in a literary manner, and to capture them more closely without risk of distorting their substantial contents. For example, Wilhelm Windelband, roughly a hundred years ago, put a strong emphasis on what he “considered the truth,” namely, that “it is not so much the difficulty of philosophy as the poor literary standard of philosophical writers which perplexes the student.” He continues in this vein to suggest that philosophers ought to, among other things, pay more attention to “the finer quality of the artistic expression” (Windelband 1921 [1914]: 15, 16) in their works and ideas, and to make these works and ideas even more accessible. The pictorial dimension of philosophical texts has been discussed in step with the so-​called cinematic philosophy. Here, Stanley Cavell has articulated this view in a definitive way: “My question is not why film should or could be of interest and service to humanists or to intellectuals at large, but how it comes to pass that it is not generally found inescapably interesting, a necessary subject of speculation, to any humanist writer and scholar to whom art and America and his or her past is of interest” (Cavell 2005 [1983], 107). The Internet offers many more modes of presenting material than just films, novels, or paintings, and doubts about the coherence of those modes seem to be justified. For example, it is not so clear that in presenting visual material (a photo) on, say, Instagram or by means of, say, memes, or with a clip on YouTube, one can correspond each to the other and to the essential textual content that a given philosopher wants to express. There are reasonable methodological concerns whether these complement each other at all. Especially so if we do not have a clear and systematic methodology of traditional aesthetic and artistic performance. Or whether we have a specific methodology for each particular mode of communication, say Instagram. These doubts can lead to a claim that a lack of universal modes of aesthetic expression prevents us from offering the audience objective content referring to more universal moral values. In other words, the incommensurability of discourses that are expressible by various virtual modes and platforms will make any given idea or ethical expression vulnerable to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and abuse. Even more, the growing pluralism of modes and platforms may cause the multiplication of world versions presented as actual reality, so that the viewers

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will have a sense of cognitive disorientation as to what is factually being communicated to them. My response to this is the following. Philosophy has always been strong in asking universal questions—​about the human condition to begin with—​yet, the answers proposed have been local, temporary, and changing. Stoic pragmatists claim that philosophical deliberations as such are predominantly inconclusive: “There is not a single proposition of philosophical substance on which professional thinkers agree, and it is highly unlikely that such a proposition will surface anytime soon” (fl 289). The material to which I refer in the present text is not science-​oriented (unless we are talking about digital technology). Thus, the accumulation of knowledge is not the underlying concern here, nor is methodological rigor and argumentative coherence. The underlying concern, instead, is the effectiveness of communication about the quality of life, the meaningfulness of life, and overall satisfaction with it. It could appear, however, that the cost of the effectiveness of communication that is reaching given target audiences will be, admittedly, the ineffectiveness of transmitting coherent content by various platforms. I am more concerned about another possible criticism of the practices of visualization and aestheticization, and that is the danger of the tabloidization of philosophical content and a matter-​of-​course banalization of ideas. Notwithstanding, I think this danger is unavoidable, and it takes place all the time. Philosophical ideas have been used and abused—​religiously, economically, and politically—​independently of the historical time period and the type of media, textual, oral, visual, or digital. Additionally, what looks banal to the professional philosopher may look fresh, inspirational, and encouraging to conventional people who have not had much access or exposure to philosophical training, yet have philosophical interests or existential questions that concern them. The commercial success of coaching as a profession (life coaching for instance) lies, at least partially, in transferring complex ideas discussed in closed circles of professional philosophers at universities into “trivial,” yet practical, basic, forms of ordinary experience. From this viewpoint, the unravelment and clarification of philosophical ideas has positive results. This stated, I do claim that philosophers should try to do all that is possible to aspire to become the 1% group of superusers within their small circles of concern. That would boost the quality content in dc by establishing visible points of reference that would be attractive to a wider spectrum of participants in cyberspace. Let me conclude here by summoning the stoic pragmatists’ hope that “there is a large public waiting anxiously for what philosophy can offer—​for careful thinking, clear vision, and the intelligent examination of our values. That is where the future of philosophy lies” (sp 193).

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Humanization of Cyberspace

The growing role of algorithms and other forms of “mechanical,” “trans-​human,” and “a-​human” ways of communication on the Internet and elsewhere needs, more and more, a counteracting force of human communication, if not a face-​ to-​face confrontation. I am unwilling to claim that “no object or algorithm is ever either good or evil in itself. It’s how they’re used that matters. gps was invented to launch nuclear missiles and now helps deliver pizzas” (Fry 2018, 3). However, personal, individual, and human practices should be promoted in dc, and the aim should be at humanizing this highly mechanical ambience. This is why I do not analyze a collective impact on dc, and by this I have in mind such institutions as universities and colleges (with their own it centers), neh-​like institutions, academia.edu-​like institutions, foundations, research centers, philosophical societies, political parties, groups, and initiatives, ngo’s, and others. During the 2020–​21 covid lockdown period, the processes of the digitalization of education accelerated even further, and as a result, Western school systems, including academia, will never return to previous states of operation. There is no doubt that we face a progressive algorithmization of cyberspace and a very rapid development of superficial content in cyberspace. It is quite probable that the processes of digitalization will accelerate in the coming years. Automatization of algorithmization will embrace all aspects of life. In this way, the dehumanization of the digital world appears to be an inevitable scenario. Given this, what, in this new context, should be the role of intellectuals—​most of whom have been loyal to traditional, text-​based, and classroom-​centered intellectual work? Will there be any motivation to discuss a good and meaningful life, or it will become obvious that a good life translates into a digital life within cyberspace? As a response to this question, allow me to return to the humanities university classroom, traditional or digital. First of all, we need to offer something more than an exchange of information in the classroom, which seems to be the growing tendency of the contemporary model of professional teaching. For example, if the term teaching actually means teaching professionalized philosophy, the humanities, and the liberal arts along with their methodologies, by predominantly involving the transmission of information and knowledge from the instructor to the student, then the Internet indeed impends like a real threat to this mode of teaching. It looms like a danger because it can easily oust philosophy from the classroom at any moment without much fanfare, and this for at least two reasons. First, there is no professor, however prominent, who possesses more knowledge than what is available via the Internet; second, any authority, including

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leading figures, can present his or her lecture on Youtube, Facebook, or other social media so as to be easily accessible to those who want to watch and listen, inside or outside an academic context. This would be the sort of fungibility that I wrote of previously: my classroom lecture, however elaborate, could be easily superseded by a video lecture by a more renowned teacher on a similar topic, which makes my lecture somewhat redundant. And this may someday be the case, even for the most well-​known, since avatars may out them in turn, and we might see avatars giving lectures in a more interesting way than real, living people. Here lies the danger of the dehumanization of the humanities, and other areas of education, which also may be transformed given the technological possibilities available. In other words, any student or non-​student can find knowledge and any piece of information instantaneously on the Internet, without charge. Besides, such an individual does not have to become a student and attend a university at all since, if resourceful enough, one can access books, videos, the views of experts, and stored knowledge from a smartphone. If we, then, are willing to reduce teaching to exposure to material that can be accessed by this most modern means of communication, the sense of the giving and taking of traditional, face-​to-​face classes, diminishes entirely. However, there is something that cannot be obtained through the new social media, despite its technological sophistication, and this is the humanistic aspect of the physical or digital encounter of a teacher with a student: What colleges and universities can offer that is unavailable from the computer is what they have always offered at their best: firsthand contact with remarkable people whose knowledge of their fields and whose experience of life have been integrated into the unity of a person. Such conversation is of benefit to both students and teachers. Students gain access to the accumulated wisdom of the human race through a dynamic medium that rewards searching and novel questions with thoughtful and often surprising answers. Teachers, in turn, find stimulation under the scrutiny of inquisitive young minds. ci 28

Direct contact with personalities equipped with knowledge and experience, and vibrant conversation on important issues, are unequivocally what sp advocates. The role of a good teacher is to provide worthwhile stimulation by evoking the potential in each student via direct contact and interaction. Evoking this “human immediacy” (ci 25), and the engagement of teacher with student in the process of the transmission of knowledge is something that we can call “intergenerational immediacy” (ci 26), contributing to the transmission

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of the basic traits of a common cultural tradition, and counteracting the process of dehumanization that occurs in cyberspace. What this requires from the teacher is an engagement in making each and every minute count, according to the claim that “teaching in our universities would be vastly improved if instructors aimed to transmit in each five-​minute segment of their classes more knowledge or skills of a different sort from those one can get by reading books” (ci 16). In order to do that interestingly and attractively, teachers themselves need to exhibit some internal qualities: enthusiasm, knowledge, and pedagogical skills. Yet they cannot stop there because they must enlarge all this into publicly visible, commonly understandable, and widely attractive content in a pictorial or visual form easily accessible by digital tools. A major challenge indeed, but not unrealizable given the younger generation’s growing dependence on computers and software in almost every aspect of human life, as well as the dependence of socially organized acts with innumerable contributors within big corporations and other institutions: it experts, designers, content managers, distributors, and ourselves who have a microscopic impact on the shape of Internet content. Additionally, having access, by means of the Internet, for example, to more knowledge than ever before in history, should make many of us more and more conscious of the complexity of social interconnection and interdependence. We, as individuals, soak up indirect experience and pay a price for being unable to perform our most important activities independently. One could even claim that “nearly everyone agrees that in dealing with each other in social institutions we have ourselves become depersonalized and stiff biological replicas of the machine” (Lachs 1985, 7). And I hope that as this claim is an exaggeration today, or it seems so to me, it will remain so in the foreseeable future.

Chapter 7

Possible Criticisms The present chapter deals with possible criticisms that could be lodged against stoic pragmatism, as presented in this volume. They are to be found in the context of its message about a meaningful life amidst the impact of culture and value pluralism. As it is impossible to present a full list of conceivable questions and controversies, a selection has been made according to various groups of issues. One of them is the integrity of this project, or its possible division and argumentative implosion. For example, one could claim that there is an obvious and incommensurable discrepancy between the stoic and the pragmatic, as between the two modes of ethics these two embody: virtue ethics vs. utilitarian, or instrumental ethics. Another group of questions could indicate its outright insufficiency in the face of urgent sociopolitical problems that we face nowadays and how little space has been devoted to the political issues of the day, as if they had little relevance to a meaningful life. The last strain of criticism, perhaps the most important one, could be an accusation of sp promoting escapism and cultivating cultural impotence rather than cultural importance, despite its declarations about the role of practical action and, in this way, demonstrating a hidden frustration, decadence, and incapacity to be active enough to make a difference. 1

Is Stoic Pragmatism Needed at All?

Critics of sp may claim that what historical Stoicism is strong at, that is to say, the existential and ethical reflection convertible into the practice of everyday life, could be easily sheltered within contemporary pragmatism, not to mention other modern philosophical currents—​existentialism is the first that comes to mind. Some recent developments of pragmatist ethics (Franzese 2008, Kegley 2008, Pappas 2008, Auxier 2010, Kaag 2020) and pragmatist reflection about religious and spiritual issues (e.g., Kimura 2007, Nagl 2021) show that the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism is vast enough to deal also with the problem of a good and meaningful life in most practical and daily dimensions, and the figure of William James could very well be iconic here. Pragmatism does not need, critics could claim, any “stoic correction,” because its philosophical tradition is ample enough to include, in any updated version, all the important Stoic themes that could be, if relevant, applicable to contemporary

© Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004680050_009

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contexts. Even one of its central figures, Sidney Hook, has defined pragmatism in a way that would suit a stoic sensibility: “Pragmatism, as I interpret it, is the theory and practice of enlarging human freedom in a precarious and tragic world by the arts of intelligent social control” (Hook 1959-​1960 [1957], 26), and William James’s understanding of a meaningful life does contain stoic fortitude in maintaining “some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance” (James 1977 [1899]b, 659). In this way, we understand pragmatism as a movement that is broad enough to include various approaches, not only one that has moved into methodologically science-​oriented explorations. Therefore, if sp wants to expand out into the wider, more diverse public beyond the academic one, and stress the role of practical implementation in existential issues, the same can be done with pragmatism, without a “stoic accent.” Before answering this criticism, let me stress that sp does not reject the output of those pragmatist authors who discuss similar concerns, and that stoic pragmatism is still predominantly a part of pragmatism and has much to do with the pragmatist reflection about a good life. I have reiterated many times in this book that sp takes for granted the most basic ontological, epistemological, anthropological, and sociopolitical assumptions of pragmatism: naturalism (in ontology), truth as a result of human experience (epistemology), each human has potential worthy of development (anthropology), human minds are largely influenced by societal relations (social philosophy), as well as individual freedom, pluralism, and toleration (political ethics). It is on this basis that stoic elements should be preserved and developed. There is not an issue with rejecting pragmatism as such, but with broadening its scope at some points, especially for those who associate pragmatism exclusively with an American philosophical culture at some point in its development (at the close of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century). First of all, sp showcases the test of time by an exploration of the wisdom we share with past generations, and, in my case, it is consoling to read classical authors who deliberated on how to cope with similar existential problems that we are compelled to deal with: contingency, death, lost, a meaningful life, the good life, and others. I say “consoling” in the sense of the effectiveness of some solutions. For example, a need to focus on my own solid and healthy attitude toward life, and “consoling” in the sense of a unity with humankind. The reference to an enduring publicly-​tested experience elevates the role of unifying elements of the human condition in order to counterbalance those elements that make us vulnerable—​the fragmentary, the tribal, and the momentary. The test of time serves as a solid confirmation of those perennial traits and conditions of human nature embedded in its environment, despite the obvious differences among people (historical and economical, for

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example), asking for something that unifies them perhaps most of all: how to manage life in the face of obstacles as to make it good and meaningful? It is enriching and confirmatory to read, say, Epictetus, and detect the points that, although written twenty centuries ago and in quite a different cultural ambience, relate to us things that are similar to our own conditions, only confirming their perdurable importance. I need not add that such an attitude gains even more importance in horrific conditions, tragically occurring once again recently, as in the pandemic (covid) and the war (Ukraine), both (plague and war) profoundly experienced during Marcus Aurelius’s own time, which were the Antonine Plague and the wars against the German tribes. Let me reiterate that this overarching perspective gives a sense of unity and a conviction that, despite historical, economic, political, and technological differences among cultures, present and past, the human condition has some supratemporal traits, and it makes sense to refer to them for our own cognitive profit, so to speak, recognizing their practical consequences in the form of our appropriate actions. At the same time, and this is the second point why sp is needed, sp is naturally ready and able, so to speak, to explore various philosophical (Stoic, pragmatic), historical (Hellenistic, contemporary) and cultural traditions (European, American) to extol those common plots, not just American plots, and try to accommodate effectively ourselves to the newest challenges. This perspective is culturally more encompassing because it helps us view things in a larger perspective and frees us from a sort of cultural determinism, which is to follow mindlessly the cultural fashions of the day. This is, in my view, a very powerful reason why sp has importance: this reference to human experience taken more universally than our present epoch, our culture, and our geographically delimited traditions, makes us stronger in understanding and practicing a more profound set of guidelines for a good life than those promoted at a given moment by any given fashion, or by this or that popular movement. It is also for these reasons that sp is welcome and relevant. And there is a third reason that enlarges a strict pragmatist perspective. The “stoic accent” burgeons the social perspective of the human condition that pragmatism outlines into something more “cosmic,” in the sense in which we need to think seriously about our contingency, perishing, death, thriving, and the meaning of life from an all-​encompassing perspective, not merely social and cultural: The stoic in stoic pragmatists reminds them of the contingency of life, the vastness of the universe, the finitude of everything human, the tragic

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cost of whatever we do, and the possibility that our efforts will be of no avail. Stoics whisper “memento mori,” as religion used to but perhaps no longer does, calling the attention of communities to the larger, historical cycles over which they exercise no control. Without a cosmic perspective, we cannot present a just assessment of our situation. With this prospect clearly in mind, we can never place ourselves at the center of the universe. Stoic detachment is a powerful antidote to the hype that elevates science to the level of savior and social effort above natural limits. sp 52

These remarks have much in common with Pierre Hadot’s famous characterization of the practical role of philosophy in antiquity, and again we can establish the link with sp, especially in places discussed in Chapters Three and Four. Stated differently, in philosophy as a way of life and, within it, the role of focusing on the present moment and seeing in it its infinite value, as if in a cosmic or holistic perspective, its attractive vision. (cf. Hadot 1995, 273). 2

Is There Any Target Audience for sp?

sp’s reservations about academic philosophers preclude thinking about them as the target audience for the idea of stoic pragmatism. Most probably, professional philosophers will focus their attention, or their criticism, on the technical dimension of stoic pragmatism and the theoretical incommensurability of its two main components. However, such an incommensurability would be the least problematic issue for stoic pragmatists, as they know all too well, as Santayana did, that theoretical sophistication in philosophy rarely ever translates into individual and social practice. Instead, the guiding concern should be what philosophy can offer for diverse audiences, including those having “largely unintellectualized attitudes” (sp 71), to make their lives better in everyday and practical dimensions and, in this way, fulfill philosophy’s “obligation to address the problems of daily living” (rpl xiii). Thus, more extensive, although perhaps not so numerous would be the target audiences. What audiences would be capable of sharing these aims? What other audiences could there be? The recent pandemic (covid) has been a major blow not only to our economies and socially organized forms of cooperation. No less importantly, it has been a major blow to many individuals who, suddenly deprived of their regular

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routines, have had to rethink matters that had seemed obvious before now living with the restrictions of lockdown and under a global threat of insecurity and instability. The recent (February 2022) Russian invasion of Ukraine and its global impact have made things even worse. Suddenly, the world looks differently, and our reactions and behaviors depend more and more on our attitudes towards the insecure, the unknown, the contingent, and the unexpected. There must be many people, from all manner of backgrounds, who would like to live a more profound experienced life, and be exposed to reflection that stems from a more solid ground than what they get from most content in the mass media or, even worse, from social media in the case of the younger generation. This latter group would be a most natural target audience for stoic pragmatism, and I especially refer to this group in places when I refer to the Internet and digital culture (predominantly in Chapter 6). But there is one more target audience for stoic pragmatism. Those people who are affected by intervening factors of all kinds who realize that our acts are dependent on decisions that are not our own. Even more disturbing, fungibility, or the sense that our work has little significance (discussed in Chapter 1), and can be performed by someone else, or by robots, deprives many people of their sense of agency. Many individuals are suffering from their impotency in the face of institutionalized forms of public life and the frustration they experience is due to their inability to cope with setbacks. Stoic pragmatism has, I hope, much to offer to this audience too. Both basic components of stoic pragmatism, the stoic and the pragmatist, elicit the role of awareness in the individual as regards his or her actions, along with a readiness to pay the consequences of his or her actions within given circumstances. Both require knowledge and self-​knowledge, yet the former stresses a bit more the individual consciousness of the agent, while the latter stresses more the consciousness of the social. Both can be even included in a wider tendency, a “common plan,” to use Rosa Maria Calcaterra’s phrase, of American and European pragmatists. This common plan would be in working in the area of “the consonances between the work of James and Dewey and the anti-​foundationalist orientation that marks much of contemporary European thought” (Calcaterra 2014, 95). More precisely, in this segment of contemporary European thought that manifests itself in searching, among other things, for social hope at a time of having lost absolutist points of reference, be it religion, tradition, in metaphysics, in education, in the legal system, or in ethics. By indicating the role of both basic components, especially in the context of a possible “common plan” of American and European pragmatism, as I do now, I might arouse more questions about the internal unity of sp, so let me say a few words about that now.

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Is Not sp Internally Split?

Some contemporary pragmatists, most of whom have no stoic inclinations, may wonder if connecting two such different and distant traditions as Stoicism and pragmatism is possible. There are more theoretical characteristics that separate these two than unite them, ontological and metaphysical in the first instance. Not only theoretically, but also practically. The Stoics, to refer once again to a quote in the Introduction, were not able to enjoy life and abandoned all hope (cf. ci 61–​62), which is in opposition to what pragmatism offers. Connecting, then, these two, produces nothing more than a permanent internal split, critics could claim. These same critics would have to admit though that within both these historical traditions there are different, divergent versions, as it were. There are significant differences between the Greek and Roman versions of Stoicism on the one hand, as there are differences within pragmatism, starting with its founders. It has always been an issue whether American pragmatism is one project or rather a collection of similar, yet different ideas, views, and methodologies. The question as to the unity or the continuity of the movement makes as much sense now as it did a century ago, roughly at the time of the publication of Lovejoy’s “The Thirteen Pragmatisms” (Lovejoy 1908). For example, Rorty’s neopragmatism has little in common with the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, who famously renamed his version of pragmatism pragmaticism, in order to distinguish it from the humanistic pragmatisms of William James and F.C.S. Schiller. Royce’s absolute pragmatism is interpreted as idealist by some (cf. Frederick Copleston’s History of Philosophy) and as pragmatist by others (cf. Kegley 2008). I suspect that Nicholas Rescher’s pragmatic idealism (and his cognitive pragmatism) could also be interpreted in similarly dissimilar ways. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the principal figure of American transcendentalism, and also Santayana are occasionally named as proto-​pragmatists (cf. Skowroński 2007, 27n.) and, needless to say, new versions and figures emerge all the time, including feminist pragmatism, for example, among others. If we, then, tried to contrast the science-​oriented pragmatism of the Peirce and Rescher strain with Stoic metaphysics and the cosmology of early Greek Stoics, sp would be irrelevant here because sp distances itself from both: “Science has not succeeded and cannot succeed in revealing to us the mystery of existence” (gs 14). sp advocates the practical searching for existential and life solutions over theoretical deliberations about what the truth is or what the cosmos really looks like, claiming that proven scientific disciplines (biology, physics, astronomy, etc.) at their most advanced level, are better equipped to investigate such matters than philosophy. With its enormous

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critical attention on various aspects of methods of inquiry, education, power relations, ethical issues, and cultural life, philosophy makes contributions to generating and forming “a morally and politically sophisticated citizenry” (sp 24). As pointed out in this work, sp has reservations about both the science-​ oriented methodologies in philosophy and the metaphysical categories so pronounced in Greek Stoicism, but less pronounced, yet still present, in its Roman version, fatum and providentia being two examples. Critics could point out some incoherence in sp’s sociopolitical reflections. Pragmatism embodies a definite democratic, pluralistic, and constructivist profile while Stoicism, even in its Roman version, was elitist, ascetic, and conservative. This implies that wisdom was accessible to a few sages only who would disparage, or at best tolerate, the ignorance of the masses. Even if this characterization were considered insightful, there are some points where the differences between these two do not seem so obvious. For example, the democratic dimension of Stoicism, or perhaps the term “cosmopolitan” would be more adequate in this case. We can say that it was partially democratic or egalitarian, at least according to our contemporary criteria, when we consider various social strata that were represented by Stoicism’s most famous figures. To be sure, the social spectrum was wide enough to include the emperor at the pinnacle (Marcus Aurelius), the merchant (Zeno of Citium), and the ex-​slave Epictetus. They all were concerned with democratic, not elitist, themes—​ those that concern everybody independently of their social and material position: how to live well according to the natural resources at hand. Moreover, given the Stoics’ “democratic” or “egalitarian” or “cosmopolitan” posture towards the equality of men and women (especially Chrysippus and Musonius Rufus), there are, as described in Chapter 2, some contemporary voices claiming that “a consistent and morally sound Stoic feminism is possible” (Aikin and McGill-​Rutherford 2014, 10). Thanks to this we could talk about a sort of egalitarian and democratic dimension in a time period when such ideas where rarely put into practice. There is, then, no inconsistency in merging some elements of these two traditions into a democratic, pluralistic, and humanistic (and relatively cosmopolitan) approach. sp embraces the idea of democracy according to which democratic principles are the best, at least for Western countries, at their present stage of development, and support the most functional, well-​grounded sociopolitical systems. Democracy may be not the most productive frame of understanding to evaluate distinct forms of so-​called closed societies in which individual rights are secondary to the interests of the state, the nation, or other political bodies, taking place in many non-​Western countries right now and the majority of traditions in the past. Plato’s Republic is a phenomenal

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introduction to this debate, and Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies (1945), one of its most serious recent discussions. Yet, sp is an outlook that promotes the idea of (thoughtful) individualism with attention being paid to the validation of individual experiences and to the development of all individuals within a community in a variety of ways, not by means of just a few prescribed ways in advance. Neither sp nor its interpretation of Stoicism has politically anything to do with some of the totalitarian tendencies that have been discussed by some modern German authors (cf. Oestreich 1982 [1954], Brunner 1949) who studied sixteenth-​century Neo-​Stoicism and its representatives, predominantly Justus Lipsius. According to their interpretations (cf. Miller 2002), Neo-​Stoicism was essentially political thought whose purpose “was to increase the power and efficiency of the state by an acceptance of the central role of force and of the army. At the same time, neo-​Stoicism also demanded self-​discipline and the extension of the duties of the ruler and the moral education of the army, the officials, and indeed, the whole people, to a life of work, frugality, dutifulness and obedience” (Oestreich 1982 [1954], 6). No such bellicose elements can be found in sp, in any of its aspects. 4

Does sp Promote Virtue Ethics or Utilitarian Ethics?

Some critics may have concerns with sp’s imputed lack of integrity in having facets of two conflicting types of ethics. Both historical Stoicism and contemporary stoic moral ideas refer to virtue ethics, or the emphasis on the individual’s mastery over internal dispositions and qualities. Whereas pragmatism has its roots in utilitarian ethics that measure the good by the positive impact on the greatest number of affected people, and having more impact through its betterment of social institutions. According to the former, then, it is the character of the person that demands self-​improvement independently of external circumstances. This very character is the wellspring of tranquility (ataraxia) and happiness (eudaimonia). Virtue (aretḗ) should be cultivated for its own sake, and the possible cultural pressure from surrounding social conventions should not be taken into account as a consideration in virtue’s worth. There are no cultural norms adhered to, at least openly, as sources for any enrichment for a Stoic, because virtue is something internally created, not externally, that is to say, from something contingent and external. According to the latter, the good is measurable by the satisfaction that most members of the group can derive from a given activity. The cultivation of personal virtue that is not transmissible to other members of the group does not deserve

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any special status. It is socially insignificant to cultivate one’s own specifically private virtue(s), because moral standards are social and culturally produced, and all virtues must have some communal references to be socially valid and accepted. Such a division between these two, however, although interesting and challenging theoretically, does not have to look so divisive in the actual, everyday practice of life. A necessarily circular relationship between the individual and the role that the individual wants to play in the social environment has been frequently discussed in this book. An individual’s features always have something to do with upbringing and the cultural ambience that circumscribes values, standards, and norms. A determinate division between these two spheres is not precise. sp accepts pragmatist anthropological assumptions, especially in recognition of the significance of social interactions of individuals who live within a given community and are compelled to play social roles in it, including role models who require exercising and maintaining some dispositions, virtues if you like, that have a bearing on communal life. In this manner and through this interaction, a community assumes a utilitarian character. The understanding of social roles by means of utilitarian ethics, and the self-​improvement of the individual agents by means of virtue ethics, both simultaneously, is not that un-​stoical. Those Stoics who maintained important public roles, like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, could not and did not limit their ethics merely to perfecting virtue. They knew very well that they had to act meaningfully in social, political, and cultural contexts, in the name of the common good. Any realization of the common good had a consequentialist dimension within a wider utilitarian framework, which was providing given goods and services for given groups of people as they needed and demanded them. It was simply necessary to execute their public functions steadfastly and, as we can state today, in this specific sense they were quite pragmatic. What they had to do was, depending on the objective they wanted to fulfill, wield these two modes of ethical life into one, or arrange them side by side, like two bookends. The traditional Stoics held double standards in ethics, at the same time, which is Bertrand Russell’s interpretation, already mentioned, (with McLynn offering a similar interpretation). Both maintain that two Stoic ethics, not one, were active in a community, depending on the context: “Stoicism operated a dual system: an elitist doctrine for the ruling class and a cut-​price version for the masses” (McLynn 2010 [2009], 548). And by mastering a set of characteristics of a good character that were useful, the Stoics could claim that the good is useful (cf. Diogenes Laertius 1925, vii, 1: 98).

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sp is consonant with the modern stoics’ view about the practical inseparability of agency, virtue, and happiness (eudaimonia) and, on the other hand, sympathetic about any theoretical vision “attempting to make room for virtue ethics in concert with the great colonial powers of modern ethical theory, deontology and consequentialism” (Becker 2017 [1998], 227). 5

Is Not sp’s Eclecticism and Questionable Doctrinal Purity Its Weakest Point?

In the first place, in a globalized world, as ours is, it is excruciatingly difficult to develop a philosophical doctrine that is not eclectic, at least to some degree. Additionally, sp is eclectic by definition, so to speak, in referring to so many different sources of inspiration. Moreover, since sp is a practical stance rather than a doctrine with an array of dogmas, its aim is not to formulate a distinct theory about cultural life. It does not desire to offer axiomatic assumptions to be defended in the name of its doctrinal purity. As “true philosophy is a matter of a little theory and a lot of practice” (Pigliucci 2017, 190), sp proposes a certain way of looking at things. It hopes to be helpful to those who sense themselves submerged in inane activities that only lead to emptiness and frustration. sp is a philosophical and cultural proposal, not an ideology to be imposed on others. At the same time, its eclectic (and relatively cosmopolitan) character is a sort of response, as the title of this book indicates, to the question about a meaningful life amidst a pluralism of cultures and values. sp tries to link, or at least draws its inspiration from, the past and the present by bringing ancient, modern, and contemporary thought together to show that even historically and geographically distant cultures can be embraced and developed in the name of a better and a more fruitful approach towards pressing, present challenges. sp is also consummately pluralistic. For example, it links academic culture with the non-​academic by hoping to send forth content to wider audiences by means of an accessible narrative and attractive visuality, as there are already a few online sources doing so (see more in Addendum). I would like to emphasize one last time, however, that given its individual dimension, it is not a theoretical model that any given stoic pragmatist wants to develop into a specific school of thought, but rather a practical involvement in the quality of daily life of a given individual agent. In this, a stoic pragmatist could agree with Wittgenstein’ following dictum: “I cannot found a school because I do not really want to be imitated. In any case not by those who publish articles in philosophical journals” (Wittgenstein 1998 [1977], 69).

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Is Not sp about a Slave Mentality, an Escapism into a Passive Comfort Zone Resulting in Cultural Impotence? Where Is the Transformative and Melioristic Activism in sp?

The sober response to the criticism expressed by the title of this section lies in Chapter 6, in which I encourage teachers, philosophers, humanists, and ethicists of whatever sort to contribute actively to digital culture even at the cost of losing their comfort zone by being publicly criticized or confronted (bombarded) with hate speech. The ultimate influence of such participation is a different story, since it depends much on the technological skills and the social media skills that not everyone can nor wants to possess, about which I also write in that chapter. sp is not escapist in the sense of longing for a restoration of the past as a standard and norm for our actions today. Instead, it glances back to philosophical and cultural tradition as a whole and appropriates ancient and other classical sources, in order to make plain that a substantial part of humanistic reflection deals with universal or intercultural (in a sense cosmopolitan too) questions independently of historical context and the contemporary intellectual tendencies of any given country. sp pinpoints life’s practical aspects so as to substantiate that philosophy, the humanities, and the liberal arts can help provide a discerning reflection about life and, in the end, have something important to tell audiences of humanists about examples of a good life. By turning to ancient Greek and Roman ideals, sp does not intend to escape into the past seeking out old-​fashioned solutions. Escapism does not play a role in an outlook that maintains that “today, philosophy continues to deal with the same problems it has tackled for more than two thousand years” (sp 12). sp does not aspire to escape, but rather delves into classical roots in order to promote potent resources about human fate and human existence, while securing, at all times, a future orientation. sp is future oriented in the conviction that despite different historical, technological, economic, political, and cultural contexts and lineages, there are some features of human life that are not episodic, and a meaningful life among possibilities of the good life belongs to the given of constant challenges for every generation. Individuals of all generations and all cultures simply must deal with the questions and issues surrounding death, a meaningful life, variegated lifestyles, and other existential questions, and from this viewpoint “the most fundamental features of our experience, therefore, have not changed much since Homer or the first city of Ur” (Lachs 1976, 160). sp is definitely an active, meliorative, and transformative frame of mind accessing spheres where change is most difficult to achieve, and most

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satisfactory, which is in oneself. Going no further than this egocentric approach would have, for some, sufficient explanatory power: “If declaring worldly activity external and unnecessary eases the agent’s ethical burden in one way, making her less dependent upon ungovernable conditions, in another way it increases it, by focusing all ethical attention on the internal doings of the heart” (Nussbaum 1994, 364). But this stance is at the same time directed out onto the outer world, according to the position of circles of concerns (oikeiôsis) and here, even more so, does sp want to meet the meliorative ambitions so pronounced in the pragmatist tradition: “It is not that stoic pragmatists lack ideals; they could not be pragmatists devoted to improving the human lot without them. But motivating ideals must be limited and achievable or else the moral life becomes a vale of frustration and resentment” (jlpp 149). Some challenges that we face, for example the question of a meaningful life, should be treated as if they constituted an ever-​present ballast of problems that demand attention. We may tend to ignore such questions, but under the threat of losing a proper orientation in life or degrading our quality of living, we need to perk up and pay attention. A life deprived of profound reflection loses its quality. Profound reflection refers to a universal human experience rather than temporary, local, restricted experience in a limited cultural context. The indispensable energy in sp goes to individual transformation in ways in which we are able to detect, identify, and utilize. 7

Is Politics Indifferent? Does Not sp Avoid Politics by Having No Political Agenda?

First of all, it is not a philosopher’s role, but rather a professional politician’s, to deal with the constantly changing circumstances in the public arena in the name of members of the public. Secondly, sp does not have ready at hand tools to exercise a helping hand with sociopolitical life. This stated, stoic pragmatists recognize that public involvement is an obligation for those who also want to consider a meaningful life within society, rather than, for example, on a desert island. There is nothing wrong with engaging in political debates, whatever the format, and under conditions that we able to properly assess the value of the cause we want to advocate, to calculate adequately the risk of this engagement (our competency, argumentative skills, the possible stress and negative emotional impact on our life) and, accordingly, to be ready to pay the price (e.g., hate speech from our opponents). Plunging into politics and then complaining about the setbacks, is not indicative of wisdom; at the same time, it is

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unpragmatic and unstoic, and sp does not recommend taking on such unnecessary chancy endeavors. Many who are not experts on a given sociopolitical issue and unable to adequately assess the complexity of getting involved emotionally with it, place their mental health at risk and equally the cause itself. Partaking of public life, we need to calculate the costs of involving ourselves in matters not entirely within our control. Sociopolitical phenomena have vaster backgrounds, economic, historical, and cultural all at the same time, and a single agent has little any impact on them, unless of course, there is a charismatic and a well-​ prepared leader of some kind in the equation. Additionally, they change so fast. It is hazardous to engage our life in a lifelong project for a string of issues that soon could be superseded by other, equally important strings of issues, possibly contrary to our interests and values. The dynamics of sociopolitical changes these days can ruin a meaningful life if one dedicates oneself to one particular thing, especially if one includes one’s family (children) in the calculation of any emotional cost that might have to be paid. Having little or no control over the changing dynamics of sociopolitical processes, it is improbable that one can predict the development of the issues one is fighting for. sp does not avoid politics understood as caring about public life. After all, it has its own social amelioration agenda, one that can be encapsulated by one of the modern stoic’s formulations in the following way: the first step of transforming a society into one in which people live a good life is to teach people how to make their happiness depend as little as possible on their external circumstances. The second step in transforming a society is to change people’s external circumstances. The Stoics would add that if we fail to transform ourselves, then no matter how much we transform the society in which we live, we are unlikely to have a good life. irvine 2009, 221

This order of amelioration should be reversed (i.e., change external circumstances as coming first) in the case of vulnerable people, especially children, who have found themselves in absolute poverty, touched by illness, in a situation of domestic violence, and abuse of other kinds. The order of amelioration should be kept in all other cases. sp recommends investing our energies in assuming healthy attitudes towards life, both corporal and mental. sp enacts this with the conviction that there are vast stretches of cost-​free tools available, at least in Western culture, for our self-​improvement and development that could contribute to a good life and yet, for a plethora of reasons, are frequently

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overlooked or ignored. I witness this daily among some of my students who want to reform the whole world, yet who are not able to use already achieved arrangements to take care of their own health first, especially mental. What arrangements? For example, free primary, secondary, and higher education as it takes place in my country (I understand that this example may not refer to other nations in the West). Actually, free access to education at all levels, in some countries, is an interesting point for reflection. Probably very few students who benefit from free education (I mean paid by taxpayers), appreciate it at all and feel obliged to pay it off in some way in the future, as if free education grew on trees. I understand that this issue has evolved into different contexts in countries in which students (or their parents) must spend money for it. I mention this for I want to indicate that there are many differences between distinct countries and nations under the umbrella of Western culture in this regard, and I would like to avoid hasty generalizations as to possible disfunctions of sp in the public arena. 8

Is Not sp Silent about Current Identity and Cultural Diversity Policies?

Some critics of sp may be disappointed that so little is devoted to the following problems that have been frequently discussed, especially in Anglophone countries in recent times, and on social media: identity policy, cultural policy, racism, white privilege, patriarchy, sexism, gender, ecological prioritization, and others, as if stoic pragmatists did not care. The ideas on which sp is founded, agency (thoughtful individualism with an elevated role of the inner life), humanism, circles of concern (oikeiôsis), and others do not prioritize what particular identity and cultural politics affirm, which is reforming public life according to these or other minority or majority groups’ demands for particular economic, political, and social arrangements. Does the stoic element outweigh the pragmatist, given the latter’s dedication to democracy and even, as in the case of William James, to “the gradual advent of some sort of a socialistic equilibrium” (James 1977 [1910], 667)? sp does not advocate identity politics in the same way that it avoids specific reference to the programs of political parties (conservative, progressive), specific religious or irreligious preferences (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, atheist), or specific national prerogatives (Polish, Hungarian, American, German). This does not mean that sp ignores particular traditions. After all, sp itself is a mixture of American, European, and ancient Roman cultures and philosophies. It upholds that a stoic pragmatist would not expect any

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contemporary political party or any Western statal policy to promote the lifestyles and ideas recommended by sp, simply because its sociopolitical meliorative agenda is addressed to individuals with the following message: be more self-​conscious about the available conditions that make your life good and meaningful in the first place. This does not presuppose that a stoic pragmatist is apolitical. It does mean, however, that one’s priorities should be somewhere else other than political programs or social identity policies. It is because the courageous fight for a good life should take precedence within our individual minds, not the collective mind (if there is any in reality), and our individual attitudes geared towards a good life, not immersed in a collective attitude towards a good life. The sought-​after prize is thriving conditions relatively independent of specific racial, religious, national, and sex and gender identity contexts in the belief that the contemporary Western ambience is the friendliest ever, and we should indulge it as much as we can and, if possible, teach others how to do so. Therefore, the paramount recommendation of sp is to use proficiently the freedoms that we, contemporary Westerners, already enjoy, and avail ourselves of the external goods readily available in order to flourish and evolve further. sp, agency, and humanism can all three be criticized for a hidden or “unconscious” bias in promoting white privilege and sexism, so much debated and discussed in the news these days, especially in the Anglo-​American world, and especially on the left of the political and cultural spectrum. Possible critics of sp are justified in criticizing a perceived indifference to this, and the very lack of a clear reference to these themes possibly belies the fact that sp is strongly biased and, indeed, politically partisan, although in an unarticulated way. I would like here to address the following: How can you accuse sp, which prioritizes rationality, wisdom, knowledge, and self-​knowledge, of “unconscious” bias? Is the accuser, whosoever it be, able to show that he or she is not biased himself or herself, or less biased? If so, what would be the argument? Instead, however, of delving into this line of argumentation immediately, I will state a few words about the problem of cultural relativism, previously mentioned. And in so doing, let me assume, at least for the moment, the role of an Eastern European stoic pragmatist. 9

Eastern European Stoic Pragmatist Perspective on Diversity Policies

Stoic pragmatists, especially those who happen to have an Eastern/​Central European sensibility, may insist on the specificity of the situation of the region as a whole, and the current war in Ukraine only makes this specificity much

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more articulated. What I mean is that it is difficult to confront active identity and diversity issues when the geographical space has its own narratives about identity, including national identity, in the name of which Ukrainians, for example, fight against Russians these days, and Poles and Balts fought not that long ago. I want to go back to a cultural comparison about which I wrote before. By this comparison I want to show that it is next to impossible to easily convert political discussion about some profound, culturally relative issues from one culture to another. For example, as to the question of so-​called “white privilege,” or rather the narrative of “white guilt,” and “whiteness.” This is difficult to understand in an Eastern Europe (predominantly white) that did not possess colonies in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Eastern Europeans have never had a tradition of exploiting a black populace, and how this controversy can be realistically understood here, imported as it is from western Europe, especially the Anglo-​American zone, shot through and through with a long colonial tradition, is problematic. To be sure, Eastern Europe does have also a long-​running exploitation history of some groups of people abusing other groups of people. With the example of Poland, there existed for centuries a feudal system in which Polish noblemen (mainly white) exploited the Polish peasantry (mainly white). Later, Poland suffered from political partition and various forms of exploitation by the Russians (mainly white), to a lesser degree by the Austro-​Hungarian Empire (mainly white) and to a very high degree by the Germans (mainly white). On the other hand, when Poles became stronger at some moments in their history, they themselves tried to exploit Ukrainians (mainly white) and Lithuanians (mainly white). It goes without mentioning the Nazi Germans (white) and their most cruel, inhumane, and merciless oppression during the wwii, when Poland was completely devasted and millions of its citizens murdered. Nazi racist ideology treated not only Jews but also Slavs as subhumans and murdered millions of them according to that ideology, and “German guilt” was, after the war, the theme for Karl Jaspers’ soul-​searching deliberations (Jaspers 1947) about the collective guilt of the Germans. After wwii there was a civil war in Poland and, later, when communism was installed, Polish Communists (mainly white) killed, tortured, and persecuted Polish anti-​ Communists (mainly white). During the 1980’s martial law was imposed by the then military regime (white), motivated by the common fear of military intervention on the part of the Soviets (mainly white). Recently, Poland has received approximately three million refugees from Ukraine (mainly white) which is attacked by Russia (mainly white). Obviously, there have been abuses and crimes carried out during those historical epochs, especially against Jews (many of whom identified themselves as

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white). Thus, it is impossible to establish who the white privileged or the white guilty are in reference to the Eastern European context and which minority would be morally justified to impose “moral guilt” on those privileged whites. We can, theoretically speaking, separate “whiteness” from “white people,” and accuse white people of being guilty in general, but this seems to be too ideological a tendency (and racial to boot) to be discussed in philosophical debates that want to remain aloof from the ideological strife and culture wars of today. It would not be easy to link convincingly this topic with slavery and with colonial exploitation, given the fact that the English term “slave” comes from the term “slav,” meaning Slavic people in Eastern Europe taken as slaves. And given Eastern Europeans’ tradition of being exploited for centuries by the Turks (in the Balkans), the Russians (in the east), by Germans (in the west), and, even further back, by the Swedes (in the north), there appears that there is a linguistic impediment also. Eastern Europeans could easily, it seems to me, assume a victimhood narrative—​without any strong racial reference, though—​of having been colonized, oppressed, exploited, and deprived of privileges for centuries and, in this way, vindicate their political and economic vulnerability. In the nineteenth century Polish culture generated an influential (today still existing in some conservative circles) victimhood narrative. Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, still regarded as our national bards, understood the nation’s mission as suffering in the name of other nations, so as to become The Christ of the Nations. This consciousness was constitutive for many generations of Poles, including John Paul ii and his “cultural policy” during his years as Pope. I do not want to elaborate on this victimhood narrative here, but I think it would be quite defensible to claim that Eastern Europeans have been for the most part victims for centuries, up until quite recently, and these are the main causes for Eastern European fragility, especially in the area of economics and standards of living. For my part, I have felt this vulnerability on many occasions. For example, during my first scholarly visit to the US (2001), when one of my hosts took me to one of a large city’s sections to show me the poverty of African-​American citizens. I remember my impression of (one that may not correspond to what takes place now in the US) what was supposed (in my host’s view) to be an example of a poor neighbourhood, with independent houses and cars in front of them, to me looked pretty wealthy in comparison to Eastern European standards of that time. There must have been worse conditions (which I did not see), yet those I was shown were regarded as “poor.” I remember this very well, and I envied those “poor people” their standard of living and access to goods and services, much broader and much better than my own in the Poland of then, not to mention other countries of Eastern Europe, namely Bulgaria,

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Romania, Moldova, and others that I had happened to be familiar with. The same was the case with civil freedoms and the access to goods that vast segments of Eastern European populations of then could only dream about at that time, and some even to this day. I also realized how relatively different were standards, and how different narratives operate in various cultures regarding poverty, wealth, justice and injustice, and how political (and polarizing) these narratives can become, even to the point of bewilderment. A similar type of impression, this time in regard to gender, I had some years later when one of my American female academic colleagues was producing scholarship about the discrimination of women, like herself, in the US, due to their lower earnings in comparison to male professors. In effect, she complained about her lower status as a human being because of that pay gap. I remember my puzzlement knowing that she earned substantially much more than I did (and all normal Eastern European professors) and her social and financial status was much more elevated than mine (in Poland) not to mention other professors, independent of their genders, in most countries on planet Earth. From this perspective, by considering economic criteria for privilege and discrimination, I could have felt discriminated against in some way and other professors in poorer countries even more so. As can some of my African students, mostly Nigerian, who relate to me their views on how African-​Americans living in the US are privileged. Merely living in such a wealthy, democratic country as the US and holding an American passport give many of them opportunities and privileges that most Nigerians (and Africans in general) can only dream of. Now, if we agree that African-​Americans in the US are systemically discriminated against and the whole world discusses their plight, what does this say about the numerous ethnic groups in Africa who are discriminated against either by their own governments or by other ethnic groups (black), and about whose existence (and plight) the world does not even know? And, finally, there is the question of patriarchy. The most palpable, profound, and tragic, illustration of patriarchy that I have seen with my own eyes (not experienced in theoretical deliberations) took place during the time I was finishing this book, that is, when Russia invaded Ukraine. I happened to witness a tiny part of the wave of over three million Ukrainian refugees arriving in Poland within just a few weeks after the invasion, many of them on the trains that I happen to travel on to Berlin and back to my own city (Opole). I saw that 90% of these refugees were women with children (and the elderly), while males were staying behind in Ukraine to fight in real combat against real aggressors. While travelling with them on the train and hearing their stories, I was thinking about the factual, not theoretical, “patriarchy” model that operates in Ukraine during this war. What I mean here is that the version of

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patriarchy in which a man’s role (his basic role) was to fight against the aggressors, and women’s basic role was to flee from the battlefield into a safe zone, if possible, and protect children, the disabled, and the elderly. This was exactly what I witnessed on those occasions and thought: Was this not the fundamental reason why patriarchy was established, in past historical periods and even up to the present day, when dealing with disasters, wars, poverty, famine, and death was a tragic norm for nearly everyone? I do not care, as I have insisted, to adopt a victimhood rhetoric here and what I want to do, instead, is to try to be sensitive to the perspectives of various cultures and appreciate the subtleties of contemporary Western culture on the whole. More importantly, I hope Readers will understand the reasons for my reservations about writing more about these important topics of the day. I simply want to avoid any form of absolutization, by interpreting things from the perspective of one (dominant?) culture that is setting up and imposing its current standards on all others and trying to make those standards absolutely fair and universally valid. I think that we should not acquiesce so easily, at least if we at the same time declare a respect for other cultures’ sensitivities, and their points of reference concerning various issues and their historical heritage. 10

Is apa’s Criticism of “Emotional Stoicism” Justified?

The humanistic, good-​life-​oriented and pro-​social dimension of sp fortifies us in downplaying accusations, such as those formulated by the American Psychological Association in its 2018 “Guidance for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men,” that “emotional stoicism” is a part of traditional masculinity, like homophobia, not showing vulnerability, self-​reliance, and competitiveness are, and may deter males “from forming close relationships with male peers” (apa 2018, 11). The second time that the term “stoicism” is used in the text is even worse since it suggests that stoicism is a kind of pathology: “Psychologists also strive to reduce mental health stigma for men by acknowledging and challenging socialized messages related to men’s mental health stigma (e.g., male stoicism, self-​reliance)” (ibid., 19). Since the apa does not define the term “stoicism,” we could assume that it refers to either the conventional meaning of the term, which signifies something like “stifling emotions,” or to historical Stoicism in its, indeed, most emotion-​free tenets that teach tranquility in the event of losing family members (cf. Epictetus, Enchiridion 11, 18, 26). As to the conventional understanding of the term today, we read in some dictionaries, in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, for example, that a stoic is “one who is seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure,

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or pain” (Irvine 2009, 7). One of the arguments that this book advances is that such a characterization of Stoicism is misleading and unfair, and seems to reflect “bastardised forms of ‘stoicism’” (McLynn 2010 [2009] 540), so present in popular language these days, rather than scientific analyses of this position (and doctrine) in its historical context. sp follows, as modern stoicism does, an interpretation of historical Stoicism with reference to stifling our emotions, and affirming that it is much more about “redirecting them for our own good” (Pigliucci 2017, 2) in order to “minimize the number of negative emotions” (Irvine 2019, 17), rather than to annihilate or uproot them so that our emotional lives become mutilated. In this way, it better accommodates us to face setbacks and losses. It is not that the stifling of our emotions is at stake, but rather a question of channeling them into a sphere where we can control them and thus avoid, for example, the anger and frustration when our actions fail or go awry. It is pragmatic for our individual economy of life to behave according to our evaluation about what is appropriate and what is not. It is befitting to want and desire according to a life strategy which, among many other things, recognizes, stoically, the difference between things we can control and those we cannot control and, accordingly, locates our emotions in the former rather than in the latter. Interestingly enough, such an interpretation dovetails with apa’s earlier recommendations of “Controlling Anger Before it Controls You” (2005) on dealing with vitiating emotions, especially anger. Dealing with anger overlaps with the Stoic way, as well as the sp way, and it is difficult to see a difference between these two sources of advice: “Logic defeats anger, because anger, even when it’s justified, can quickly become irrational. So use cold hard logic on yourself” (apa 2005). Additionally, there is a problem-​solving dimension to this issue that apa takes on, namely: “There is also a cultural belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to our frustration to find out that this isn’t always the case. The best attitude to bring to such a situation, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how you handle and face the problem” (apa 2005). Here, sp is sympathetic to apa’s approach towards the problem of dealing with negative emotions. 11

Any Future Developments for sp? Is Not sp’s Humanism Dysfunctional in the Time of Posthumanism and Transhumanism?

How can sp, some may ask, be helpful or inspirational in thinking about a meaningful life lived out in various cultures in the foreseeable future? Is there a perspective that sp has for any future developments? To answer this question,

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we need to outline possible scenarios of what could take place in Western culture (civilization) in the coming years. We can theoretically assume that, among many possibilities, two probable scenarios for Western culture (taken collectively) are in order for the near future. The first, a progressive social fragmentation along with a multiplication of diverse forms of cultural life growing in parallel fashion, and, second, a progressive digitalization of more and more aspects of human life, social and private, ending up with a biotechnological modification of human bodies and perhaps, human minds. Nevertheless, if we want to search for an even more basic characterization of the coming years, even more basic than these two, it could be the following: an acceleration of social changes along with a sense of the unpredictability of these changes. The coronavirus pandemic (covid) is a fitting example of this kind of characterization. Rapid changes on a global scale caused by a pandemic, as in the appearance of the pandemic itself at the beginning of 2020, unanticipated except by a handful of health experts. The outbreak of the war in Ukraine only confirms this scenario of unpredictability. It is probable that such types of unpredictable challenges may appear more frequently, both globally and locally, and sp may serve as a helping tool for the individual to confront them by employing the humanistic tools of which I have written in this book. It is my hope that the humanistic tools I propose do not appear to be old-​fashioned and ineffective in the face of such imaginable and unanticipated changes. At any rate, there are two more specific areas of inevitable developments in Western culture that are expressed by two currents that have much connection with humanism—​posthumanism and transhumanism. If we understand posthumanism as a position that pays attention to some animal dimensions of human life, then sp is sympathetic. In indicating that wisdom does not and cannot be limited to the intellectual sphere of life, the philosophy of Santayana, with its criticism of anthropocentric dominance, to which sp refers and agrees with to a great extent, can be inspirational. Also, sp is sympathetic to Western capitalism precisely because it has been able, as no other economic arrangement has been, in providing a large segment of its population with basic, if not an abundance of goods, food in the first instance. Obesity has become a persistent problem in the West, even more than hunger, with 2.8 million people dying of obesity each year, according to the World Health Organization (who 2021). If posthumanism means reduced anthropocentrism and elevated attention to a cosmic framework in our lives, including the ecology of our planet, and returning to a human’s natural status as one more biological species among the rest, and thereby paying attention to the animal margin of humanism, then sp is in sync with it. If one adds healthy nutrition and unfettered access to drinking water as more important than

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access to ideas and the consumption of vitally unnecessary goods, then sp sides with it with abandon. It does so with a conviction that “focusing on our social predicaments and on what we share with other animals … enables us to develop a picture of human life in all its complexity” (sp 71). sp does, however, have some reservations about transhumanism, if we understand this term as a hope for human progress, especially in longevity and cognition, aided by the biotechnological modification of our bodies and by interventions of artificial intelligence into our bodies (and, perhaps, brains). Then, in all probability, the mixing up of what is naturally within us with what is technological and digital (outside us) would be problematic. After all, there would necessarily be some beings in existence, barely known to most and never democratically elected by anyone, who would decide what ways to set the algorithmic patterns of operation of the digital devices that would regulate our behaviors. If this scenario would ever be realized, then, indeed, we would be moving away from a civilization based on humanistic ideas, and be passing into a new mutation with novel and unprecedented values, rights, and social divisions.

Conclusion John Lachs furnished in 2012 an outline of the idea of stoic pragmatism in his book Stoic Pragmatism. The present volume intends to be a substantial extension of that outline. I have done my best to gauge accurately Lachs’s suggestions, and the question of the faithfulness of my proposal to the original version has been on my mind often during the writing of this volume. Despite differences (though no contradictions), both versions share and expound the view that Western philosophy, with its extensive historical tradition, should be understood as a vital force in contemporary cultural life, specifically its meaningfulness, its diversity, and its pluralism. Philosophy in general should not limit itself to a hyper-​professional argot, used exclusively in specialized texts and theoretical debates and discourses in academia, with little relevance to the practical problems of a good life, and little meaning amongst wider audiences. My insistence on practicality matches Lachs’s. In this book, I could only write about it, showing nothing. I only indirectly refer to my other non-​textual types of activities: yt clips, the Instagram profile, websites, Webinars, podcasts, among others. In 2012, Lachs was seventy-​eight years old and was not at a stage to write extensively on the consequences of the digital revolution. He did not, like most all of us, foresee the pandemic and a new European war. My perspective, that of an individual two generations younger, is different than his. I have been submerged in social media for years and flourished, technologically speaking, during the coronavirus pandemic (covid), giving online classes to international students wherever they happened to be under lockdown in the years 2020–​2021: Poland, Spain, China, the UK, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Nigeria, and Brazil, myself having been under lockdown in Berlin, Germany. This digital side to life makes us a bit more open, as I understand it, to approach sp. The cultural role of philosophy, I argue, from now on must expand away from the traditional, textual way of philosophical communication into a digital way, one that includes visuality, in order to share with wider audiences interesting stories and thoughts about how to live better lives, which quite often means more meaningful lives. Lachs’s “Persons and Technology” (Lachs 1985) is an exception. It is a unique piece of writing offering to the reader some insights into the human vs. thing relation. As early as 1981 Lachs had written: “Mediating machines make for us a comfortable world of secondhand sensations. Wrapped in their cocoon we hear but distant rumbles in our dome of sleep” (im 26). Does this not sound like a terse characterization of contemporary social media?

© Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004680050_010

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No less important to me is my personal way of experiencing sp, and I must admit that is has been an interesting adventure to tie myself to the stoic pragmatist framework in my own life, not just writing about it. Here, I follow Lachs’s original intention and requisite, that philosophy needs to be understood as a guide to life, that “ideas must be tested before they can be recommended,” and a philosopher’s obligation should be the following: “They must enact in their lives what they consider good” (Lachs 2015, 4). On a political note, I do not recommend, in the spirit of Lachs’s own example, serious political engagements or activity, keeping in mind always, or at least as best I can, the scale of atrocities committed by the communists in my native country (and in Lachs’s Hungary) in the name of “noble” social reforms, emancipations, and justice. Hence, I realize that this book may be disappointing to those searching for specific recommendations about current political concerns, or a definite position to plant oneself in when facing contemporary politics and the culture wars. The practical side of sp is to become engaged in public debates, and social concerns, even siding with a political program. But we need to put our own house in order first, getting under control our own minds and private lives, and help loved ones do the same, and only after that, according to the idea of oikeiôsis, move out towards a space where we can make a difference. We need to be sure that we have sufficient knowledge and composure to enter the rigors and temptations of public life. My argument for being a philosophical voice, and developing expressions by means of digital culture is a serious one. But, and this is a significant but, political grand-​scale reforms, are a different story. Let me explain. As I mentioned in the “Preface,” I have not been able to overcome my Central/​East European sensibility and thereby ignore my communist and post-​ Soviet experience. The first twenty-​five years of my life that I spent under a totalitarian regime, until its dissolution, living all that time in a city located two hours away, in two directions, from former Nazi concentration camps (Auschwitz and Gross Rosen), and having parents who survived wwii, were enough to learn what oppression, racism, and discrimination viscerally and nominally mean. This is the lesson of history as to atrocities carried out in the name of radical social reforms. Perhaps this is the reason I did not want to get into the specific political or social problems of the contemporary West, which affords us comparatively comfortable conditions to thrive in. Instead, I propose a simpler, more basically existential, or philosophical, cultural criticism perspective way of life, and am always happy to exploit opportunities to contribute to conversations surrounding other issues on occasion, be they academic or digital, and share my ideas. In this I try to follow Lachs’s

204 Conclusion example. He is, in my view, a contemporary avatar for those who want to learn the most basic obligations of teachers, in line with Stoicism, starting with its Greek founder: Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, has for many years been devoted to philosophy in the city and has continued to be a man of worth in all other respects, exhorting to virtue and temperance those of the youth who came to him to be taught, directing them to what is best, affording to all in his own conduct a pattern for imitation in perfect consistency with his teaching. diogenes laertius 7.11

Addendum

Recommended Textual Sources

Apart from John Lachs’s works, especially Stoic Pragmatism, I propose the following selection of sources for further reading. All of these texts are readily readable, with little academic argot, and all of them clarify ideas that are vital to stoic pragmatism. For full bibliographical details, see the “Bibliography.”



American Pragmatism (and Santayana)



Roman Stoicism



Modern Stoicism



Recommended Digital Sources

Dewey, “The Need for Recovery of Philosophy.” James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life.” James, “The Moral Equivalent of War.” James, “What Makes a Life Significant.” Santayana, “Ultimate Religion.”

Epictetus, Diatribes. Epictetus, Encheiridion. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius. Musonius Rufus, Lectures (Lectures 3 and 4 on women studying philosophy).

Becker, A New Stoicism. Brouwer, The Stoic Sage. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life. Irvine, The Stoic Challenge. Pigliucci, How to Be a Stoic.

John Lachs at Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum e.V.: http://​berlin​phil​ osop​hyfo​rum​.org​/pat​ron​/​. Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum e.V.: http://​berlin​phil​osop​hyfo​rum​ .org​/​. Modern stoicism: https://​mod​erns​toic​ism​.com​/​. Daily stoic: https://​dai​lyst​oic​.com​/​.

206 Addendum Berlin stoics: https://​www​.berli​nsto​ics​.com​/​. Santayana Edition: https://​santay​ana​.iupui​.edu​/​. Pragmatism Cybrary: http://​pra​gmat​ism​.org​/​. American philosopher by P. McReynolds (on YouTube).

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Index 90-​9-​1 Rule 161–​164 See also Communication, Digital culture, Internet, Media Abortion 82, 139, 147, 168 See also Bioethics, Ethics, Morality Absolutism 23, 36, 42–​43, 47, 50, 69, 89, 92, 139–​140, 142, 146–​147, 156, 184 Academia ix, xv, 8–​9, 20, 26, 74, 80, 100, 138, 141, 143–​144, 158, 164–​66, 168, 172–​174, 177–​78, 181, 183, 189, 197, 202–​03, 205 See also Teaching, University Action xii, xv, 3, 7–​8, 10, 19, 25, 29, 33, 35, 53–​54, 56–​57, 59, 63, 69, 72, 77, 85, 89–​116, 117–​26, 129, 133–​141, 144, 147, 151, 155–​158, 161, 163, 170, 180, 182, 184, 190, 199 See also Appropriate action, Activity, Complete human act Activity xii, xiv, xvi, 5, 13–​14, 18–​19, 23, 26, 28, 33, 46, 54–​58, 61, 63–​64, 69, 72, 78, 79–​80, 83, 90–​91, 95, 98, 106, 115, 117–​ 132, 133, 135–​138, 141–​42, 144, 151–​152, 155, 161–​63, 167, 170, 179, 187, 189, 191, 202–​203 See also Action, Appropriate action, Complete human act Aesthetic values 168–​169 See also Aesthetics, Aestheticization, Beauty, Values Aestheticization 158, 160, 167–​69, 175–​76 See also Aesthetic values, Aesthetics, Beauty Aesthetics 41 See also Aesthetic values, Beauty Africa xi, 28, 38, 40, 41, 195, 197 African-​Americans 51, 196–​97 Agency xv, 3, 7, 16, 53–​54, 56, 60–​61, 63, 64–​ 88, 93, 95–​96, 101, 104, 106, 117–​18, 122, 134, 151, 184, 189, 193–​94 See also Autonomy, Dignity, Individualism Aggression 76, 88 See also Hate speech, Oppression, Violence, War Aging 17, 19, 67, 81–​84

See also Death, Health ai (Artificial Intelligence) 57, 201 See also Digital culture, Technology Aikin, Scott 70, 186 Amelioration (Meliorism) 63, 74, 78, 81, 133–​ 36, 138, 149, 163, 190–​91, 192, 194 America xi, 1–​6, 17, 21, 22–​24, 30, 34–​35, 37, 39–​41, 49, 5–​52, 61, 97, 100, 102, 106, 109–​10, 167, 172, 175, 181–​82, 184, 193–​97 See also American culture, Americanism, African-​American, United States American culture 1–​6, 21, 22–​24, 35, 110 See also Culture American pragmatism ix, xii, 1–​6, 67, 130, 149, 172, 180, 185, 205 See also Philosophy, Bernstein, Richard; Dewey, John; European pragmatism, Feminist pragmatism, James, William; Mead, George Herbert; Peirce, Charles S.; Rescher, Nicholas; Rorty, Richard; Royce, Josiah; University Americanism 1 See also America, American culture, United States Amish 50 Anglophone 9, 51, 193 Animal 66, 69, 77, 104, 200–​01 Antonine Plague 113–​14, 182 See also Pandemic (Covid) apa (American Psychological Association) 198–​99 Apathy (Apatheia) 14, 27, 101, 133 Appropriate action 89–​116 See also Action, Activity Appropriate choices 138–​144 See also choice Argentina 170 Aristotle 11, 64, 85, 118 Armenians 40, 65 Arrian of Nicomedia 156 Asia xi, 38, 40–​1, 195 Áskesis 11, 13 See also Self-​discipline Astronomy 185 See also Cosmos, Metaphysics

220 Index Ataraxia. See Tranquility (Peace of Mind) Attitude to life 6, 8, 16, 29, 49, 95–​97 Augustine, St. 136 Auschwitz x, 65, 203 See also Cruelty, Holocaust, Nazi Australia 38, 49 Austro-​Hungarian Empire 195 Autarky 133 Autonomy 31, 41, 71–​76, 83, 103, 123, 143 See also Agency, Freedom, Individualism, Liberty Auxier, Randall 27, 180 Avant-​garde 41 Axiology 14, 19, 36, 42, 65, 107 See also Pluralism of values, Value Aztec 40 Beauty 25, 76, 119, 122, 127–​128, 154 See also Aesthetics, Aestheticization Becker, Lawrence 71, 75, 79–​80, 85, 94, 103, 106, 189, 205 See also Modern stoicism Belorussia 38 Beltrán, José 169 Bergman, Mats 93 Berkeley, Elizabeth 10, 48 Berlin xvii, 115, 197, 202, 205 Berlin, Isaiah 139 Bermuda 23 Bernstein, Richard 3 See also American pragmatism Big Tech 38, 45, 53, 58–​60, 161, 165 See also Digital culture, Media, Techno-​ feudalism, Technology Bioethics 15, 19, 81 See also Ethics, Morality Biology 45, 67, 81–​82, 90, 104–​06, 111, 179, 200 Blog 24, 26, 46, 56, 160–​162, 170–​174 See also Digital culture, Internet, Vlog Bosnia 22, 65 Boston 110 Brexit 146 Brouwer, René xii, 24, 26, 69, 92, 205 Brown, Eric 152 Brunner, Otto 187 Buddhism 37, 152 Budrick, Anne 160

Bulgaria 196 BuzzSumo 168 Calcaterra, Rosa Maria 184 California 3, 38 Cambodia 40, 155 See also Khmer Rouge Canada 17, 49, 51 Capitalism xi, 23, 43, 52, 57, 84, 86, 98, 106, 138, 142, 146, 200 Castile 110 See also Spain Catholicism (Catholic) 14, 92, 110, 132 See also Christianity, God, Religion, Spirituality, Theology Cavell, Stanley 175 Celebrities 43–​44, 47, 56, 167 Central European. See Eastern European Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 47 See also Human rights Children xiii, 23, 47–​48, 55–​56, 62, 76, 82, 87, 91–​92, 94, 106, 111, 134, 141, 149, 151, 167, 192, 197–​198 See also Family China (Chinese) xi, 40, 61, 149, 162, 202 Choice 15, 73, 89, 93, 95–​97, 100–​01, 103, 106, 110, 115, 132, 137, 138–​141, 164–​65 See also Appropriate choices Christianity (Christian) 24, 35, 37, 43, 49, 64–​5, 67, 84, 130, 132, 152, 193 See also Catholicism, Church, Religion, Theology Chrysippus 77, 186 See also Greek Stoicism Church 44, 50, 59 See also Catholicism, Christianity, God, Religion, Theology Chwistek, Leon 173 Cicero (Ciceronian) 6, 27, 35–​36, 60, 66, 77, 89, 110, 117, 130, 137–​38 See also Roman Stoicism Cinematic philosophy 175 Circles of concern. See Oikeiôsis Civilization 2, 20–​21, 51, 148, 200–​01 Cognitive pragmatism 7, 185 See also American pragmatism; Rescher, Nicholas

Index Comfort 22, 25, 33, 51–​58, 98, 110, 117, 125, 141, 190–​91 Commoning 171 Communication 15, 40, 43–​5, 48, 53, 56, 58–​ 9, 71–​2, 128, 153, 158–​61, 163–​5, 167–​70, 173–​78, 202 See also Digital culture, Eco chamber, Internet, Language, Media, Rhetoric Communism x–​x i, 17, 99, 138, 154, 195, 203 See also Russia, Soviet Community 32, 66, 72, 77, 130, 140, 154, 163, 171, 187–​88 Complete human act 59, 103–​04 See also Action, Activity, Appropriate action Confucianism 37 Consumer’s fallacy 98–​101 See also Consumerism, Consumption, Fallacy of separation Consumerism 15, 96, 98–​101, 107, 124 See also Consumption, Consumer’s fallacy, Hedonism Consumption xi, 15, 18, 38, 51–​52, 57, 61, 87, 98–​100, 201 See also Consumer’s fallacy Contingency xiii, 12–​13, 24, 32–​33, 41–​44, 46–​47, 53–​54, 73, 117, 181–​182, 184, 187 Copleston, Frederick 185 Coronavirus. See Pandemic Cosmology 24, 26, 185 See also Astronomy, Cosmos, Metaphysics Cosmopolitanism 14, 20–​21, 37, 71, 136, 145, 151, 153, 186, 189–​190 See also Moral cosmopolitanism Cosmos 13, 21, 185 See also Astronomy, Cosmology, Metaphysics Courage 15, 24, 93, 114, 164–​67, 181, 194 Coursera 46 covid. See Pandemic Cruelty 3, 83, 154, 195 See also Suffering Cuba 38 Cultura animi 35 See also Cicero, Culture, Humanism Cultural criticism 36, 145–​46, 203

221 See also Culture, Cultural relativism, Cultural diversity, Cultural perfection, Culture war, Digital culture Cultural diversity (cultural pluralism) ix, xvi, 3, 37, 39, 48–​51, 131, 137, 152, 193–​194 See also Cultural relativism, Culture, Pluralism of cultures Cultural perfection 153–​154 See also Cultural diversity, Cultural relativism, Culture Cultural relativism 145–​151, 194 See also Cultural diversity, Culture Culture x–​x vi, 1–​6, 8–​9, 18, 21, 22–​28, 33, 34–​ 53, 59–​61, 63–​64, 66, 70–​75, 77–​78, 86, 89, 95, 97–​98, 102, 106–​07, 109–​11, 114, 117–​18, 127, 131–​32, 133–​57, 158–​79, 180–​ 82, 184, 189–​90, 192–​93, 195–​200, 203 See also Cultura animi, Cultural diversity, Cultural perfection, Cultural relativism, Culture criticism, Culture war, Digital culture, Western culture Culture war 145, 154–​56, 196, 203 See also Cultural diversity, Cultural relativism, Culture, Media Cyberspace. See Internet Cynics 10, 133 Cyrenaics 10 Dawson, Hugh 154 Death (Dying, Finitude) 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 30, 34, 67, 72, 76, 81–​83, 86–​87, 104, 110, 113, 115, 132, 155–​56, 181–​83, 190, 198, 200 Democracy xi, 2–​6, 14, 20, 32, 38, 41, 47, 50–​ 52, 64, 73, 84, 106, 130, 132, 154, 162, 174, 186–​87, 193, 197, 201 Deorum providentia 13 See also Metaphysics Determinism 80–​81, 182 Dewey, John 2–​9, 11–​12, 14, 21, 23, 27, 29–​31, 36, 64, 74, 89, 110, 117–​18, 133, 148, 184, 205 See also American pragmatism Dichotomy of control xvi, 52, 101–​03 See also Externals Digital culture xvi, 35–​37, 106, 137, 158–​179, 184, 190, 203 See also Communication, Culture, Digital revolution, Humanistic rhetoric, Media

222 Index Digital humanities 160 See also Humanities Digital revolution 33, 39, 43, 44–​47, 117, 202 See also Digital culture Dignitas 14, 25–​26, 64 See also Dignity Dignity xv, 14, 25, 33, 36, 42–​43, 49, 51, 59, 64, 65–​66, 68, 70–​71, 82–​83, 118, 136, 147–​149, 168 See also Autonomy, Dignitas, Freedom, Liberty Dilworth, David 151–​152 Diogenes (the Cynic) 133 Diogenes Laertius 74, 188, 204 Disability 75, 79–​81, 198 Discrimination 43, 70, 76, 197, 203 See also Culture war, Oppression, Victimhood, Violence, War Diversity. See Cultural diversity Dooley, Patrick 5 Dying. See Death East Timor 151 Easterlin paradox xi Eastern European 10–​11, 134, 194–​198, 203 Echo chamber 40, 43, 45, 96, 158 See also Communication, Culture war, Digital culture, Internet, Language, Media Ecology 193, 200 Economy x–​x i, 2, 5, 11, 22–​23, 28, 33, 38–​39, 43, 52, 54, 59, 64, 69, 73, 80, 89–​90, 107, 125, 138–​40, 144, 145, 149, 155, 176, 181–​ 184, 190–​93, 196–​197, 200 Education ix–​x , xv–​x vi, 2, 4–​5, 11, 15, 20, 23, 39–​40, 42–​47, 51, 54–​59, 71, 73–​74, 84, 97–​98, 106–​07, 116, 134, 138, 141–​145, 147–​149, 166–​67, 169, 177–​78, 184, 186–​ 87, 193 See also Academia, Humanists, Intellectuals, Liberal Arts, Philosophers, Students, Teaching, University Eliot, Charles 141 Elzenberg, Henryk xii, xv, 19, 24–​26, 170 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 5, 27, 110, 185 Emotions xvi, 14, 20, 27, 37, 63, 59, 94, 115, 122, 124, 137, 151, 164, 191–​92, 198–​99

See also Frustration, Joy Employment Tribunals 42 Encyclopaedists 44 Enlightenment (Age of Reason) 44, 49, 130 Epictetus 6, 14, 16–​18, 27, 70, 79, 93, 101, 156, 182, 186, 198, 205 See also Roman Stoicism Epicureans 10, 19, 124 Epistemology 5, 89, 181 Essentialism 10–​11, 34, 164 Eternity 14, 21, 118, 129–​130 See also Spirituality Ethics ix, xii, 3–​6, 13–​15, 18–​19, 24–​29, 94, 107, 118, 132, 144, 147, 151, 158–​60, 163, 167–​71, 174–​75, 180–​81, 184, 186, 187–​ 89, 190–​91 See also Bioethics, Morality Ethnocentrism 37 European (Central /​Eastern /​East). See Eastern European European pragmatism 67, 194 See also Schiller, F. C. S. European Union 38–​39, 47, 49, 59, 146 Euthanasia 147 See also Death Excellence 9, 20, 25, 67, 92, 94, 148, 153–​ 54, 169 See also Good enough, Perfection Existentialism 138, 180 Experience x–​x i, xiii, 14, 17, 19–​21, 23, 44, 50, 54, 60–​61, 68, 70, 76, 83–​85, 89, 92, 94, 98–​100, 104, 118, 121–​22, 124, 126, 127–​130, 134, 136–​37, 139, 153, 167, 170, 176, 178–​79, 181–​82, 184, 187, 190–​91, 197, 203 Externals 56, 79, 89, 98, 101, 103, 115–​16, 159, 166 See also Dichotomy of control Eudaimonia 72, 79, 85, 103–​108, 125, 187, 198 See also Happiness Facebook (fb) 14, 44, 53, 58, 162, 171, 178 See also Communication, Digital culture, Internet, Media Fake news 45 See also Communication, Digital culture, Hate speech, Internet, Media

Index Fallacy of separation 118–​19 See also Consumer’s fallacy Family xiii, 15, 17, 20, 23, 51, 62, 67, 72, 81, 86, 96–​97, 106, 111, 115, 139–​140, 151, 192, 198 See also Children Fatum 13, 186 Feminism 1, 70–​71, 87, 138, 185–​186 See also Feminist pragmatism, Stoic feminism, Women Feminist pragmatism 1, 185 See also Feminism Film xvii, 167, 175 See also Cinematic philosophy Finitude. See Death Fitting expertise 69–​70, 89 See also Knowledge Flamm, Matthew 31 Forstater, Maya 42 Fortitude 79–​81, 96, 114, 138, 181 See also Self-​discipline Franzese, Sergio 5, 180 Freedom x, 14, 19, 23–​24, 32, 40, 47, 51–​52, 65, 74–​75, 79–​80, 83, 87, 93, 103–​04, 111, 139–​140, 145, 149, 165, 168, 181, 194, 197 See also Autonomy, Liberty Frustration xi, 33, 52, 61–​63, 78, 84, 86, 94, 98–​99, 134, 143, 155, 180, 184, 189, 191, 199 See also Emotions, Joy Fry, Hannah 177 Galen 114 Gandhi, Mahatma 24 Gender 40, 71, 138, 193–​194, 197 See also Identity policy, Sex Gere, Charlie 159 Germany xi, 37, 40, 65, 100, 112, 115, 155, 182, 187, 193, 195–​96, 202 Globalization ix–​x , 37, 49, 84, 109, 152, 189 God 17, 21, 28, 41, 48, 67–​68, 106, 122, 127, 131, 150 See also Catholicism, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Theology Goethe, J. W. 118, 125 Good enough 31, 92–​95, 96 See also Excellence, Perfectionism Good life ix, 6–​7, 14–​15, 18, 20, 30, 34, 37–​38, 42, 47, 55–​56, 62, 68–​69, 73, 75–​76, 78,

223 83, 84–​88, 91, 102–​03, 113–​14, 123, 139, 141–​43, 146, 153–​54, 156, 167, 177, 181–​82, 190, 192–​94, 202, 205 See also Happy life, Meaningful life, Successful life Google 53, 175 See also Big Tech, Communication, Cyberspace, Digital culture, Internet, Media, Wikipedia, YouTube Government 32, 41, 49, 55, 60, 74, 83, 114, 140, 162, 197 Greece (Greek) 20, 41, 67, 85, 102, 109, 132, 185–​86, 190, 204 See also Greek Stoicism, Hellenistic Greek Stoicism 185–​86 See also Modern stoicism, Roman Stoicism, Stoic feminism Grey, Anne-​Marie 43 Guide to life 8, 16, 18, 108–​11, 203 Gypsies 65 Hadas, Moses 17 Hadot, Pierre xv, 26, 118, 125, 128, 183 Haiti 38 Happiness xi, 18, 28, 42–​43, 52, 61–​62, 72, 79, 85, 93, 103–​08, 111, 118, 125, 134, 147–​49, 187, 189, 192 See also Eudaimonia, Happy life, Joy Happy life 84–​88 See also Happiness, Good life, Joy, Meaningful life, Successful life Harmony 11–​12, 89, 105, 122 Harvard 110, 141–​42 See also Academia, University Hate speech 158, 164–​66, 190–​91 See also Aggression, Culture war, Internet, Media, Oppression, Violence, War Health xiii, 12, 31, 40, 51, 53, 67, 69, 76, 79–​ 83, 91, 96–​97, 104–​05, 107, 113–​116, 125–​ 26, 140, 153, 181, 192–​93, 198, 200 See also Death Disability, Finitude, Hygiene, Self-​therapy Hedonism 123–​145 See also Consumption, Ethics, Joy, Pleasure, Self-​discipline Hellenistic 7, 11, 13, 18–​19, 93, 182 See also Greece, Greek Stoicism, Roman Stoicism

224 Index Hemingway Editor 172–​173 Hierocles 20, 77 See also Oikeiôsis, Roman Stoicism High, Peter 46 Hindu 22 History 26–​28, 30, 34, 36, 38–​41, 45, 49, 51, 53–​54, 59–​60, 62, 65, 67, 69–​70, 73–​74, 84–​86, 92, 102, 104–​05, 110, 114, 116, 123–​ 24, 130, 135, 142, 145, 150, 153–​56, 158, 166, 171, 175–​76, 179, 180, 182–​83, 185, 187, 189–​90, 192, 195–​96, 198–​99, 202 Holiday, Ryan xii, 26 Hollywood 167 Holocaust 40 See also Auschwitz, Cruelty, Nazi Homer 154, 190 Hook, Sydney 64, 181 See also American pragmatism Hope xvi, 3–​4, 7–​10, 12, 16, 19, 22–​23, 34, 44–​45, 50, 83, 96, 99, 103, 109, 136, 150, 155, 157, 176, 184–​85, 189, 201 Human nature 66, 107, 147, 166, 181 See also Agency, Individualism, Naturalism, Primitive naturalism, Soul, Psyche, Spirit Human rights xv, 42–​43, 51–​52, 64, 65, 149, 153 See also Universal Declaration of Human Rights Humanism 3–​4, 27, 32, 65, 66–​71, 74, 81, 89, 104, 109, 112, 130, 134, 136–​38, 142, 144, 151, 178, 185–​86, 190, 193–​94, 198–​201 See also Humanist Manifesto, Humanistic rhetoric, Humanists, Humanization, Posthumanism, Transhumanism Humanist Manifesto 4, 68–​69 Humanistic rhetoric 71, 136–​38 See also Rhetoric, Humanism, Humanists Humanists xiv, 27, 32, 46, 127, 158–​59, 170–​ 71, 175, 190 See also Academia, Humanistic hetoric, Humanism, Intellectuals, Liberal arts, Philosopher, Posthumanism, Public intellectuals, Teachers, Transhumanism, University Humanity 32, 50, 65–​67, 112, 114, 147–​48 See also Human nature, Humanism, Humanists

Humanization 177–​79 See also Humanism, Humanistic rhetoric, Humanists Hume, David 21 Hungary xi, 17, 23, 132, 146, 203 Hutu 40, 65 Hygiene 26, 91, 98, 100, 104, 115, 125–​26 See also Health, Medicine, Self-​therapy Identity policy (Identity politics) 193–​94 See also Gender, Feminism, Ideology, Patriarchy, Sex, White supremacy, Victimhood Ideology 8, 10, 27, 40–​41, 65, 68, 91, 102–​03, 138, 146–​47, 150, 189, 195–​96 Imagination 10, 41, 84, 108, 122–​23, 126–​27, 144, 164–​65, 168 Immediacy 19, 124, 128–​29, 178–​79 See also Complete human act, Mediation Immigrants 22–​24, 100, 168 See also Refugees, Ukraine Immortality 156–​57 See also Culture, Eternity Immunity to maltreatment 101–​03 See also Life strategy Indifference 16, 55–​56, 62, 77, 93, 95, 101, 112, 114, 133, 166, 191–​93, 194, 199 Individualism 3–​4, 14, 33, 59–​63, 73, 76, 133, 139, 144, 187, 193 See also Agency, Autonomy, Dignity, Freedom, Human nature, Liberty Influencers 43–​44, 58, 60, 163 Instagram 44, 47, 56, 160, 167, 171, 175, 202 See also Digital culture, Facebook, Internet, Media, Video, YouTube Intellectuals 5, 7, 15, 20, 24, 70, 158–​168, 175, 177 See also Academia, Humanists, Liberal arts, Philosopher, Public intellectuals, Teachers, University Internet (Cyberspace) ix, xiv, 26, 38, 43, 44–​48, 56–​58, 74, 97, 115–​16, 158–​169, 173, 175–​79, 184 See also Digital Culture, Instagram, Media, Microsoft, TikTok, Video, YouTube Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 171 Irvine, William xii, 26, 70, 101, 137, 156, 165, 192, 199, 205

Index See also Modern stoicism Islam. See Muslim Israelis 22 James, William xii, 1–​10, 14, 16, 21, 23, 27, 30, 48, 67–​68, 79, 94, 110, 120, 130–​131, 150, 180–​81, 184–​85, 193, 205 See also American pragmatism Japan 40 Jews 51, 65, 195–​96 John Paul ii 132, 196 Joy 19–​20, 29, 32, 56, 64, 70, 82, 85–​87, 99, 108, 117, 121, 123–​26, 128–​29, 151, 154, 199 See also Optimism, Pleasure Justice 32, 40, 79, 105, 137, 147–​48, 154–​55, 197, 203 Kaag, John 180 Kant, Immanuel 19, 36, 43, 64, 107, 118, 128 Karate 80 See also Self-​discipline, Sport Katyń 65 Kegley, Jaquelyn 32, 180, 185 Kenny, Anthony xv, 133 Khmer Rouge 40 See also Cambodia Kimura, G. W. 180 King, Martin Luther 24 Kleingeld, Pauline 152 Knowledge x, xvi, 8–​9, 17, 44–​46, 48, 58, 63, 67–​70, 72, 76, 80, 89–​94, 97, 101–​04, 109, 114, 127, 139, 143, 145, 149, 163–​64, 170, 176–​79, 184, 194, 203 See also Fitting expertise, Self-​ knowledge, Wisdom Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 41 Kołakowski, Leszek 148 Koran 154 See also Muslim Kosovars 112 Kuhn, Thomas 41–​42 Lachs, John ix–​x vi, 1, 2, 6–​32, 59, 67, 91, 99, 105, 118, 127, 146, 179, 190, 202–​203, 205 Lake, Danielle 70 Language 9, 17, 19, 26, 37, 44, 67, 72, 107, 128–​29, 134–​35, 148, 153, 158, 170, 173–​ 74, 198–​99

225 See also Communication, Humanistic rhetoric, Internet, Media, Rhetoric Latin America xi, 40–​41, 195 Leaving others alone 31, 111–​113, 150 See also Toleration, Virtue Leibniz, Gottfried W. 13 Liberal Arts 18, 35, 123, 141–​42, 162, 177, 190 See also Academia, Education, Humanists, Philosophy, University Liberalism x, 14, 173 See also Freedom, Liberty Liberty x, 5, 12, 22, 24, 41, 46, 83 See also Freedom, Liberalism Life strategy 101–​03, 199 See also Immunity to maltreatment Linebaugh, Peter 171 Literature 114, 134, 142, 144, 172, 174–​75 Littman, Robert 113–​14 Lockdown. See Pandemic Logic 26, 58, 60, 137, 155, 173, 199 Logos 13, 67, 131, 136 See also Metaphysics Love 12, 20, 22, 29, 63, 67, 76, 82, 86–​87, 92, 94, 111, 122, 124, 203 Lovejoy, Arthur 185 Lucretius 13 Lyotard, Jean-​Francois 42 Macao 170 Marches of Dignity (Marchas de la Dignidad) 43 Marcus Aurelius 6, 10, 14, 26–​28, 74, 113–​15, 133, 136, 151, 182, 186, 188, 205 See also Roman Stoicism Margutti, Paulo 6 Mariupol 65 Marxism (Neo-​Marxism) 8, 136, 138 Mauretania 40 Mawhinney, Jessie 168 Maya 40 Mazur, Tomasz xii, 26 McDermid, Douglas 30–​31 McGill-​Rutherford, Emily 70, 186 McLynn, Frank xii, 26–​27, 130, 188, 199 McReynolds, Phillip 32, 172, 206 Mead, George Herbert 64, 133 See also American pragmatism

226 Index Meaningful life ix–​x i, xiii, xv–​x vi, 1, 7, 11, 15, 18, 25, 33, 37, 41, 47, 53–​55, 60–​63, 69–​70, 72–​76, 78, 80–​81, 84, 86–​90, 92, 100, 102–​06, 112–​13, 117, 119, 122, 127, 131, 133–​35, 138–​43, 147, 149, 152, 163, 165, 168, 177, 180–​81, 189–​192, 199 See also Good life, Happy life, Successful life Media ix, 33, 42–​45, 47, 51, 56, 58, 92, 96, 99, 113, 137, 144, 158, 165, 168, 176, 178, 184, 190, 193, 202 See also Big Tech, Celebrities, Facebook, Fake news, Hate speech, Influencers, Instagram, TikTok, Tweeter, WhatsApp, YouTube Mediation xiv, 29, 53–​56, 59–​61, 117–​19, 125 See also Complete human act, Immediacy Medicine xv, 7–​9, 19, 30, 39, 57, 67, 79–​81, 91–​92, 97, 114–​16, 117, 149–​50 See also Health, Self-​therapy, Science Mediterranean 110 Meliorism. See Amelioration Metaphysics xii, 4, 6, 13, 24, 26, 30–​31, 64, 66–​67, 89, 127–​28, 130, 184–​86 See also Cosmology, Cosmos, Logos Methodology xiii, 1, 8, 10–​11, 29–​30, 39, 69, 73–​74, 159, 170, 175–​76, 177, 181, 185–​86 Mexico 49 Mickiewicz, Adam 196 Microsoft 53 See also Big Tech, Internet, Media Middle East xi, 39–​40 Miller, Jon 13 Miller, Peter 107, 130 Miller, Steven 31 Mind xiii–​x iv, 2, 4, 10–​11, 17, 23, 35, 45, 66–​68, 70, 78, 85, 91–​93, 98, 100, 102, 105, 110, 120, 123–​24, 127, 132–​33, 141, 143, 145, 150, 157, 168, 178, 181, 183, 190, 194, 200, 203 See also Psyche, Soul, Spirit Mirandolla, Pico della 27 Mission 1, 16, 18, 21, 30, 73, 102, 103–​08, 131, 141, 158, 174, 196 Modern (New) stoicism xii, xiv–​x v, 1, 7, 13, 24–​30, 70, 79, 94, 106, 199, 205 See also Stoicism, Becker, Irvine, Mazur, Pigliucci

Moldova 197 Montaigne, Michel de 27, 35 Moral cosmopolitanism 151–​53 See also Cosmopolitanism, Multiculturalism Moral holidays 31, 94 Morality xv, 2, 4, 8, 12, 15, 18, 23, 25, 27, 31, 27, 39, 42–​44, 47, 53, 61, 65–​66, 68, 70–​71, 73, 78, 83–​84, 91–​92, 94, 102–​03, 105, 110–​11, 113, 123, 131, 137, 142, 144, 147, 151–​54, 156, 175, 186–​88, 191, 196, 205 See also Ethics, Moral cosmopolitanism Moreno, Daniel 110 Morris, Tom xii, 26 Mueller, Hans-​Georg 170 Multiculturalism ix–​x , 3, 38, 49–​50, 131 See also Cosmopolitanism, Moral cosmopolitanism, Pluralism of Values Muslim 22, 37, 132–​33, 149, 168, 193 See also Koran, Shia, Sunni Musonius Rufus 70–​71, 186, 205 See also Roman Stoicism Nagl, Ludwig 130, 180 Nanjing 40, 65 Narrative 24, 28, 33, 42–​43, 49, 58, 67, 71–​73, 106, 136–​38, 145, 158, 160, 164, 168–​69, 172, 189, 195–​97 See also Communication, Language, Rhetoric, Media, Digital culture Nation xv, 2, 5, 21–​22, 37–​38, 43, 51, 64, 66, 87, 102, 106, 115, 137–​38, 146–​47, 153, 168, 186, 193–​96 Native Americans 65 nato xiii Naturalism 4, 13–​15, 21, 31, 66–​70, 80, 89, 104, 127–​28, 136, 181 See also Primitive naturalism Nature 4, 15, 24, 26, 28, 30, 49, 66–​67, 80, 87, 89, 91, 104–​05, 107, 131, 153 See also Human nature, Naturalism, Primitive naturalism Nazi x, 40, 65, 112, 138, 155, 195, 203 Negative visualization 126–​27 Neopragmatism 1, 5, 42, 185 New England xi, 1

Index New Zealand 38 See also Rorty Nielsen, Jacob 162 Nietzsche, Friedrich 41 Nigeria 197, 202 Nubiola, Jaime 1 Nussbaum, Martha xv, 26, 71, 117, 191 Obligation 47, 57, 65, 85, 91–​94, 111–​12, 114, 135, 138, 151, 167, 183, 191, 203–​04 Oestreich, Gerhard 187 See also Responsibility Oikeiôsis (Circles of concern) 14, 20, 77–​79, 191, 193, 203 See also Hierocles, Roman Stoicism Ontology 12–​14, 21, 31, 65, 67, 89, 127–​28, 181, 185 See also Cosmos, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Primitive naturalism Opole x–​xi, xvii, 197 Oppression 94–​96, 112, 136, 154–​55, 195, 203 See also Suffering Optimism 4, 16, 24, 63, 93 See also Joy Otechworld 162, 170 Padrón, Charles 13–​14, 32 Painting 126, 173, 175 Palestinians 22 Palingenesia 13 Pandemic x, xiii–​x v, 7–​8, 33–​34, 37, 39, 45, 57, 113–​16, 140, 160, 167, 182–​83, 200, 202 See also Antonine Plague Pappas, Gregory 180 Patriarchy 193 See also Identity policy, Ideology, White supremacy Peirce, Charles S. 1, 7, 93, 118, 185 See also American pragmatism Pentapharmakos 31 Perfection (Perfectionism) 11, 20, 92–​95, 106–​07, 128, 145, 153–​54 See also Excellence, Good enough Philosopher ix, xii, 1, 3, 6, 8–​10, 14–​15, 18, 20, 24, 28, 102, 114, 123, 130, 142, 145–​46, 148, 158–​9, 161–​64, 167, 169–​176, 183, 190–​91, 203, 205–​06

227 See also Academia, Education, Humanists, Intellectuals, Liberal arts, Public intellectuals, Teachers, University Philosophy ix, xii–​x vi, 1–​32, 35–​36, 39, 42, 69–​71, 74, 79, 89, 92–​93, 102, 105, 108–​111, 114, 117–​18, 123, 125, 130–​32, 134, 138, 141–​42, 145–​48, 152, 158–​65, 167–​77, 180–​83, 185–​86, 189–​91, 194, 196, 200, 202–​206 See also Cinematic philosophy, Culture criticism, Philosopher, Philosophy of culture, Pragmatism Philosophy of culture. See cultural criticism Physics 24, 26, 31, 185 Pigliucci, Massimo xii, 26–​27, 69, 97, 126, 131, 156, 189, 199, 205 See also Modern stoicism Pinkas, Daniel 10, 31, 76, 150 Plato 13, 169, 187 Pleasure 27, 76–​77, 91, 123–​25, 199 See also Joy, Optimism Pluralism 108–​111, 136–​37, 137–​140 See also Pluralism of cultures, Pluralism of values, Positive pluralism Pluralism of cultures x, 108, 153, 163, 189 See also Culture, Cultural diversity, Pluralism, Pluralism of values Pluralism of values ix, xiii, 47–​49, 66, 137, 140, 145 See also Pluralism, Pluralism of cultures, Values Pneuma 13, 21 See also Metaphysic, Stoicism Podcast 26, 135, 161, 170, 202 See also Digital culture, Media Poland (Polish) x–​x iii, 24, 37, 54, 100, 112, 115, 132, 134–​35, 146, 148–​49, 154, 170, 173, 193, 195–​97, 202 Polarization ix, 33, 43–​45, 71, 136–​38, 158, 197 Politics 40, 57, 59–​60, 102, 191–​98, 203 See also Culture war, Identity policy Popova, Maria 173 Positive pluralism 138–​40 See also Pluralism Posthumanism 32, 199–​201 See also Humanism, Transhumanism Postmodernism 42

228 Index Pragmatism, see American pragmatism, Bern­s­tein, Richard; Cognitive pragma­ tism, European pragmatism, Feminist pragmatism, Hook, Sidney; James, Will­i­am; Mead, George Herbert; Neo­­ pragmatism, Peirce, Charles S.; Putnam, Hilary; Rescher, Nicholas; Rorty, Richard Prensky, Marc 37 Present moment 117–​18, 120–​30, 183 See also Spirituality Primitive naturalism 21, 66–​70 See also Naturalism Providentia 13, 186 See also Metaphysics, Ontology Psyche 14 See also Mind, Soul, Spirit Psychology 26, 67, 77, 81, 91–​92, 94, 137, 169, 198 See also apa (American Psychology Association) Public intellectual xiv, 15, 74, 106, 158–​168 See also Digital culture, Humanists, Education, Media, Philosopher Public opinion 44, 134, 166 Puritanism 2 Putnam, Hilary 5–​6 Rat race 18, 98–​100 Reality xi, 3, 28, 34, 41, 47–​48, 55, 65, 67–​68, 76, 84, 90, 117, 120, 124, 126–​28, 131, 140, 144, 154, 159, 162, 176, 194 Refugees xiii, 100, 112, 168, 195, 197 See also Immigrants, Ukraine Relativism. See Cultural relativism Religion 4, 21–​22, 37, 40, 42–​43, 47–​49, 51, 65, 68, 70–​71, 73, 82–​84, 91, 102–​03, 105–​ 05, 108–​09, 127–​133, 151–​53, 156, 173–​74, 176, 180, 183–​84, 193–​94, 205 See also Catholicism, Christianity, Church, God, Muslim, Spirituality, Theology, Transcendence Renaissance 24, 27, 35 Rescher, Nicholas 7, 168, 185 See also American Pragmatism, Cognitive pragmatism

Responsibility 17, 23, 46, 56, 59, 61, 69, 73, 76–​77, 87, 111, 124, 136–​37, 144, 149, 165–​66 See also Obligation Rhetoric 5–​6, 27, 59, 71–​72, 136–​38, 169, 172, 198 See also Communication, Humanistic rhetoric, Language, Media, Narrative Rockefeller, Steven 4 Role model 79, 87–​88, 138, 143, 188 See also Education, Teachers Roman Stoicism xii, 6, 13–​14, 25, 30, 36, 64, 126, 205 See also Cicero, Epictetus, Hierocles, Marcus Aurelius, Musonius Rufus, Seneca Romania 197 Rome 28, 113 Roosevelt, Theodore 5 Rorty, Richard 2–​3, 9, 27, 37, 64, 66, 149, 173, 185 See also American pragmatism, Neopragmatism Royce, Josiah 1–​3, 6, 14, 23, 30–​31, 87, 110, 130, 185 See also American pragmatism Russell, Bertrand xv, 27–​28, 188 Russia x, xiii, 24, 34, 38, 40–​42, 88, 100, 112, 149, 184–​97 See also Communism, Soviet Rwanda 22, 40, 65, 155 Saatkamp, Herman J. 14, 156 Sage 19–​20, 28, 92, 108, 186, 205 See also Fitting expertise, Greek Stoicism, Knowledge, Philosopher, Roman Stoicism, Self-​knowledge, Stoic feminism, Wisdom Santayana, George ix–​x ii, 2, 6, 8, 11–​16, 21, 22–​24, 30–​32, 36, 39, 69, 77, 87, 89–​91, 107–​08, 110–​11, 118, 125, 127–​30, 133–​34, 141–​42, 152–​54, 156, 169, 183, 185, 200, 205–​06 Savater, Fernando 170 Sceptics 10 Schiller, F. C. S. 67, 195 See also American pragmatism, European pragmatism, Humanism

Index Schopenhauer, Arthur 118 Schweitzer, Albert 24 Science 2, 4, 7–​10, 16, 18, 39, 41–​45, 47, 65–​ 70, 73, 91–​92, 129–​30, 150, 164, 173, 176, 181, 183, 185–​86, 199 See also Astronomy, Knowledge, Medicine, Methodology, Physics, Social sciences, Technology Secularism 3–​4, 14, 26, 35, 48–​50, 65, 69, 81, 84, 89, 104, 108, 118, 127, 130, 132, 136, 153, 156–​57 Self-​discipline 94, 187 See also Ethics, Sport Self-​fulfilment (Self-​realization) 11, 18, 41–​ 42, 47–​48, 91, 107–​08, 115 Self-​knowledge xvi, 68–​70, 89–​91, 97, 101–​ 02, 104, 149, 184, 194 See also Knowledge, Sage, Socrates, Wisdom Self-​therapy xiii, xv–​x vi, 117, 125–​27 See also Knowledge, Self-​discipline, Self-​ knowledge, Sage, Wisdom Seneca, Lucius A. 6, 17, 19, 24–​25, 27, 19, 36, 66–​67, 79, 126, 133, 188, 126, 133, 188, 205 See also Dignitas, Roman Stoicism, Value Serbs 112 Sex 38, 40, 42, 71, 94, 138, 153, 193–​94 See also Feminism, Gender, Identity policy Shia 40 See also Muslim, Sunni Siberia 112 Silicon Valley 38, 45, 59 See also Big Tech, Technology Skowroński Krzysztof P. ix, xii, xviii, 6, 13–​14, 111, 149, 169, 185 Skrupskelis, Ignas 10, 48 Slavery 15, 18–​19, 40–​41, 79, 89, 155, 186, 190, 196 Slavs 65, 195 Slovenia 170 Słowacki, Juliusz 196 Social media. See Media Social sciences 18, 67–​68, 73 See also Science Socrates (Socratic) 25, 69, 91–​92, 149 Solidarity 71 Sophists 10 Sorbonne xii

229 Soul 8, 12, 16, 19, 35, 57, 64, 66, 112, 117, 126–​ 27, 153, 195 See also Human nature, Mind, Psyche, Soul, Spirit Soviet 23, 112, 145, 195, 203 See also Communism, Russia Spain (Spanish) ix, xi, 2, 14, 43, 37, 49, 110, 149, 170, 202 Spinoza, Baruch 13, 24, 32 Spirit 2, 5, 13, 24, 29, 72, 154 See also Mind, Psyche, Spirituality Spirituality xvi, 14, 21, 103, 117–​18, 121, 127–​ 30, 180 Sport 80, 94, 115 See also Karate, Self-​discipline Srebrenica 65 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 171 Stankiewicz, Piotr xii, 26 State 22, 37–​38, 50, 59, 72, 91, 97, 102, 138, 144, 146, 152, 162–​63, 165, 186–​87 Stobaeus, Joannes 77 Stockdale, James xii, 156 Stoic Feminism 70–​71, 186 See also Feminism, Stoicism, Modern Stoicism Stoicism. See Greek Stoicism, Modern stoicism, Roman Stoicism, Stoic feminism Storytelling 172 Stout, Jeffrey 173 Stroud, Scott 27 Students xi–​x ii, 40, 46, 57, 92, 135, 139, 141–​ 44, 156, 160, 164, 178, 193, 197, 202 See also Academia, Education, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Philosopher, Teaching, University Successful life 61, 84, 86 See also Good life, Happy life, Meaningful life Suffering xi, 24, 28, 34, 51–​52, 59, 61, 72, 79–​ 83, 86, 112, 114, 124, 132, 145, 168, 184, 196 See also Cruelty, Oppression Suicide 19, 79, 82–​83, 140, 147 See also Death, Suffering Sullivan, Shannon 29, 32 Sunni 40 See also Muslim, Shia Sweden 49

230 Index Sympatheia 13 See also Metaphysics Sztajnszrajber, Darío 170 Taoka, Yasuko 31 Target audience 10, 43, 164, 168–​70, 174, 176, 183–​85 See also Communication, Digital culture, Internet, Media Teaching (Teachers) xv, 10–​11, 15, 19–​20, 26–​27, 46, 56, 70–​71, 79, 85, 92–​93, 112, 114, 135–​36, 138–​39, 141–​44, 156, 158–​59, 165–​66, 170–​71, 177–​79, 190, 204 See also Academia, Digital culture, Education, Philosophy, Public intellectual, University Techno-​feudalism 59–​60 See also Big Tech, Internet, Technology Technology xvi, 11, 25, 33, 38–​40, 43–​45, 53–​54, 57, 60, 73, 79–​81, 84, 89, 97, 108, 114–​16, 130, 149–​50, 155, 158, 160–​63, 166–​67, 176, 178, 182, 190, 200–​02 See also Big Tech, Digital culture, Internet, Media, Science, Techno-​feudalism Teleology 24 See also Metaphysics, Ontology, Telos Telos 13 See also Metaphysics, Ontology, Teleology Theology 13, 24, 26, 65, 68, 84, 127, 129, 132, 174 See also Christianity, Church, God, Religion TikTok 44, 47, 53, 55, 167 See also Cyberspace, Digital culture, Digital revolution, Internet, Media Time 27, 34, 36, 38–​39, 54, 68, 75, 81, 84–​85, 89–​90, 96, 98–​99, 108, 113–​115, 120–​23, 125–​26, 128–​30, 141–​42, 145, 155–​157, 176, 181–​82, 196–​97, 199–​201, 203 Toleration 14, 22, 24, 41, 50, 70, 78, 83, 106–​07, 111–​13, 139, 147–​48, 150–​51, 164, 181, 186 See also Virtue, Leaving others alone Tranquility (Ataraxia) 14, 16, 133, 187 Transcendence 21, 128–​129 Transcendence-​in-​experience spirituality 21, 127–​129 See also Spirituality, Transcendence Transcendentalism 110, 138, 185 Transhumanism 199–​201 See also Humanism, Posthumanism

Trotter, Griffin 31–​32 Truth 2, 14, 25, 31, 40, 42, 44, 47–​58, 90, 92, 108, 125, 150, 162, 165–​66, 189 Tuomela, Liisa 71 Tutsi 40, 65 Twitter xiv, 44, 53, 56, 160, 175, 181, 185 See also Cyberspace, Digital culture, Digital revolution, Internet, Language, Media, Rhetoric, YouTube Ukraine x–​x i, xiii–​x iv, 33–​34, 38, 40, 42, 51, 65, 82, 87–​88, 100, 102, 112, 132, 140, 155, 182, 184, 194–​95, 197–​98, 202 UN (United Nations) 43, 64–​65 See also Universal Declaration of Human Rights unesco 49 See also Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity United Kingdom 39 United States (US) xi, xiii, 2–​3, 5, 22–​24, 35, 39, 49–​51, 167, 196–​97 See also America Universal Declaration of Human Rights  See also Human rights, United Nations Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity 49See also unesco Universalism 5, 22–​24, 71, 136, 151 University xi, 46, 53–​54, 100, 132, 135, 142, 161, 165, 170, 177–​78 See also Academia, Harvard, Humanists, Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Teaching Upanishads 154 Ur 190 Utilitarian ethics 187–​89 See also Ethics, Virtue ethics Value ix–​x , xii–​x iii, 5, 7, 14, 19, 24–​27, 33–​ 34, 36, 39, 41, 43–​44, 47–​49, 51, 60–​61, 63, 65–​67, 91, 95, 100, 102–​03, 105–​11, 114, 117–​19, 123–​24, 128–​29, 132, 134, 136–​37, 139–​41, 143, 145–​48, 150–​51, 159, 162–​63, 166, 168–​69, 175–​76, 180, 183, 188–​89, 191–​92, 201 See also Axiology, Ethics, Pluralism of values, Utilitarian ethics, Virtue, Virtue ethics Van Mierlo, Trevor 162 Varoufakis, Yanis 59 Venezuela 38

231

Index Victimhood 79, 136–​37, 196–​98 See also Identity policy, Oppression, Culture war Video xiv, 44, 135, 164, 170–​71, 174, 178 See also Communication, Cinematic philosophy, Cyberspace, Digital culture, Internet, YouTube Vietnam 157, 167 Violence 12, 17, 23, 34, 56, 62, 76, 82, 140, 192 See also Aggression, Culture war, Hate speech, Identity policy, Oppression, War Virtue 17, 24, 26–​27, 64, 71, 90, 106, 111–​13, 133, 150, 153–​54, 162, 175, 180, 187–​89, 204 See also Leaving others alone, Virtue ethics Virtue ethics 26, 180, 187–​89 See also Ethics, Utilitarian ethics, Virtue Vision 48, 54, 62, 76, 101–​05, 113, 123, 130–​32, 154, 176, 183, 189 Višňovský, Emil 30 Vlog 171 See also Blog, Digital culture, Internet War xiii–​x v, 2, 5, 22, 34, 38–​42, 49, 51, 82, 110, 137, 140, 145, 154–​56, 182, 194–​98, 200, 202–​03, 205 See also Aggression, Culture war, Hate speech, Oppression, Violence, wwii Weber, Eric Thomas 32 Webinar 46, 170–​71, 202 See also Communication, Cyberspace, Digital culture, Internet, Media Website 26, 44, 46, 164, 170–​71, 202 See also Communication, Digital culture, Digital revolution, Internet, Language, Media, Rhetoric Western culture xi–​x ii, 6, 33, 36–​44, 47, 49, 51–​52, 59–​64, 73, 78, 107, 118, 127, 137–​ 38, 148–​49, 151, 153, 192–​193, 198, 200 See also Culture, Cultural diversity, Culture war WhatsApp 44 See also Communication, Cyberspace, Digital culture, Facebook, Internet, Media, YouTube

Whipps, Judy 70 White, Nicholas 17, 93 White privilege 193–​96 See also Identity politics, Ideology, Patriarchy, Feminism Whitman, Walt 3 Whittingham, Charles 77 who (World Health Organization) 200 See also Health Wikipedia 44, 162, 171–​72 See also Communication, Cyberspace, Digital revolution, Encyclopaedists, Internet, Media Williams, James xii, 26 See also Modern stoicism Windelband, Wilhelm 175 Wisdom xvi, 10, 20–​21, 24, 27, 63, 68, 70, 72, 86, 89, 90–​92, 102, 105, 109, 111, 113, 116, 134, 136, 147–​49, 154, 174, 178, 181, 186, 191, 194, 200 See also Fitting expertise, Knowledge, Sage, Self-​knowledge Wittgenstein, Ludwig 78, 95–​96, 189 Wolniewicz, Bogusław 170 Women (females) xiii, 42–​43, 50–​51, 70–​71, 87, 139, 151, 186, 197–​198, 205 See also Feminism, Identity policy, Stoic feminism wwii (World War ii) x, 10, 17, 51, 59, 112, 195, 203 YouTube (yt) xiv, 44, 46, 53, 121, 158, 162–​ 63, 170–​72, 174–​75, 178, 202, 206 See also Communication, Cyberspace, Digital culture, Digital revolution, Facebook, Internet, Media, Rhetoric, Video Zeno of Citium 186, 204 See also Greek Stoicism Zeno of Elea 24 Zoom 46, 170 See also Communication, Cyberspace, Digital culture, Internet, Media, Rhetoric, TikTok, YouTube Žižek, Slavoy 170