Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory [1st ed.] 9783030431525, 9783030431532

Citation preview

Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory Will Johncock

Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory

Will Johncock

Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory

Will Johncock http://willjohncock.com Sydney, NSW, Australia

ISBN 978-3-030-43152-5    ISBN 978-3-030-43153-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

To everyone I have informally discussed this book with since conceiving of it in mid-2016, thank you. My formal appreciation to Palgrave’s Philip Getz for having confidence in this project and to Amy Invernizzi for providing a seamless later experience. To my parents, thank you for being curious about my research interests and to mum particularly for your expert grammar insights. To my friend Dr. Scott McBride, thank you for reading an early draft of the Introduction chapter and for providing valuable feedback.

v

Contents

1 Introduction: Essential Versus External Social Being  1 Part I Subjectivity  15 2 Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus and Émile Durkheim on Mental Structure 17 3 When Are You Present? Chrysippus and Henri Bergson on Continuous Time 43 4 Why Do You Care About Yourself? The Early Stoics and Herbert Spencer on Self-­Preservation 71 Part II Knowledges and Epistemologies  97 5 Do Preconceptions Determine New Knowledge? Epictetus and Max Weber on Truth 99 6 Do People Know Why They Travel? Seneca and Anthony Giddens on Ignorance119

vii

viii 

Contents

Part III Physical Conditions 141 7 Is Climate Change Natural? Marcus Aurelius and Barbara Adam on Death143 8 What Causes Your Behaviors? Zeno and Pierre Bourdieu on the Body173 Part IV Collective Ethics 191 9 How Do We Regulate Our Affection for Others? Hierocles and Claude Lévi-­Strauss on Kinship Circles193 10 Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia Kristeva on Gendered Labor213 11 Is It Natural to Be Social? Marcus Aurelius and George Herbert Mead on Socialization233 Part V Emotions 251 12 Is Reason External to Passion? Posidonius, Ann Game, and Andrew Metcalfe on Self-Division253 13 Who Benefits from the Management of Feelings? Epictetus and Arlie Hochschild on Emotional Labor279 14 How Individual Is Happiness? Chrysippus and Harriet Martineau on the Universal End299 References321 Index341

About the Author

Will Johncock  researches social theory, continental philosophy, and Stoic philosophy, with a particular interest in themes concerning time. He is the author of Naturally Late: Synchronization in Socially Constructed Times (2019) which studies how philosophy and social science differentiate natural time from human time structures. He has lectured at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) and often publishes on current social issues related to time.

ix

Abbreviations

I&G L&S

Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson. 2008. The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary.

xi

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Essential Versus External Social Being

What Does This Book Contribute? Why Now? Ancient Stoic philosophy evaluates the socialized aspects of our lives in two ways. The Stoics emphasize the importance of a cohesive social fabric. Integral to this belief is the Stoic prioritization of the role that each of us should play in that cohesion. We will indeed see throughout this book that for the ancient Stoics, particularly of the later Roman eras, we are born for community. Alongside this focus on how embedded we are in social life however, Stoic philosophies order us to be indifferent to many features of our social existence. These features typically comprise what the Stoics believe is outside our individual control. Examples of socialized phenomena considered by the Stoics to be outside our control include the class into which we are born, our reputation, and numerous aspects of our interpersonal relationships. The imperative to be indifferent to certain socialized elements of our lives targets what the Stoics categorize as external not only to our control but also to our entire subjectivity. An orthodox ancient Stoic view is that what occurs socially is often estranged from our internal nature and who we each really are. Many of the Stoics implore us to be more attentive to this division of internal self from external socializing factors. Given this mandate we might presume that ancient Stoic figures from the founding era of Zeno to the final days of Marcus Aurelius could be concerned about this book. I say this because in this work we will study ancient Stoic positions in tandem © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_1

1

2 

W. JOHNCOCK

with modern social and sociological theories. The notable point here is that these social and sociological perspectives conceive of socialized elements of the self as pivotal rather than external to who we really are. By involving these perspectives my intention is not to characterize Stoicism as comparatively demanding a turning away from our “socialized” selves. As I have indicated at the outset, there is a crucial Stoic appreciation of how we are inherently social and communal. Through integrating social and sociological theory into discussions with Stoic impressions of subjectivity and sociality, I instead want to consider how separated our individuality actually ever is from our social environment for the Stoics. The modern social and sociological theories incorporated into this work provide an ideal counterpoint to Stoic notions of what is internal and external to the self. This is due to the receptivity of modern theories of socialization to the possibility that what we consider to be essentially individual is always already social constituted. I do not only direct this work toward interrogating Stoic positions though. Complementarily we will consider how elements of Stoic subjectivity lurk in what modern social theories determine is collectively common about our individual selves. For certain chapters this engages the subtle differences between ancient Stoic and conventional modern understandings of what appears to be the same concept. Take for example Chap. 14 where “happiness” is the focus. Happiness for the Stoics is not reducible to what in the present-day we might conceive as a pleasurable emotion that can reflect our experiences with an external world. Consistent with their belief in a truly internal rational self, Stoic happiness instead develops the ancient notion of eudaimonia.1 A happy life in this context is our living in accordance with universally rational activity. We can weave this Stoic impression of universally rationalized happiness through a sociological sense of how universally our societies produce us as rational agents. It is from this kind of comparison in this book that certain perspectives in modern social and sociological theory start to look remarkably Stoic. This dual orientation conditions this work’s originality and the new perspectives it generates. A comparative study between ancient Stoic philosophy and modern social or sociological theory has not previously occurred to this scale. With the prospect of new perspectives though comes the requirement to explain their necessity and timing. What does this interdisciplinary project contribute? Why is now a good time for it? In answering the second part of this question first, the timeliness of this project can be situated by acknowledging the general resurgence of

1  INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 

3

interest in Stoicism. This resurgence is evident in both public and academic spheres. Stoic perspectives have driven bestseller books,2 been the subject of mass media attention,3 and filled numerous academic commentaries. Organizations such as Modern Stoicism continue to grow, conducting international “Stoicon” conferences and publishing anthologies on “Stoicism Today” (Ussher 2014, 2016). Not only is Stoic philosophy’s popularity increasing, but the sense of a new collegiality around it has emerged. This community combines voices of theoretical expertise with those of the general public in spaces (online and offline) which authorize the participation of anyone who might have practical questions about Stoicism. The revival of public interest in Stoicism has possibly developed on the back of a greater intellectual and academic interest over the preceding three or four decades. As Gisela Striker notes in her 1996 volume of essays on Stoic epistemology and ethics, “a collection of this kind would hardly make sense were it not for the remarkable revival of interest in Hellenistic philosophy inaugurated” in the late 1970s (Striker 1996, ix). My intention is to participate in the spirit of Stoicism’s reanimation via engagements with its primary ancient sources. I complement this direction with secondary sources which have established Stoicism as a field of scholarly study (e.g. Lawrence Becker, Christopher Gill, Brad Inwood, Anthony Long, Martha Nussbaum, Gretchen Reydams-Schils, David Sedley, John Sellars, and William Stephens). There is a specific justification for rooting this approach in rigorous scholarship. The current public attention given to Stoicism has at times inspired a streamlining of its principles in order to develop a modern “guide to better living.” One of the main proponents of this approach, Ryan Holiday, states that “Stoicism is a philosophy designed for the masses, and if it has to be simplified a bit to reach the masses, so be it” (Alter 2016; my emphasis). Holiday has a proven comprehension of Stoic philosophy and an ability to create and connect with an audience. Rather than seeking to simplify Stoicism’s core principles however, I wish to adopt a method that embraces the intricacies of Stoicism’s intellectual relevance and coherence. This will avoid aspects of contemporary discussion which use Stoic philosophies as a “bag of tricks” to produce “life hacks,” as Massimo Pigliucci also observes (Pigliucci 2018). I can instead best discuss the objectives of my approach via two responses to the earlier question which asks what this project contributes. The first contribution in this regard expands upon the opening considerations. This work participates in a heritage of thought which reconfigures

4 

W. JOHNCOCK

conceptions of what is internal versus external to our nature or self. Where are the boundaries regarding what you believe to be essentially you, versus contingently you, when considering the effects your social context or environment has on you? Our socialization seems inescapable. Is there though a separate internality to ourselves over which we each have a mastery and that is resilient to socialized influences? We will see that the Stoics doggedly distinguish one’s internal nature from what they believe to be externally and often socially enacted. There is for the Stoics a philosophically oriented internality for each of us that regularly requires training or development after socialized elements have misdirected us. As Anthony Long notes: Modern anthropologists have accustomed us to think of selves and their interests and needs as largely social constructs. It is clear that the Hellenistic philosophers understood this notion inasmuch as Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics require their adherents to treat their pre-philosophical selves as sifted out of dominant social values to the detriment of what human nature actually requires of them. (Long 2006, 13)

This posits a distinction between a true Stoic individual nature and a socially constructed self. I have noted that there are nevertheless important aspects within Stoicism which positively characterize how our subjective internal nature expresses what is communal or collegial about existence. As we will see though there is a crucial difference between the Stoic worldview regarding our communal composition and what Long describes as the “anthropologist’s view” on the social construction of the self. This difference concerns how a Stoic collegiality is a necessarily universal phenomenon, whereas the social scientist is concerned with contingently socialized figurations. Despite this difference, the complex fabric of the commonalities and limits between self and society for the Stoics is part of what motivates my combined inquiry of Stoicism with social and sociological theory. I find it fascinating that Stoic philosophy represents each of us not only as a self-­ contained master but also as a site where our internal selves express a universal beyond. Comparisons emerge here with my impression of modern theses of sociality. Sociology in particular explores the common constitution of an individual self with a broader (collective) world beyond the individual.

1  INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 

5

There is a second contribution that I anticipate this project will make. Students and scholars familiar with either Stoic philosophy, or with social and sociological theory, will find this book grounded in conventional perspectives. I regularly explain, for example, the influence of Plato and Aristotle in Stoic thought. As discussed, I also engage many influential contemporary secondary sources in order to establish how classical positions are currently situated. Part of the broader promise of this project though is that by being the first collection of studies of its kind, its work intersects established readings with new ideas on the limits of subjectivity and social existence. These are perspectives that would not have emerged without the incursions facilitated by interdisciplinarity. This originality means that this project offers something different for all readers, from experienced scholars to the uninitiated. By reanimating works from either era through newly identified intersections, these fields might even become more accessible or inviting to those outside it. A chapter’s theoretical pairings might seem unusual. An example is Chap. 9’s analysis of Hierocles’ and Lévi-Strauss’ quite differently directed positions regarding circles of kinship and affection. As we open a dialogue between them, so we destabilize something that was seemingly separately essential to each. This reorients theses with which we are otherwise familiar and is an appealing purpose of this project. From a personal point of view, when developing these interdisciplinary deliberations new transtemporal ways of considering thinkers that I have been reading for years have manifested. There are obviously blunt differences not only between contemporaneous fields of study but also between the past and present objectives that comprise ancient Stoicism versus modern social or sociological theory. As hinted in the preceding discussion however, certain concerns pervade all these eras and their consequent forms of inquiry. These concerns include what it means to be civil or discourteous, good or bad, pious or impious, democratic or totalitarian, rational or emotional, and so on. Considerations of the human interest in any theme over time actually often harbor counterintuitive implications regarding timelessness. Timelessness is a relatively typical feature of enquiries into subjects and topics that transcend a particular period. Proclamations about whether a tennis player is the greatest ever seem to require somewhat of an eradication of time. In order to facilitate a comparison between all players in history, we negate the temporal distance between them. This allows us to conceive of them playing concurrently against or under the same conditions. By removing or softening

6 

W. JOHNCOCK

the “then versus now” separation we can conceive of what is common or communicable between eras. This insight informs the content of this book. When integrating ancient Greek and Roman philosophies with modern social theories from the last one or two centuries4 (and often from the last few decades), a necessary timelessness contradicts temporal dislocation. We must maintain a receptivity to how certain themes appear to be timelessly relevant to humans if we are to develop dialogues between generationally disconnected genres of theory. Highlighting commonalities between Stoic philosophy and social or sociological theory that have not received dedicated attention elsewhere marks a unique signature of this work.

Original Theoretical Intersections on Relatable Themes With this notion of transgenerational relations in mind, this book’s focus on Stoic philosophy must be qualified by recognizing Stoicism’s connections to its neighboring ancient philosophical epochs. As indicated in the previous section, I intend to fulfill the standard practice in Stoic scholarship of highlighting the heritage of certain Stoic principles in the Platonic and Aristotelian schools (Bonazzi 2017; Gill 2007a, b; Reydams-Schils 1997; Sedley 1999a, b). I will duly now flag that during the coming chapters I regularly indicate where Stoic thinkers either perpetuate or contradict relevant positions that philosophically precede them. Let me be clear though that the emphasis of this book is not a comparative analysis of ancient Greek and Roman philosophies and literatures. There are already libraries of works dedicated to this area of research. Indeed I draw upon many such texts for supporting commentary. Rather than such a focus, the hallmark of this book is how it brings Stoic positions into discussion with concepts found in relatively modern theories of sociality. I have declared the theoretical orientations that dominate this book. As will become evident, however, I open all chapters briefly through relatable themes. This occurs by integrating questions or curiosities that speak to everyday experience. Such an approach frames with a practical voice the theoretical rigor of the analysis that follows. Beginning with a relatable question is intended to encourage us to consider how in day-to-day life we might ask the same kinds of questions that are apparent in the theory. Any sharp distinction between theory and daily practice hopefully becomes

1  INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 

7

destabilized accordingly. Evidencing the practicality of theory in fact fulfills a key mandate of the Stoic school. Incorporating relatable everyday themes evokes something of how the term “stoic” permeates not only academic discussion but also survives in modern parlance. To be described as “stoic” indicates one’s capacity to endure an adverse experience, often without succumbing to emotional distress or complaining. If you have a “stoic personality” in the twenty-­ first century, it in many contexts recognizes your capability to withstand misfortune and to get on with your life undramatically. Pigliucci indeed describes how until his involvement with Stoicism’s intellectual resurgence a few years ago, the word “Stoicism only brought to mind Mr. Spock from Star Trek” (Pigliucci 2016, viii). Tad Brennan also observes the usual currency a term such as stoic holds, in that “we all know roughly what it means to be stoical or stoic—they are English words, fully naturalized from the Greek. Being stoic means being unemotional, indifferent to pleasure and pain, resigned to fate” (Brennan 2005, 3). Brennan is correct that the term stoic has these everyday connotations. As we will see in this book though, for the ancient Stoics the priority was less about being unemotional and more about being indifferent to emotional pleasure and pain. To be stoic requires not an absence of feeling (as I am sure a scholar of Brennan’s pedigree appreciates) but a resilience to externally contingent sources of one’s felt self. In the modern era, Stoicism’s prioritization on internal governance often features in characterizations of entities beyond individual humans. Corporations, cities, countries, devices, technologies, and entire human populations, not to mention collective human ideologies, can all be conceived as stoic. “Stoicism” could indeed be a defining parameter of the longevity and survival of the school of Stoic philosophy itself.5 This is particularly relevant to how in academic environments economic pressures have restricted the variety of areas of philosophy that can be comprehensively offered to students.6 This has typically made it difficult for genres such as Stoicism to be extensively accommodated within modern philosophy syllabuses. For Stoic philosophy to perpetuate in a manner that fulfills its own principles there must be something about its collective response to these circumstances that remains unperturbed whenever it is institutionally marginalized. The differentiation of this book from established scholarship possibly gives it the potential to participate infinitesimally in reconfiguring how Stoic philosophy is situated in the academic landscape. The point is not

8 

W. JOHNCOCK

that Stoic philosophy can gain a greater prominence in tertiary education protocols if I can show how it applies to fields of inquiry outside the humanities (such as sociology). This might be a disciplinarily self-­defeating outlook. The suggestion rather is that this book can contribute to an appreciation of Stoicism’s relevance to any current positions concerned with sociality and vice versa. This in turn could invite new readers and student interest. A qualification is necessary regarding the preceding discussion if I am at all at risk of presenting Stoicism as a singular ideology. It would be naive to reduce all generations of Stoic thought to an identical belief structure. As with any school, subsequent thinkers bring new perspectives. This is true of Stoicism both in the introduction of new ideas as well as in the revision of existing ideas.7 With that having been noted, the claim that I will substantialize throughout this book is that one conception which is near-ubiquitous in the Stoic school is of our implication in a universal Nature. The Stoic subject asks not what they do or think in terms of the presumption of an autonomously originated and regulated individuality. Conversely the Stoic impression is that we act and think in accordance with what it means to be an expression of a universal nature. Individuation for the Stoics is the manifestation of something more all-encompassing. This expands upon the earlier detailed second objective or reason for this project. Through the social and sociological theories integrated into these coming investigations, I explore how we might find a comparable modern claim regarding the systemic production of the subject. This claim is that what is individual or subjective is not an atomic invention with a separate constitution. As with the Stoic impression of a universality that encompasses and inaugurates individuality, social/sociological theory’s belief in a systemic production of individuality contextualizes subjectification. The difference between the production of individuation for Stoic philosophy versus the sense of that process for social/sociological theory is the difference between universality and sociality. This is not an insignificant difference. The opening nonetheless of a dialogue between the two realms is possible according to the consistencies in how each view the origination and ongoing inclinations of individuation. Intersections and tensions manifest from this regarding their respective impressions of the conditions for individual citizenship and collective social unity.8 The relatability of what it means to be both an individual being and a collective being invites a readership for this book beyond the already reviewed relevance to students and scholars. In rudimentary discussions

1  INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 

9

about this book, I have noticed an interest from potential readers who are entirely outside the featured academic fields. Given the comprehensive way that the key elements of any chapter are unpacked, I anticipate that even if you lack a thorough background in Stoic, social, or sociological theory you will feel accommodated by this book’s method.

Method What then is this method? After a few chapters, you might notice similarities in each chapter’s structure. I have standardized the structure to help emphasize the timing of the paired theoretical components which comprise the following sequence. I open the discussion through an accessible topic or question. This sets the scene for the introduction of an ancient Stoic perspective that speaks to this topic or question. Having established the Stoic perspective, I then integrate a related social or sociological theory.9 The tandem analysis that manifests ultimately comprises the bulk of the chapter and is where this project’s originality becomes most prominent. Comprehensively engaging the Stoic component before integrating the social or sociological theory allows this structure to establish a foundation from which we can develop close readings of precise points that are communicable between the paired theorists. Close textual analysis, not incidentally, is a relatively pragmatic approach where the early Greek Stoics are concerned. For the thinkers of this epoch, there can unfortunately be a relative paucity of surviving literature. This reflects how chapters which feature Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes of Assos, and Chrysippus of Soli are dependent upon translations of sometimes meager fragments. Our sources of such fragments are Roman Stoics such as Seneca, ancient commentators such as Cicero, Diogenes Laërtius, and Stobaeus, and modern translators of the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (SVF) (Von Arnim 2016). As scholars would be aware, the SVF comprises passages in Greek and Latin from the early Stoics and their followers.10 I regularly defer for modern translations of these early fragments to Anthony Long and David Sedley (1987) (to be cited as “in L&S, page number”). Long and Sedley’s text has indeed become an ever-present reference for modern Stoic scholarship. In the chapters engaging Hierocles and Posidonius I complement my use of translators such as Long and Sedley, as well as Brad Inwood and Lloyd Gerson (2008) (to be cited as “in I&G, page number”), with the more dedicated attention given to these two ancients by other recent

10 

W. JOHNCOCK

translators. For Hierocles’ works and fragments I often turn to the translations offered by Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan (Hierocles 2009). Where Posidonius is concerned I.G.  Kidd translates the fragments (Posidonius 1999) that he and L. Edelstein collected in earlier volumes. For the chapters focused on later Roman Stoics such as Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, we have translations of what we believe to be entire or near-entire texts. We will in fact be working with more than one translation of texts such as Epictetus’ Discourses and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. From this approach comes the advantage of being able to evaluate different translators’ interpretations of key terms. In comparison to all these considerations, our access to the sources of modern social and sociological theory is of course much more straightforward. As a final note on method, I will briefly indicate how you might choose to read this book. You do not absolutely have to read its chapters sequentially. Chapter 14 does not assume knowledge acquired from all previous 13 chapters. While I encourage readers to be aware of the interrelations between chapters and associated theorists, the method outlined earlier means that each chapter has its own self-contained scope. Having said that, a sequential reading of the chapters would potentially better acquaint a reader with the category under which it and its neighboring chapters are grouped. If furthermore you are new to Stoic philosophy, there are basic elements of Stoicism that are unpacked in the first few chapters that will aid in your general comprehension. Despite these cautionary tones, neither reading approach will prevent you from appreciating the relations that are opened in any given chapter between Stoic philosophies and modern theories of socialized life and identity. Perhaps the best advice therefore, heralding the Stoic mantra that we are about to encounter, is to adopt the approach that you believe is in accordance with your nature.

Notes 1. In The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues that eudaimonia, which we typically translate as happiness and well-being, refers to an activity rather than to an emotional state. This activity is a rational and virtuous existence (Aristotle 2004, 1.7). Socratic and Platonic conceptions of eudaimonia precede and shape Aristotle’s position. The Stoic development of this focus on the “activity of happiness” is a topic for the coming chapters (in particular, Chaps. 4 and 14). We will see that emotion is not negated from Stoic

1  INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 

11

life (Sellars 2016a) but is reconfigured in accordance with rational activity. Also of interest will be how Aristotle accommodates, whereas the Stoics marginalize, external goods in relation to subjective happiness. 2. Ryan Holiday (2014) simplifies some of Stoicism’s central principles to show their applications to daily life. Alexandra Alter (2016) of the New York Times reports that this book has sold over 230,000 copies. Donald Robertson’s books (2010, 2013, and 2018) which discuss Stoic philosophy through the perspectives of cognitive behavioral therapy have equally brought a greater current awareness to the practical benefits of Stoic theory. Tim LeBon (2014) has also commercially popularized a blend of psychology and Stoic philosophy. Piotr Stankiewicz attributes the appeal of such works to their focus on “the ‘philosophy of life’ aspect of” Stoicism (Stankiewicz 2017, 55). 3. Recent mass media articles discussing the increasing popularity of applying Stoic principles to modern life include Matthew Sharpe (2017) in The Conversation, Elif Batuman (2016) in The New Yorker, Sarah Berry (2016) in The Sydney Morning Herald, Massimo Pigliucci (2015) in the New York Times, and William Irvine for the BBC (2015). Olivia Goldhill also describes in Quartz magazine how “silicon valley tech workers are using an ancient philosophy [Stoicism] designed for Greek slaves as a life hack,” whereby it must be said that “Stoicism is having a moment” (Goldhill 2016). 4. The “modern” era of scholarship to which I refer begins in the mid-­ eighteenth century. Historians regularly further refine the definition of this period to the “late modern era.” The division of the modern era into earlier and later stages tends to either subsume the eighteenth century within a longer modern period argued to begin around 1450, or in Peter Wilson’s estimation push “the start of later modernity back to around 1750” (Wilson 2014, 4). See Cameron on the relation of this definition to the industrial revolution (Cameron 1999, xvii). 5. We can use this point to illustrate the distinction between (1) the adjective form of “stoicism” which qualifies the subject or object with which it is associated and that begins with a lower case “s” (unless found at the start of a sentence) and (2) the noun form of “Stoicism” which refers to the ancient school of philosophy and that begins with an upper case “S.” 6. Pam Papadelos reports that in a world “where universities are run akin to commercial enterprises, there is a concern that philosophy will be further relegated into the marginal and obsolete” (Papadelos 2010, 158). On a similar theme, see Yamada (2010, 95) and Connell (2014). 7. See, for example, Annas (1993, 162). 8. David Inglis also exhibits an interest in a common terrain between ancient Stoicism and modern sociology. Inglis attends to the traces of Stoic ­cosmopolitanism that are present in the objects of analysis of Auguste Comte’s sociology (Inglis 2014, 79–80).

12 

W. JOHNCOCK

9. The exception to this rule is Chap. 7 which inverts this structure. In this chapter, I introduce the sociological theory before the Stoic philosophy. 10. John Sellars contextualizes the publication of von Arnim’s collection by providing an outline of the discovery of Stoic texts and fragments which preceded and proceeded this work (Sellars 2016b, 1–14).

References Alter, Alexandra. 2016. Ryan Holiday Sells Stoicism as a Life Hack, Without Apology. The New  York Times, December 6. https://www.nytimes. com/2016/12/06/fashion/ryan-holiday-stoicism-american-apparel.html. Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and New York: Penguin. Batuman, Elif. 2016. How to Be a Stoic. The New Yorker, December 19 & 26. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/how-to-be-astoic?utm_content=buffer3f614&utm_medium=social&utm_ source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer. Berry, Sarah. 2016. Why Stoicism Is Changing People’s Lives for the Better. The Sydney Morning Herald, February 10. http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/ why-stoicism-is-changing-peoples-lives-for-better-20160209-gmptyy.html. Bonazzi, Mauro. 2017. The Platonist Appropriation of Stoic Epistemology. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 120–141. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Brennan, Tad. 2005. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cameron, Euan. 1999. Editor’s Introduction. In Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History, ed. Euan Cameron, xvii–xxxi. Oxford and New  York: Oxford University Press. Connell, Raewyn. 2014. Love, Fear and Learning in the Market University. Australian Universities Review 56 (2): 56–63. Gill, Christopher. 2007a. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: How Stoic and How Platonic? In Platonic Stoicism—Stoic Platonism: The Dialogue between Platonism and Stoicism in Antiquity, ed. Mauro Bonazzi and Christoph Helmig, 189–208. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ———. 2007b. Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers. Phronesis 52 (1): 88–120. Goldhill, Oliva. 2016. Silicon Valley Tech Workers Are Using an Ancient Philosophy Designed for Greek Slaves as a Life Hack. Quartz, December 17. https://qz.com/866030/stoicism-silicon-valley-tech-workers-are-readingryan-holiday-to-use-an-ancient-philosophy-as-a-life-hack/.

1  INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 

13

Hierocles. 2009. Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts. Edited by Ilaria Ramelli. Translated by Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Holiday, Ryan. 2014. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumphs. New York: Penguin. Inglis, David. 2014. Cosmopolitanism’s Sociology and Sociology’s Cosmopolitanism: Retelling the History of Cosmopolitan Theory from Stoicism to Durkheim and Beyond. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 15 (1): 69–87. Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson (ed. and trans.). 2008. The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Irvine, William. 2015. Putting the Greek Back into Stoicism. BBC News, July 3. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33346743. LeBon, Tim. 2014. Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Long, Anthony. 2006. From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Papadelos, Pam. 2010. From Revolution to Deconstruction: Exploring Feminist Theory and Practice in Australia. Bern: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers. Pigliucci, Massimo. 2015 How to Be a Stoic. The New York Times, February 2. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/how-to-be-a-stoic/. ———. 2016. Foreword. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, viii–xiv. CreateSpace. ———. 2018. The Growing Pains of the Stoic Movement. How to Be a Stoic, June 5. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2018/06/05/the-growingpains-of-the-stoic-movement/. Posidonius of Rhodes. 1999. Posidonius: Volume III: The Translation of the Fragments. Edited by J. Diggle, N. Hopkinson, J. Powell, M. Reeve, D. Sedley, and R. Tarrant. Translated by I.G. Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 1997. Posidonius and the Timaeus: Off to Rhodes and Back to Plato? The Classical Quarterly 47 (2): 455–476. Robertson, Donald. 2010. The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books. ———. 2013. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. London: Teach Yourself. ———. 2018. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

14 

W. JOHNCOCK

Sedley, David. 1999a. Hellenistic Physics and Metaphysics. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 355–411. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1999b. The Stoic-Platonist Debate on Kathêkonta. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 128–152. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sellars, John. 2016a. Stoicism and Emotions. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 43–48. CreateSpace. ———. 2016b. Introduction. In The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, ed. John Sellars, 1–14. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Sharpe, Matthew. 2017. Stoicism 5.0: The Unlikely 21st Century Reboot of an Ancient Philosophy. The Conversation, July 13. https://theconversation.com/ stoicism-5-0-the-unlikely-21st-centur y-reboot-of-an-ancient-philosophy-80986. Stankiewicz, Piotr. 2017. Modern Stoicism and the Responsibility for the Global Polis. Studies in Global Ethics and Global Education 8: 54–62. Striker, Gisela. 1996. Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Ussher, Patrick (ed.). 2014. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I. CreateSpace. ———. 2016. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II. CreateSpace. Von Arnim, Hans. 2016. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta: Volumes 1–4. Eugene: Wipf and Stock. Wilson, Peter. 2014. Introduction. In A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Peter Wilson, 1–8. Malden; Oxford; Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Yamada, Teri. 2010. Restructuring the California State University: A Call to Action. Thought and Action Fall 2010: 91–106.

PART I

Subjectivity

CHAPTER 2

Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus and Émile Durkheim on Mental Structure

You Are Part of a Rational and Ordered Universe The introductory first chapter presents Stoic philosophy’s dual positions regarding our social existence that we will begin to address in this chapter. For the Stoics, we have a responsibility to contribute to collective life given how embedded we are from birth in community. We must also however for Stoicism remain indifferent to numerous features of social existence. In this latter regard, the Stoics maintain that there is an internalized nature to each of us that defies external influence and comprises our rational ways of thinking and being. Via a structuralist theory of socialization, we will in this chapter consider though whether anything about these ways of thinking and being is entirely internal to the self. This will ask to what extent any of us control what we think. As a preliminary note, beyond these scholarly contexts, we might recognize that contemporary self-help mantras believe that there are aspects of our mental orientations over which we do have total control. Such strategies abound with messages encouraging individuals to only concern themselves with what is “in their control.”1 The directive to “let something go” complementarily emphasizes relinquishing the investment in anything beyond our control that is unsettling. What is outside your governance might refer to another person’s opinion of you or the potential loss of your job due to a company takeover. In either situation, the advice could be to focus on your own sense of self or work performance rather than on what external parameters dictate. But this begs the © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_2

17

18 

W. JOHNCOCK

question; what or where is the division of the mental self from these externalities? Stoic philosophy and sociological theory each investigate the question of our internal control over our mind. Moreover for the Stoics as we will encounter repeatedly in this book, a concern about one’s mental governance exemplifies how philosophy practically contributes to a person’s day-to-day life.2 This theme of internal mental control manifests extensively in the later era work of the Roman Stoic, Epictetus (55–135 A.C.E.). To understand how Epictetus conceives of this control, we must first unpack his Stoic appreciation of the rationality of humans as found in Book One of his Discourses.3 Robert Dobbin’s translation of Epictetus’ Discourses (2008) drives our engagement with it in this book. Such analysis regularly occurs in tandem though with translations by Percy Matheson (1916), William Oldfather (1961), and Robin Hard (2014), in order to evaluate different readings of Epictetus’ vernacular. Epictetus connects our control of mental phenomena to the prioritization of rationality. This position perpetuates the early Stoic definition4 of humans as rational beings—the “rational animal” (Epictetus 2008, 1.2, 1). Such a characterization is especially interesting for our concerns in this chapter regarding the internality versus externality of the human mind. This is because for Epictetus our rational nature is what concurrently distinguishes us from other less-rational creatures in the world and yet also binds us to the world. The binding occurs because we exist in a universe that for the Stoics is also rational. Before we get to the counterintuitive notion of a rational universe, we must firstly discuss how rationality for the Stoics distinguishes us from aspects of the world. William Stephens observes that for Epictetus human beings straightforwardly begin where non-rational nonhuman animals also begin “by eating, drinking, resting, procreating, using sense-­ impressions, and the like” (Stephens 2014, 214). These appear to be necessarily material features of our being for Epictetus. In Discourses he states that “since we are on earth” we are “bound to a material body and material things” (Epictetus 2008, 1.1, 9). Nevertheless, our animal-body-ness is a concern for Epictetus when we overly “incline” toward or identify with it. An over-identification with our bodies involves unregulated indulgences in sensory pleasures. In this mode Epictetus laments that we “sink to the level of wolves” and other base animals (1.3, 7). Epictetus portrays how human thinking and reasoning capacities condition our divergence from this mode. Here he posits that only humans have

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

19

an understanding of these sense-impressions and of our broader nature (1.6, 2.10–14).5 Anthony Long grounds what this “understanding” means for Epictetus by describing it as a “reflexive capacity” (Long 2002, 131). Epictetus exemplifies Long’s point when claiming that it is a distinctly human characteristic to know not only that we are a “part” of a “whole” world but also what sort of part we are. This includes appreciating our servitude to the whole. Sometimes this servitude even involves sacrificing ourselves for the sake of the whole, meaning that it can be proper as Robin Hard translates for “parts to yield to the whole” (Epictetus 2014, 4.7, 7). The rationality required in self-sacrificing for the ongoing prosperity of the whole is a topic for a later chapter (where the theme ironically is self-preservation). For now, though, we acknowledge Long’s review of Epictetus’ position that self-awareness ranks humans on a scale of nature somewhere below God at the highest extreme but well above nonhuman animals (Long 2002, 157). Alongside this awareness of our distinction from other parts of the world, Epictetus nevertheless posits our inherent connection to the whole/world. In assuming that all things have a common and connected physical constitution, Epictetus rhetorically asks why the same would not also be true of mental phenomena; “if plants and our bodies are so intimately linked to the world and its rhythms, won’t the same be true of our minds—only more so?” (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 5). This belief in a connected universality of the mind takes Epictetus into the realm of rationality. In particular, for the Stoics it is God’s reason that entirely permeates a universe of which we and our minds are parts. This divine rationality conditions as Epictetus describes the “first, all-inclusive state … composed of God and man,” whereby via a universally common reason we find the “source of the seeds of being” (1.9, 4). The earlier notion that rationality characterizes our capacities as a species distinct from others would not be unfamiliar. The claim however that the universe is itself rational seems less easy to substantiate. How then does Epictetus come to such an assertion?6 Here I direct us to how Stoic rationality requires observably ordered behavioral patterns. In an everyday regard the consistency of decisions and actions evidences what we often refer to as rationality. If we observe someone walk quickly when crossing the street in order to avoid the oncoming traffic, we might typically describe their behavior as rational. The sense is that from their previous street-crossing experiences they rationalize how quickly the traffic is moving and how quickly to move to avoid being struck by a vehicle. This kind of rationality involves an interpretation of

20 

W. JOHNCOCK

phenomenal patterns. We all draw generalized rules from localized scenarios and behave in a reliably patterned way in response. If conversely one day we saw this person walking quickly across the street to avoid the traffic but the next day observed them to be crawling slowly across it despite similar traffic conditions, the inconsistency would probably engender a characterization of them as “irrational.” This discussion is not a definitive appraisal of how rationality seems to manifest.7 It is specifically intended rather to note the common correlation of rationality with predictability and order. Reliable causal patterns also underpin the connection between reason and order that is integral to Epictetus’ appreciation of not just our experience of the world but of the world itself. We can find in Diogenes Laërtius’ recounting of Chrysippean philosophy the ancient principles on which Epictetus could be relying here.8 Chrysippus attributes how “our individual natures are all parts of universal nature” to a “right reason which pervades everything.” This all-pervasive reason or rationality divinely orders everything according to Chrysippus in reflecting the “will of the orderer of the universe” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). For Epictetus this ordering omnipresence is exhibited in the regular arrangements found in the world that a rational God impels: How else, after all, could things take place with such regularity, as if God were issuing orders. When he tells plants to bloom, they bloom, when he tells them to bear fruits, they bear fruit, when he tells them to ripen, they ripen. (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 3)

Epictetus argues that these omnipresent and regularized connections are overtly apparent between celestial bodies and our planet. Celestial relations reveal the universality of order and explain how “the waxing and the waning of the moon, and the coming and going of the sun, coincide with such obvious changes and fluctuations here on earth” (1.14, 4). Through this unison we witness for Epictetus the universe’s rational production, for “this design, so big, so beautiful and so well planned” does not run “haphazardly” (2.14, 26). From this recognizable universal rationality, the particularity of the human rational animal manifests. Epictetus locates the seat of this human rationality in the reliably “wonderful fruit in a human mind” (1.4, 32). This is because the evidence of this rationality emerges not simply in our behavioral orderings but more intrinsically in our mental control.

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

21

Things over Which You Have Control A primary characteristic of human rationality for Epictetus is our ability to control our thoughts and perspectives.9 These controllable functions of the self are entirely internal to each of us in this portrayal. Given that it is from our mentality and our will that our attitudes and judgments additionally take shape, Epictetus posits in the Enchiridion that such modes must also be “within our control” (Epictetus 2004, 1). The internality and therefore controllability of these aspects of the self is distinguished by Epictetus from what is external to oneself. Epictetus defines externalities as physical phenomena such as our body and our possessions, as well as social phenomena like our reputation. We should avoid emotional investments in external phenomena, Epictetus advises. In the aforementioned scenario of crossing the street, it would be Epictetus’ estimation that we have no control over the traffic itself or of drivers’ evaluations of how adequately we crossed the street. We do however have control over any fear we might feel regarding the speeding traffic. It is likewise up to us whether we are bothered by what the drivers might think of our attempts to avoid their cars: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and whatever are not our own actions. (1)

It is probable that Epictetus developed this conception of the control that each of us has over our mind as a result of his early life as a slave. Physically controlled by a master with few possessions or liberties we can imagine Epictetus taking solace from the notion that he had the freedom to think whatever he chose. His master could regulate his movements. His poverty might prevent his physical comfort. He was however internally free to hold whichever opinion or judgment he wished about his life and the people in it. Despite being born a slave, Epictetus had permission to study philosophy under the Stoic tutelage of Musonius Rufus.10 From these beginnings Epictetus developed his own writing focus on themes of integrity, self-­ responsibility, and personal freedom. The consensus among commentators is that Epictetus intends his consequent philosophy to be more than a collection of mere theoretical considerations (Long 2002, 181; Seddon

22 

W. JOHNCOCK

2005, 9; Stephens 2007, xiv).11 The contrary motivation is that people apply his insights to day-to-day life. Epictetus demands that the point of any philosophy should be its practical use (Epictetus 2014, 2.16, 1–47). In this regard his philosophy directly responds to his concern expressed in Discourses that “we fail to practise the application of our judgements about things that are good and bad” (2.16). By utilizing a philosophical outlook in everyday experience Stoic thought here literally becomes a guide to better living. The practical advantage for Epictetus of distinguishing between internal control and external lack-of-control is that appreciating what we can control will help in avoiding frustration and suffering. What occurs physically or socially does so externally to us beyond our personal jurisdiction. Epictetus hence warns that it is dangerous to entrust our sense of self to such aspects of life for if we do “we fall prey to fear, or fall prey to anxiety” (2.16, 11). We should instead concern ourselves only with what the mind internally controls. Epictetus’ demand to avoid needlessly concerning oneself with things that are beyond our control seems to be relatively reasonable. The question lurks within this assertion though of whether such insulation or isolation of the mind from its “external” environment is actually possible. Is there really an internally sheltered self over which you have a total control while you are concurrently immersed in socialized and externalized environments? To explore this question Émile Durkheim’s (1887–1917) sociological conception of a socially constituted self or subjectivity can provide an interesting counter-perspective. Durkheim is useful because of the reflection he offers on portrayals of purely internal or external constitutions regarding one’s subjectivity and mind.

The Social Role in Individual Consciousness Often identified as one of the founders of sociology,12 Durkheim’s work is concerned with how societies maintain cohesion in an era where traditional religious and other bonds were changing. Within this theme Durkheim explores whether an individual’s thoughts and behaviors are socially predictable and patterned and if so what this says about the source or origination of those thoughts and behaviors. Through various studies on faith and ritual, suicide, and labor,13 Durkheim questions to what extent the individual mind authors one’s orientations. What he proposes instead is that populations pass on templates for how to think and act from generation to generation. We are all for Durkheim inescapably receptive to

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

23

these socially developed templates, a point which reflects how humans are socially educated from birth. Our social environment shapes to various extents the ways we talk, walk, think, and behave. Durkheim duly explains in The Rules of Sociological Method that as a population’s collective consciousness of these ways of being becomes instilled over time, we each inherit a sense of what seems to be objectively true about society and our role in it (Durkheim 1938 (1895), 1). Without realizing it, we simply perpetuate these established orderings of how to think and act. Via this aspect of Durkheimian sociology, we can frame our analysis of the internality versus externality of the individual mind. There is a noticeable difference between Durkheim’s and Epictetus’ contexts regarding ordering. Ordered causes and tendencies exhibit a timeless quality of a rational universe for Epictetus. With Durkheim instead we are ordered contextually over sequential social generations. Despite this difference, there is the common notion of an omnipresent ordering to the worlds into which Epictetus’ Stoic subject and Durkheim’s socialized subject are born. This commonality opens a mutual consideration about who or what authors an individual’s thoughts in either. Durkheim’s thesis is that we each inherit a consciousness of how to think and act. This collectively constructed consciousness exists prior to us and yet is also present when we exist (2). By embodying this consciousness, we are socially constituted because we perpetuate what a society already thinks. These conditions are a result of and beneficial to social cohesion, Durkheim noting that “each individual drinks, sleeps, eats, reasons; and it is to society’s interest that these functions be exercised in an orderly manner” (1, my emphasis). Durkheim uses the term “coerced” (2) to emphasize how socially normative modes of thinking and doing “impose themselves upon” each person “independent of their individual will” (2). This independence of a collective consciousness from each individual consciousnesses that it shapes informs how Durkheim describes all socially ordered orientations in terms of facts; “social facts.” From this independence we should start to see traces emerging of the relevance of Durkheimian sociology to questions of an individual mind’s internal versus external prompts. The factual nature of what occurs socially is attributable for Durkheim to its reiteration from generation to generation. This reiteration instills each way of thinking or acting with the character of being something durably “true” about the social world in question. It is indeed because of this reiteration that Durkheim believes that social facts become concrete enough for social science to analyze them (4).

24 

W. JOHNCOCK

Durkheim presents a thought-based description of what is collectively factual about patterns of behaviors in The Elementary Forms of Religious Thought. Social facts are communally and historically developed, and these developments are “products of collective thought” (Durkheim 1995 (1912), 9). Speaking directly to questions about the site of origination of mental phenomena, while individuals’ minds perpetuate the thought content of social facts this does not mean that they internally author these ways of thinking. Part of the reason that these inherited templates are externally independent from individual minds is that they pre-exist each generation of individuals who reiterate them. As we see in The Rules of Sociological Method Durkheim explicitly defines the source of social facts as a result as external to individuals (Durkheim 1938, 2). This externality has implications for the correlation of the social sciences with the physical sciences. The rate of acceleration of gravity is a physical fact of the world that externally precedes a scientist’s discovery of it. Likewise, Durkheim’s thesis posits that the social fact of the rate of any human behavior will externally precede a social scientist’s study of it. In this regard, the physical fact and the social fact for Durkheim each has a source that is objectively external to the subjectivities of the investigator. What is becoming apparent in a way that will inform how we relay Stoic philosophy through sociology and vice versa is the primacy of the parameter of externality. Durkheim is emphatic that the conditions of what is socially factual mean that the source of the socially structured coercion of thought and behavior will always be external to the will of every individual (xiii). We might feel that our thoughts or behaviors express our own motives by conforming to our “own sentiments and subjectivities” (1). Durkheim cautions though that such reality is still a fact of externally historical social coercion and therefore “does not cease to be objective” (1). Given that we learn to think socially, how we think even of our own individuality will for Durkheim also be socially conditioned. Ironically, therefore it is through sociality that we come to conceive of individuality. This also means that it is through what is externally socially objective that we develop a sense of what it is to be internally particularly subjective. We have established the basis of Durkheim’s thesis. From this, we can observe the first intersection between the arguments presented by Durkheim and Epictetus. Both position what is “socially causal” as external to the individual mind and consciousness. This externality of course leads Epictetus to warn us about the effect of social conditionings on our

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

25

state of mind. The social’s externality marks for Epictetus its consequent uncontrollability for any of us. As a relatable example, he considers what occurs when you “enter into social relations” with people who enjoy “gossiping about shared acquaintances” (Epictetus 2008, 3.16, 4). If such experiences condition your outlook then you are for Epictetus harmed by a socially external shaping of yourself (3.16, 4). Because of Epictetus’ concern about these effects of socialized phenomena, we must seriously qualify the proposed coherence between him and Durkheim on the theme of externality. Given the uncontrollability of socially causal conditions, we should for Epictetus be indifferent to such phenomena. He instead encourages us to prioritize what is within our control—the internal machinations of our mind. Epictetus presents somewhat of a combative relationship between the subjective mind and the socially external causes that might influence us to think in particular ways. He suggests that we should all be “careful about fraternizing with non-­ philosophers” entirely in order to protect the integrity of our own consciousness (3.16, 3). Durkheim’s view is also that the socially composed effects on our consciousness derive from an objectively external source. For his sociology though these are not combative relations against which we can remain resilient. Epictetus asserts in the Enchiridion that a control of oneself via a focus on what is internal to consciousness is possible, to the exclusion of socialized phenomena (Epictetus 2004, 1). For Durkheim, however, self-­ consciousness, and indeed subjectivity, is always already a socially structured and ordered phenomenon. The permeation of our individual consciousness by what is socialized about consciousness is inescapable. I have deliberately described Durkheim’s position concerning the individual consciousness as socially “structured” rather than deterministically “controlled.” This is because in Suicide: A Study in Sociology Durkheim recognizes that when individual minds become collectively oriented by the social world, the social world in turn “becomes different.” This notes the uniqueness of the grouping of individuals that comprises any social generation. As the social world continually produces a collective consciousness that generations of individuals animate, the newness of that grouping simultaneously reproduces the social world. Both the social world and the collective consciousness of that world consequently share novel relations. For Durkheim this indicates how any social change is the product of a collective rather than an individual consciousness, for “when the consciousness of individuals, instead of remaining isolated, becomes grouped and

26 

W. JOHNCOCK

combined, something in the world has been altered” (Durkheim 1952 (1897), 275). The Durkheimian position is that the social shaping of the individual mind does not negate nor distort the will of the individual as Epictetus would assert. Social shaping is rather the inherent condition of an individual will which, when structured as will, renavigates something about its social conditions. It is on these grounds that Durkheim is confident that social facts do not “determine” individuals. In coercing “certain kinds of actions,” social structures are involved in a dispersed production which does not demand that such actions “will be performed by this or that person” (290). All that instead occurs is that a significant enough proportion of the population actualizes these actions to render them socially factual. Durkheim even accommodates for actions which comprise a resistance to social facts in that “some people resist the force and that it has its way with others” (290). Resistances are as much facts of social structure as is obedience in this context. The source of resistive (re-)action is not inaugurated by an atomically autonomous mind that is controlled by an individual who transcends social influence. From the social world into which we are born, we instead learn what it means to resist coercion and how to make contrary decisions. This positions normative and non-normative behaviors as sharing reliably ordered rather than unreliably haphazard relations. The mind that non-normatively resists is duly patterned collectively along with normalizing compulsions. This kind of complete immersion in socialized orientations no matter which way we turn is something about which Epictetus expresses great apprehension. In Discourses14 he criticizes our “admiration” of external and contingent aspects of social life, describing how “earnest” we are about them (Epictetus 1961, 2.16, 11–12). Robin Hard’s more recent translation of this passage similarly interprets Epictetus’ alarm that externals are “the prime object of our concern” (Epictetus 2014, 2.16, 11; my emphasis). Epictetus’ converse assertion is that our existence does not comprise this kind of complete socialized immersion. We can extract ourselves from socialized states of subjectivity according to what is in our individual control. For Durkheim though, such earnestness would not be of external socialized objects from which we can detach our investment but rather a socially objectified earnestness that each of us is. We should return to first Durkheimian principles to appreciate this nuance. Our earnestness about aspects of social life is a consciousness that derives from an external collective consciousness. Because however we are

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

27

inescapably socially embedded, whether we “admire” or reject social phenomena we are always doing so as a socially structured expression. Our mind cannot stand outside society and earnestly admire it (erroneously for Epictetus) from afar. Nor does our mind have a harbored nature that socialization cannot affect. It is important that we appreciate therefore that for Durkheim’s structuralist outlook one’s “internal” constitution is also simultaneously its social externality. The individual is a systemic node whose particularity enacts the rationale which pervades the whole. Epictetus’ sense of subjective internality that is resilient to socialized contextualities seems to rely on a more impregnable border between internal individual and external social than Durkheim’s model. Despite or perhaps because of this feature, Durkheim’s appreciation of a socially radiated site of an individual’s agency has faced numerous well-­ reasoned criticisms. Anthony Giddens (1984) offers one of the most notable of these. As we will comprehensively review in a later chapter’s discussion on the topic of an individual’s ignorance, Giddens’ concern is that structuralisms such as Durkheim’s assert that we act unknowingly and automatically. Durkheim’s sociology for Giddens creates situations “of which agents are ignorant” and which cause individuals to behave in ways that are actually “independent of whatever the agents may believe they are up to” (Giddens 1984, xix). More recently Douglas Porpora has also observed that in Durkheim’s definition of suicide the difference between intended and unintended death is seemingly negated. For Porpora, this should concern us because “we cannot explain or even identify individual action without appeal to actors’ intentions” (Porpora 2015, 22). We have noted that Durkheim’s view does not negate intention. Its source instead is ambiguous given that it is resituated beyond the individuals who enact it. Taking into account this ambiguity, I encourage readers to remain open to concerns such as Giddens’ and Porpora’s when approaching Durkheim’s rather counterintuitive perspective. This is consistent with my earlier call regarding what might be open to interrogation about Epictetus’ sense of mind over which we have mastery or control. Giddens’ critique of Durkheim indeed requires us to confront the sticky topic of personal freedom. We have reviewed how for Durkheim an individual mind concurrently has collectively structured and yet particularly novel origins. The Durkheimian sense of our mind is that it is collective because it is always already socially structured. Our mind is nonetheless novel because of its role in the grouping of individuals which restructures the social that structures it. This element of Durkheim’s thesis presents

28 

W. JOHNCOCK

interesting ramifications for Epictetus’ claims regarding the freedom of control that we have over our own opinions, desires, and actions. Durkheim would argue against assumptions of pure, individualized control. We can however ask whether Durkheim’s blurring of what is socially external and what is individually internal entirely negates the possibility of personal or subjective freedom. Epictetus’ sense of freedom leads this comparison.

Subjective Freedom Subjective control and freedom are definitively correlated for Epictetus. This refers to our unimpeded control over our thoughts and associated feelings and behaviors. The Enchiridion presents a primary condition for this relation between control and freedom as its internal production to the self. Because our control of our mind is separate from the physical and social realms of external causation, we are each “by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered” (Epictetus 2004, 1). Epictetus defines this freedom in terms of our authority over those things “which depend on us.” He has a precise understanding of the things which depend on us. Briefly reviewing Chrysippus’ conception of dependence will help to contextualize Epictetus’ view. A conception of a link between freedom and what depends on us is apparent in Cicero’s recounting in De Fato (On Fate) of Chrysippus’ interpretation of causation. For Chrysippus things depend on us only if we have responsibility for them being or not being in different states (Cicero 1942, 42–43). Cicero describes how Chrysippus uses as examples our roles as the antecedent cause which pushes a roller to roll or a spinning top to spin. A direct link between dependency and causation is here established as Susanne Bobzien explains, in that by “that which depends on us … Chrysippus seems to have understood simply the things (mainly actions) of which we, qua rational beings, are the possible or actual cause” (Bobzien 1998, 330). That our rational assent to be such causes is “neither forced nor fully externally determined” (330) defines for Chrysippus the link between our freedom and what depends on us.15 Causation is not a pivotal factor in Epictetus’ definition of dependence however. For Epictetus your rational freedom refers only to things which depend on yourself because they are entirely in your internal control. Bobzien observes that dependent things in Epictetus’ view belong exclusively “to a class of things that cannot be externally hindered or forced” (332; author’s original emphasis). This restricts the category of things that

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

29

depend on us to what we have complete internal control over; our impressions. We will discuss in the epistemology section of this book what terms like “assent” and “impression” specifically mean for the Stoics. For now, though, we should appreciate that for Epictetus an individual is free according to what we have already seen him define as internal to us (thoughts and judgments). Durkheim’s sociology does not suggest there is an individual control that is separate from social force. He does not nevertheless relinquish a sense of individual freedom either. As Durkheim states in a generally overlooked footnote in Suicide, the structural socialization of the individual consciousness “leaves the question of free will much more untouched than if one made the individual the source of social phenomena” (Durkheim 1952, 289). This speaks to the earlier point raised that no individual is “determined” by social force. The social fact “exacts a definite number of certain kinds of actions” (289–290) among a population group. What remains open though in a manner that maintains the Durkheimian definition of freedom is which individuals will be those who enact such actions and how the particularity of this grouping will re-enact the social fact of those actions. Epictetus might respond to this observation by also identifying the concurrent enacting of subject and social environment. This would not be something to celebrate in his view. He indeed laments how various routines and habits shape us along with society (Epictetus 2008, 3.16, 7–16). Contrary to Durkheim furthermore, for Epictetus individuals with socially shaped subjectivities are not the result of an inescapable social production. Stoic philosophy instead provides an opportunity through which such individuals can reflect upon and hopefully defy their external fabrication. If we cannot develop this self-control and resilience to our current social environment, Epictetus even suggests that we should “leave our native land, since old habits pull us back,” in order to find somewhere we can internally develop “new habits” (3.16, 13). Whether Durkheim’s outlook fulfills the requirements of “freedom” is open to interpretation. What we can take from his sociology either way is that the individual-social or internal-external relationship is not reducible to oppositional or combative terms. For Durkheimian structuralism what is socially or collectively external is also mentally internalized. Given how the collective consciousness reproduces the social structures that have produced it, our internality or own consciousness that is a part of that collective consciousness is simultaneously outside or external to oneself. ­Self/

30 

W. JOHNCOCK

internal consciousness is present in the social structures that structure self/internal consciousness. This has quite sensitive ramifications for our impression of individual motivations. As a prominent example, Durkheim’s view is that the thought and act of suicide transcend personal consciousness to symbolize a causally impersonal transmission of consciousness (Durkheim 1952, xxxiv). Despite the ominous topic of suicide, the social here presents not simply as an external cause that threatens and warps an individual’s mind (as per Epictetus’ Stoicism). The social is instead always already a site of individual internality. This dispersal of the self defines sociality as a process that is more complex than the process of individuals becoming different versions of themselves through interaction with others. Subjectivity occurs socially because the social structure is where one meets oneself through an originary and unavoidable collective otherness. This interpretation of subjectivity requires a certain humility when considering what constitutes the control of your mind. Epictetus negates control where external influence “infiltrates.” It is not that control or freedom is discounted in Durkheim’s structuralist impression of the externality of our internality though. What we might appreciate instead is that both parameters (control and freedom) of the self are collective phenomena that manifest differently to how we usually understand a subject’s atomic possession of them. Your mind in such a model becomes a phenomenon in which a collective population always already participates. This unsettles the Stoic-like borderlines of a combat with external, encroaching, and socialized forces. I am fond of the practicalities of Epictetus’ perspectives on our control of mental phenomena. Nevertheless, I also find myself asking whether Durkheim’s dispersal of the individual mind makes a certain mundane sense. In positing a control or ownership of our thoughts, have not those thoughts as well as our capacity to compare thoughts originated from something “beyond” our individual self? Do not all of us establish our sense of thinking through thinking with others and established structures (of thought)? Neatly distinguishing the point at which our thoughts begin and another person’s or institution’s or culture’s thoughts end seems difficult to say the least. Advocates of Durkheim’s theory of a collective consciousness would not necessarily have to discount Epictetus’ claim that we can only control what is internal to each of us. Accommodating Epictetus’ emphasis on internal control requires though a reconfiguration of the notion that what is external to subjectivity is harmful to it. What instead

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

31

has emerged is a potential destabilization of the entombed separability of internality and a subjective nature. As initially outlined, contemporary self-help mantras typically appropriate Epictetus’ idea of only being concerned with what is under our own mental control. This advice seems to be pragmatically sound. Why should we needlessly concern ourselves with the affairs of others or with adverse occurrences that we cannot change? Might we question now however whether alienating internal properties from an external world is an appropriate perspective? Especially when considering that this advice often goes to people already feeling vulnerable in relation to their surrounding environment? Sociological structuralism might contrarily offer the realistic and practical advice to embrace our inescapable porosity to an external world rather than to devise strategies via which we each defend our turf. While Epictetus appears to present this clear division between internal and external there is an important nuance of his impression of the mind which is not so straightforward. Indeed we touched on this nuance at the outset of this discussion. This concerns his conception of a supposedly unified rather than an oppositional relation between individual and universal minds (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 5). With this conception of the mind comes an insight into what could be internal about the Stoic subject’s self-­consciousness that is concurrently also beyond that internality. We have covered how socialized phenomena are external to the essential self for Epictetus. However just as for Durkheim the internality of the individual consciousness manifests an externally collectively rationale, likewise through Epictetus’ sense of the daimon we can find a receptivity to the idea that the internality of the mind expresses a rationality that is not restricted to this internality.

A Universally Dispersed Internality Epictetus’ position on the daimon gains significance by firstly contextualizing it via the positions of other Stoics as well as of Socrates. In the Apology Plato reports that Socrates speaks of a “divine or spiritual sign” that guides him. This divine “voice” prevents Socrates from participating in unnecessary public affairs for “whenever it speaks it turns me away from something I am about to do” (Plato 2002, 31d). We will see throughout this book that social participation and fulfilling our civic responsibilities are important pillars of Stoicism. Nevertheless, this notion that Plato

32 

W. JOHNCOCK

touches upon of avoiding frivolous social activity is also important to Stoicism as we have reviewed in this chapter. That the daimon as a divine voice can guide individuals means various aspects of Stoicism interpret it as a guardian. Diogenes Laërtius reports that for the Stoics “there are some Daemones, who have a sympathy with mankind, being surveyors of all human affairs” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.79). The most influential Stoic impression of the overseeing function of the daimon seems to have derived from Posidonius. Cicero’s De Divinatione (On Divination) informs that for Posidonius this overseeing role steers us toward what is true, where “the air is full of immortal souls on which the marks of truth are clear” (Cicero 2006, 1.64). In a way that serves our interest in the question of what is internal versus external to the self, Ian Kidd clarifies how “immortal souls” refer for Posidonius to “daimones, divine go-betweens between gods and men” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 166; author’s original emphasis). This should interest us because it indicates a link beyond the human self for an internal aspect of the self. We can explain this in terms of the divine source of the daimon for Posidonius. If the daimon is divine, it occurs within us only in our rational faculty. For the Stoics as we have seen divinity and rationality are correlated. God causes a rational universe. Given this rationality, the daimon for Posidonius is not only internal to us but is distinct from the cause of our emotional impulses. Posidonius here separates the daimon as our real nature from how emotions often externally misguide us, for anyone “who lives by emotion does not live in harmony with nature” (Posidonius 1999, Fragment 187). The emotional impulse is for Posidonius “inconsistent” and the cause of an “unhappy life” which conflicts with what is internal about “the daimon in oneself” (Fragment 187). We will see in more detail elsewhere in this book (such as Chaps. 4 and 14 and, to a certain extent, Chap. 13) that happiness for the Stoics refers to more than a conventional understanding of feeling good. Instead Stoic happiness comprises states that occur in accordance with being rational and virtuous. This distinction between reason and emotion exemplifies Posidonian impressions of the composition of our internal “soul” or nature. We will more comprehensively engage this topic in Chap. 12. For now, though, we can observe that Posidonius follows Plato in conceiving of a multi-­ component soul comprising separate faculties of reason, spirit, and appetite. In Book IV of The Republic Plato proposes that reason has reign or

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

33

“rule … having the wisdom and foresight to act for the whole” (Plato 2012, 4.436a–b, 4.441e). Plato alternatively associates emotion with spirit and appetite, which are conceived to be separate from and subservient to reason (4.441e–442b).16 Galen reports repeatedly that it is through this Platonic perspective that Posidonius views the soul as being composed of an authoritarian rational faculty to which the emotional faculty is “conformable” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 148). The daimon for Posidonius is in our rational faculty. Let us then get to Epictetus’ sense of the daimon and how this speaks to the internal and external aspects of the self. Epictetus’ interest in the daimon does not contribute to Posidonius’ conception of the separation of the rational faculty from the other features of one’s internal soul. Instead via Epictetus we get an appreciation of the daimon’s concurrent internality to the self and divine distinction from the self. You are not identical to God. Because however the daimon is “a fragment of God,” for Epictetus it indicates how you are composed by or “have in yourself a part of Him” (Epictetus 1916, 2.8). You are essentially a fragment of God. A ramification of this for Henry Dyson is that for Epictetus the daimon is not simply reducible to the self’s rationality. The daimon is rather for Epictetus both the self and outside the self, “a guardian and a guide which seems to distinguish it from the self” (Dyson 2009, 241). We can also find this dual impression of the daimon as both internal to subjectivity and as an external navigator in Marcus Aurelius (1964, 5.27) and Seneca (1969, 41.1). Marcus Aurelius (as translated by Maxwell Staniforth), for example, describes of the individual that: He dwells with the gods who at all times exhibits to them a soul satisfied with its apportioned lot, a soul which in its actions follows the commands of the inner daimon, that fragment of himself which Zeus has given to every person as a protector (prostates) and guide (hegemon). This is the intellect (nous) and reason (logos) of every person. (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.27)

Dyson identifies an influence here in Epictetus’ chronologically preceding demand in Discourses for individuals to swear an oath to God (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 11–17). This responsibility that the individual feels is not just a reference to an external governor. Instead Dyson explains that an oath to honor God simultaneously represents for Epictetus a self-oriented rationalization and directive because:

34 

W. JOHNCOCK

… in Stoic theology, each person’s reason (logos) is literally a portion of Zeus’ divine mind (koinos logos). Epictetus is pointing out that in swearing allegiance to Zeus, one is pledging to honor one’s own rationality and vice versa. (Dyson 2009, 237)

I agree with Dyson that the daimon for Epictetus marks how one’s internal rational self shares a constitution with a divinely rational realm that is not restricted to oneself. I am more inclined to read this feature through the text in Discourses cited earlier. There Epictetus rhetorically asks if our bodies are bound up with the universe, then why would our minds not be also? With either Dyson’s approach or mine though, we can appreciate that for Epictetus our mental phenomena are bound up in a universal divine mind: And if our minds are so intimately connected with God as to be divine sparks of his being, is he not going to perceive their every movement, since the parts in motion participate in his nature? (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 6)

Epictetus’ daimon is not straightforwardly representative of either an external protector or a self-restricted rationale. This means that our appreciation of the ambiguous duality of this role is probably better served by Matheson’s translation of the daimon as a “genius” than by more recent translations of the daimon as a “guardian spirit” (Epictetus 2014, 1.14, 12) or a “guardian deity” (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 12). While Zeus has “set by each man his genius to guard him, and committed each man to his genius to watch over” (Epictetus 1916, 1.14), this genius is also within each human. Our rational orientations are after all internal to us for Epictetus. That what is seemingly beyond the self is also internal to the self indeed rationalizes for Epictetus the reassurance that “when you close your doors and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone: you are not alone, God is within, and your genius” (1.14). Percy Matheson further emphasizes from this kind of point that for the Stoics in general and for Epictetus in particular, the daimon-as-genius is an internal rationalization sourced from beyond the self: ‘Genius’ … used by the Stoics not in its popular sense of an external spirit intermediate between gods and men, but as identical with man’s reason or higher nature, his conscience, the voice of God within him. (Matheson in Epictetus 1916, 243)

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

35

Does this conception which does not restrict our rational and conscious compass to a source that is entirely inside the self mean that we see a strange coherence between Epictetus and Durkheim? For Epictetus the individual mind is to a degree directed by what is objectively and separately different from them—Zeus. We can evidence this objective differentiation between an individual and Zeus in how an individual can cease to exist while Zeus cannot. Epictetus notes that if we were going to die in a sinking ship we should not cry “out at heaven” but recognize that unlike God we will “perish. For I am not immortal, but a man; a part of the universe” that will “pass away” (Epictetus 1916, 2.5). The source of our daimonrationality does not pass even if we as a particular daimon-­rationality do pass. As we have similarly reviewed for Durkheim, the collective structures of consciousness from which an individual consciousness manifests are objectively durable in a way that our individual consciousness is not. Such consciousness exists long before and after we do, in his words. That one’s internal daimon is constituted by a universal mind for Epictetus means that what seems to be personally motivated actually follows the tracks of a universally kindred rationality. Epictetus affirms that “if you will, you are free,” however that this subjective will is “in accordance with what is not merely your own will, but at the same time the will of God” (Epictetus 1961, 1.17, 25; my emphasis). This simultaneous self and beyond-self situatedness of the will should remind us of Durkheim’s sense of individual compulsion. For Durkheim even when our motivations feel entirely subjectively oriented they are the “internalization” of a more broadly omnipresent consciousness and motivation (Durkheim 1938, 1). That Epictetus recognizes the daimon as a universal orientation that is concurrently an individual’s orientation motivates Donna Orange to describe a Stoic “kind of selfhood” for each of us that is “neither subjective nor objective” (Orange 2013, 492).17 In expanding upon this point, it is appropriate to integrate a further insight from Marcus Aurelius. As we touched upon in Dyson’s commentary, Epictetus famously inspires Marcus as a young student.18 Consistent with the Stoic perspective engaged earlier, Marcus asserts that we should only be invested in what we can internally control in our mind. He nevertheless also reiterates Epictetus’ belief that there are kindred conditions between one’s own mind and the whole of Nature. This latter form of mind that Epictetus and Marcus describe is a universally collective phenomenon.19 Given this universality, it is readily distinguishable from Durkheim’s exclusively human collective consciousness. Despite this,

36 

W. JOHNCOCK

Epictetus and Marcus, and Durkheim, exhibit a common belief in a part-­ whole constitution of consciousness. Marcus expresses this in his Meditations when discussing a universal kinship: Hurry to your own directing mind, to the mind of the Whole, and to the mind of this particular man. To your own mind, to make its understanding just; to the mind of the Whole, to recall what you are part of; to this man’s mind … and at the same time to reflect that his is a kindred mind. (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 9.22)

This representation of the individual as sharing an intimate relationship with the rest of universal being surfaces in various contexts in other chapters. For this final consideration in this chapter though, Marcus’ terminology is pertinent for any lingering curiosities regarding the topic of the control of the mind. We have initially encountered Epictetus’ focus on individual mental control and subsequently engaged Durkheim’s socially dispersed characterization of any individual. In recognizing a social constitution for subjectivity, we have considered whether this results in losing a control of our mind. The relation between the mind and control shifts in this regard from something about ourselves that we possess autonomously, to something bigger than ourselves in which we participate. From this, we have reviewed the dual composition of a subjective and divine/universal mind for Epictetus. Marcus’ expansion of Epictetus’ definition of the mind emphatically directs us to understand part and whole in universally kindred terms. The mind of the directing individual is the mind of the whole. We do not lose a distinction between internality and externality as a result of this. The respectively ordered and patterned distinctions of particular and whole instead could remind us of the internality of each to the other. This evokes Marcus’ just encountered demand that we should mindfully “reflect” on our presence in what seems to be external to our individuality. Such a point furthermore coheres with the opening insights from Epictetus on a mind unified with world and his later impression of the daimon. Individual minds and whole mind share a consubstantial fullness and likewise a consubstantial control. If we were to answer the title question of this chapter in a manner that is consistent with this reading, we could still say that an individual compels their thoughts and controls their mind. Such compulsion or control however seems to reflect something universally destabilized about the borders between individual internalities and externalities.

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

37

Notes 1. Shad Helmstetter (1982) exemplifies the everyday advice to only concern yourself with “what is in your control.” Helmstetter distinguishes between what is in your control and deserves your focus, versus what is beyond your control and you should forget; “I am in control of my feelings, my emotions, my attitudes, and my needs” (181). We can match this terminology to Epictetus’ conception of the jurisdiction of control that we are about to explore. 2. In A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, William Irvine describes Stoicism as a philosophy for life (Irvine 2008, 4). See similarly Robertson (2013) and Ussher (2014, 2016), as well as Pigliucci (2017a, b), for discussions of Stoic philosophy’s practical relevance to daily existence. 3. Epictetus’ Discourses is an account of his lectures provided by his student, Arrian of Nicomedia. Arrian’s retelling of Epictetus’ work occurs without any input from Arrian himself, M.C. Howatson reporting that Epictetus’ “oral teachings he [Arrian] later published verbatim” (Howatson 2013, 73). I will duly refer to Epictetus as the author of Discourses as is conventional. For a detailed breakdown of the relationship between Epictetus and Arrian refer to Brunt (1977). 4. Diogenes Laërtius reports in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers the foundational Stoic belief that distinguishes human impressions as those “of rational animals … rational impressions are thought processes; irrational ones are nameless” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.52,55,61, in L&S, 337). See also Becker (2004, 41–44) in which Chrysippus’ early Stoic conception of the rational animal is discussed. 5. While nonhuman animals “lack logos” William Stephens notes the curiosity that for Epictetus certain animals should be revered as “paragons of freedom.” This is not an incidental point given that freedom is a “supreme goal of Epictetus’s philosophy” (Stephens 2014, 228). By exploring Epictetus’ belief that human and nonhuman animal existences involve vices and virtues, Stephens posits certain commonalities between all creatures that modern Stoic scholarship often overlooks. 6. As with themes developed in other chapters, Stoic thinkers often arrive at their positions by continuing or deviating from preceding Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian positions. In The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines rationality in specifically human terms. Humans for Aristotle have this rational component (Aristotle 2004, 1.13.1102a.30–1103a.10) as well as a component that because it is “vegetative has no association at all with reason” (1.13.1102b.30). Humans share this vegetative component with less-­rational entities such as flora, fauna, and nonhuman animals. The

38 

W. JOHNCOCK

vegetative component for all is “the cause of nutrition and growth” (1.13.1102a.30). Humans though rationally transcend such functions in ways that other entities do not. 7. While rationality can be associated with ordered thinking processes, René Descartes denies that this also provides the conditions to define the thinking human as rational; “what is a man? Might I not say a rational animal? No, because then I would have to inquire what ‘animal’ and ‘rational’ mean. And thus from one question I would slide into many more difficult ones” (Descartes 1993 (1641), 2.26). Descartes’ concerns regard the regressive rabbit hole involved in trying to define rationality. Bertrand Russell also sees ongoing contradictions in defining ourselves as rational. This however is because for Russell our actions apparently contradict rational inclinations; “man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told” (Russell 1943, 5). Russell refers here as much to the question of what rationality means as he does to the question of whether humans fulfill such requirements. 8. These Stoic principles are likely drawn from Socratic impressions of a rationally ordered universe. Gisela Striker (1996, 217–218) discusses the connections between Socratic and Stoic theories of a perfect rational order. Anthony Long indeed generally observes of the Socratic influence in Epictetus’ thought that no “other philosopher, not even Zeno or Diogenes, is named nearly so frequently” in Discourses as is Socrates (Long 2004, 10). Beyond Socrates, an Aristotelian impression is also possibly apparent regarding an ordered world. In “On the Cosmos” Aristotle describes the universe as deriving from a “single power” which “concords” that everything in the world “is well-arranged; for it is called ‘well ordered’ after this ‘universal order.’ What particular detail could be compared to the arrangement of the heavens and the movement of the stars and the sun and moon” (Aristotle 1955, 5.297a.10). 9. In Descartes’ Discourse on Method we find a literal example of inspiration provided by Epictetus’ focus on self-control. As Descartes writes, in approaching philosophy he sought “to conquer myself rather than fortune, to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing that is completely within our power except our thoughts” (Descartes 1998 (1637), 3.25). 10. An awareness of this relationship helps contextualize Epictetus’ Stoic development. Commentators including Chester Starr have noted the consensus among “students of Stoic philosophy” that not only did Epictetus study under Musonius but furthermore that “he followed closely his teacher” in developing the “tripartite division … all things are good, evil, or else indifferent” (Starr 1949, 22).

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

39

11. Matthew Sharpe interprets that the Enchiridion is directed by Epictetus urgently to “‘beginners’ to the philosophical school: people potentially interested in Stoicism as a possible way of life” (Sharpe 2014, 379–380). 12. Durkheim is typically positioned as such alongside Karl Marx and Auguste Comte (Moore 1966; Shils 1970; Thomassen 2012). Anthony Giddens though counters characterizations of a distinguishable point of birth of any intellectual discipline, arguing that “the idea that there was a certain Archimedean point at which a discipline became founded—begotten by its fathers—does not stand up to scrutiny” (Giddens 1995, 4–5). By instead arguing that sociology has a progressively constructed identity, Giddens dismisses the claims of a series of thinkers who believe that they have instituted a new science of society (5). 13. The themes of faith and ritual and suicide will be apparent in the texts that are engaged in this chapter. Durkheim’s work on the final theme listed here—labor—can be most notably located in his The Division of Labour in Society (1997 (1893)). 14. As translated by William Oldfather. In the Robert Dobbin translation with which we have been previously working the phrase “what are we in earnest about” is instead translated as “what do we look after” (Epictetus 2008, 2.16, 11). 15. See also Eliasson (2008, 84–95) for a discussion of what the phrase “depends on us” means for Chrysippus. Eliasson additionally incorporates an extended commentary of Bobzien’s reading of the Chrysippean position. 16. Rationality’s authority over the other two faculties of the soul is also famously evoked in Plato’s metaphor in Phaedrus of the charioteer, as reason, driving two horses (Plato 1995) 17. This not-isolated sense of subjectivity perhaps lurks in what Anthony Long describes as the “normative” constitution of the daimon. The daimon divinely perpetuates the proper criteria for how to live in accordance with universal nature. This for Long means that the daimon is “every person’s normative self, the voice of correct reason that is available to everyone because it is, at the same time, reason as such and fully equivalent to God” (Long 2002, 166). 18. In “The Cosmopolitan Ideas of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius,” G.R. Stanton explores the ideological similarities between these two Stoic thinkers. In particular, this outlines why “Epictetus had an immense influence on the whole philosophy of Marcus Aurelius” (Stanton 1968, 1). 19. This is even when taking into consideration as Gretchen Reydams-Schils observes that for Epictetus “[q]uestions about nature as a whole are beyond our grasp.” It is nonetheless through inquiring into how we are naturally inclined and appreciating our common, universal conditions, that such questions “help us realize that Nature also made humans intrinsically social beings” (Reydams-Schils 2005, 38).

40 

W. JOHNCOCK

References Aristotle. 1955. On the Cosmos. In On Sophistical Refutations. On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away. On the Cosmos, ed. T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E.  Warmington, 344–409. Translated by David Furley. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and New York: Penguin. Becker, Lawrence. 2004. Stoic Emotion. In Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 250–276. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Brunt, P.A. 1977. From Epictetus to Arrian. Athenaeum 55: 19–48. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1942. De Oratore Book III. De Fato. Paradoxa Stoicorum. De Partitione Oratoria. Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. ———. 2006. De Divinatione (On Divination). Translated by David Wardle. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Descartes, René. 1993 (1641). Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated. Translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 1998 (1637). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Durkheim, Émile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by George Catlin. Translated by Sarah Solovay & John Mueller. New York: The Free Press. ———. 1952 (1897). Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Edited by George Simpson. Translated by John Spaulding and George Simpson. London and New York: Routledge. ———. 1995 (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: Simon and Schuster. ———. 1997 (1893). The Division of Labour in Society. Translated by Lewis Coser. New York. The Free Press. Dyson, Henry. 2009. The God Within: The Normative Self in Epictetus. History of Philosophy Quarterly 26 (3): 235–253. Eliasson, Erik. 2008. The Notion of That Which Depends on Us in Plotinus and Its Background. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

2  WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 

41

Epictetus. 1916. The Discourses and the Manual: Together with His Writings. Translated by Percy Ewing Matheson. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1961. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments. Edited by T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E. Warmington. Translated by William Oldfather. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New  York: Dover Publications. ———. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. ———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 1995. Politics, Sociology and Social Theory: Encounters with Classical and Contemporary Social Thought. Cambridge: Polity Press. Helmstetter, Shad. 1982. What to Say When You Talk to Your Self. New  York; London; Toronto; Sydney: Pocket Books. Howatson, M.C. (ed.). 2013. A‘rrian. In The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature: Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irvine, William. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Long, Anthony. 2002. Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2004. The Socratic Imprint on Epictetus’ Philosophy. In Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 10–31. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. Moore, Wilbert. 1966. Global Sociology: The World as a Singular System. American Journal of Sociology 71 (5): 475–482. Orange, Donna. 2013. A Pre-Cartesian Self. Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology 8 (4): 488–494. Pigliucci, Massimo. 2017a. How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. New York: Basic Books. ———. 2017b. What Do I Disagree about with the Ancient Stoics? How to Be a Stoic, December 26. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/12/26/ what-do-i-disagree-about-with-the-ancient-stoics/.

42 

W. JOHNCOCK

Plato. 1995. Phaedrus. Translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2002. Apology. In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Translated by George M.A.  Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Porpora, Douglas. 2015. Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Posidonius of Rhodes. 1999. Posidonius: Volume III: The Translation of the Fragments. Edited by J. Diggle, N. Hopkinson, J. Powell, M. Reeve, D. Sedley, and R. Tarrant. Translated by I.G. Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2005. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Robertson, Donald. 2013. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. London: Teach Yourself. Russell, Bertrand. 1943. An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity. Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications. Seddon, Keith. 2005. Epictetus’ Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living. London and New York: Routledge. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 1969. Letters from a Stoic. Edited and translated by Robin Campbell. London and New York: Penguin. Sharpe, Matthew. 2014. How It’s Not the Chrisippus You Read: On Cooper, Hadot, Epictetus, and Stoicism as a Way of Life. Philosophy Today 58 (3): 367–392. Shils, Edward. 1970. Tradition, Ecology, and Institution in the History of Sociology. Daedalus 99 (4): 760–825. Stanton, G.R. 1968. The Cosmopolitan Ideas of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Phronesis 13 (2): 183–195. Starr, Chester. 1949. Epictetus and the Tyrant. Classical Philology 44 (1): 20–29. Stephens, William. 2007. Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. London: Continuum. ———. 2014. Epictetus on Beastly Vices and Animal Virtues. In Epictetus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance, ed. Dane Gordon and David Suits, 207–239. New York: RIT Press. Striker, Gisela. 1996. Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Thomassen, Bjørn. 2012. Émile Durkheim between Gabriel Tarde and Arnold van Gennep: Founding Moments of Sociology and Anthropology. Social Anthropology 20 (3): 231–249. Ussher, Patrick (ed.). 2014. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I. CreateSpace. ———. 2016. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II. CreateSpace.

CHAPTER 3

When Are You Present? Chrysippus and Henri Bergson on Continuous Time

Are You Present? Being present in an everyday regard refers to giving our thorough attention to what is currently happening. Consider when a friend wants your focus on a topic they are discussing with you. It is likely that if during this conversation they ask whether you are present, what is implied is that contrarily you seem distracted and not present. If your concentration diverts to neighboring events outside the conversation, the impression will furthermore be that you lack presentness not only with the conversation but also with the people involved in it. Besides environmental distractions, your compromised presentness could also be a result of your mind’s focus on other points in time. Think of how distracting memories or expectations can be. You might not be fully engaged with the conversation with your friend because you were remembering something that has happened or thinking about what could happen soon. It is this sense that time’s sequential states contextualize presentness that will be our concern in this chapter. “Being present” here incorporates interpretations of the conceptual division of time into past, present, and future states. When we demand that someone is fully present, to some extent we believe that they have the capacity to experience time’s flow from the perspective of what is immediately occurring. Being present requires a focus either exclusively or primarily on the “right here, right now.” If we are present we remain undistracted by a past that is already what it unchangeably is.1 When truly © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_3

43

44 

W. JOHNCOCK

present we are also not overly occupied with possible future events (that might not even happen). Suppositions of this sequential arrangement of time prompt related queries about whether such states replicate the apparent separation of spatial states or bodies. Are there separate instants of time that line up like distinct physical bodies? The idea of separation in this context is contentious. Even with differentiated past, present, and future states, there seemingly must still be a continuous connection between them. How else would such states flow? In considering this flow, what we typically assume of course is that time’s states are not entirely separate. A temporal continuity seems only to occur because states are conjoined. We readily interpret that in a future state you find traces of previous presents. Where time is a series of traceable relations its constitution manifests as sequentially co-implicated moments. If this kind of continuity underpins how we conceive of time though there must be ramifications for our opening considerations around when or whether someone is “present.” We can note that self-help doctrines seek to facilitate our attainment of a total or primary presentness. This speaks to the aspirations and expectations built into the phrase “living in the moment.” The advice to a grief-stricken individual is often to not worry about the past (that they cannot change) or a future (that might not even eventuate). The acknowledgment in the previous paragraphs however is that pasts, presents, and futures might not be entirely separate if time is continuous. In this context, evaluations of “being present” surely require certain qualifications. To what degree can we be present or commit to presentness if time’s continuity means that it is difficult to distinguish where that present begins and ends? Seemingly all of us furthermore regularly fail at being exclusively or primarily present. We are often mentally occupied with what has occurred in the past or what could possibly occur next. What are the ramifications of this seemingly compromised experience with presentness? Are we at fault when we do this? Is it disrespectful to others and detrimental to ourselves to not be fully present?2 Are we even able to be present? These kinds of curiosities inspire this chapter. Equally I am motivated by the possible responses that we can develop around such themes with the assistance of one of the earliest Stoics, Chrysippus of Soli (279–206 BCE). Chrysippus does not strictly forward a theory of our consciousness

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

45

of time. I believe that his views on the present can help us, however, to respond to questions about when or whether we are occupied with the present state of time. My further hope is that Chrysippus contributes to a discussion about whether presentness as it is conventionally defined is actually possible. Chrysippus is one of the more pedigreed Hellenistic philosophers, having studied under Cleanthes3 who himself had succeeded the founder of the Stoic school, Zeno.4 I raise this progression given that even our impression of such a lineage speaks to the just reviewed general assumptions regarding continuous time. Firstly, there was Zeno. Subsequently there was Cleanthes. Then after Cleanthes came Chrysippus. Each Stoic represents something akin to a present era and yet each of these presents participates in relations with the other eras. Indeed regarding considerations of the continuities of ideology, in approaching Chrysippus’ conception of presentness we must appreciate the relations of his perspectives with preceding ancient beliefs. This particularly refers to Aristotle’s theory of time.5

Situating Chrysippus The Aristotelian view itself exhibits a Platonic heritage in asserting a relation between time and motion. We can trace Plato’s impression of this relation to his associated account of God’s creation of the universe. Plato explains in the Timaeus that the universe exists and occurs according to God’s supremely good, intelligent “model.” This model comprises the celestial bodies that move around the universe. Time comes into being with these celestial motions (Plato 2008a, 38d). Plato indeed discerns that it was the “shared task” of these bodies to “produce time” (38e). This “task” these bodies “share” is twofold. Firstly, such bodies are heavenly bodies that circle the universe with an apparently endless regularity. For Plato these never-ending characteristics mean that the associated time which manifests from these bodies’ revolutions provides us with an image of God’s eternal perfection. This time “imitates” (as an image of) eternity given that these bodies ceaselessly circulate along the same positions. The ongoing sameness of celestial motions exhibits how “this universe of ours might, by imitating the eternity of the perfect, intelligible living being, be as similar as possible to it” (39d3e).6 As transient and finite humans, we cannot truly comprehend eternity. We can however appreciate it to the extent that these perpetual planetary timings mimic the

46 

W. JOHNCOCK

self-sameness of a divine eternity. This speaks to the second task of such bodies in producing time. The revolutions or “orbits” of these bodies distinguish “circuits,” as Plato describes them, such as “night and day.” These circuits duly make time and its quantifiable periods apparent to us in that they “enable all suitably endowed creatures to become numerate by studying the revolution[s]” (39b). The motion of heavenly bodies is time for Plato. Time is a comprehendible moving image of what is otherwise perfectly eternal. While Aristotle agrees with Plato that time and motion intimately correspond, Aristotle will differ in terms of the nature of this connection. Aristotle’s thesis diverges from Plato’s notion that time is a moving image of God to instead focus on time’s distinctly numbered conditions. Book IV of Physics is where Aristotle’s conceptual differentiation from Plato most emphatically unfolds. The basis of this difference is that for Aristotle time is “everywhere.” Motion conversely is only in the things that are changing via moving and “where that changing thing happens to be” (Aristotle 1996, 4.10.218b13). In Aristotelian theory, a thing’s change in terms of spatial displacement marks this motion. A displacement is a change from what Aristotle describes as a “starting-point to an end-­ point” (4.11.219a10). The particular starting points and ending points of things’ precise locations differentiate these changes-as-motions from the “everywhere” of time. While this makes motion and time distinct for Aristotle, change is also important to how motion and time connect. We can understand this connection in how motion signifies the before and after states for any changing thing (4.11.219a10–21). Aristotle asserts that the change in a thing’s before and after states is “magnitudinal.” Such change can be counted and numbered. The numbering of this change is time. So reliant in fact is time on change that for Aristotle time “does not exist without change” (4.11.219a10). The correspondence between time and motion is reflective then of a fundamental correspondence between time and change. Time manifests, and it manifests as a number, because motion-as-change is magnitudinal. Or in Aristotle’s words, “change follows magnitude, and time follows change” (4.11.219b16). It is through the moving thing that we know change as magnitude for Aristotle and time as number of that change. Just as time is not identical to motion though, likewise time is not change itself, but it is only change “in so far as it [time] admits of enumeration” (4.11.219b1–3). If such motion or change was straightforwardly time, then time, which is the

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

47

enumeration of motion or change, would be the tautological definition of itself (4.10.218b9–20). Instead of time and change being an identical worldly function, Aristotelian time manifests as the numbered associate of change, the “feature of change that makes number applicable to it” (4.11.219b2). This concept of the numbering of time requires clarification. Rather than time being within change, time occurs as a distinct counting of change. From where or from what, we should therefore ask, does this counting occur? Aristotle responds that it is the “soul” that does this counting. So integral is the soul to the counting of time that without the soul there would be no time. Aristotle asserts this dependency of time on the soul in that “if there cannot be some one to count there cannot be anything that can be counted” (4.14.223a20–25). Time is the soul’s numbering of change. This marks a novel divergence from Plato’s thesis. Certainly, Plato incorporates enumerated themes into his conception of time. We have seen that he describes the planetary motions and consequent revolutions as a moving image that enables us to become “numerate” regarding time. In the Timaeus he duly describes how the orbits of the planets operate as the “numbers of time” (Plato 2008a, 38d). Via the planets, we can even appreciate the “perfect number of time” in the way that their “most intelligent revolutions” imitate the eternity of God (39d). Having said that, Plato emphasizes that it is this moving imitation, this “wandering” of planetary bodies, that constitutes time. The numerical counting of movements in the universe is not time for Plato, as it is for Aristotle. Chrysippus’ reported perspective exhibits influences from both Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions of the relation between time and motion. As we will indeed see, there are important consistencies between Chrysippean and Aristotelian conceptions of time, some of which derive from Platonic roots. Chrysippus’ Stoic theory departs considerably however from Aristotle’s position regarding there being a distinct soul that counts time. We can contextualize the Stoic departure by firstly complementing our appreciation of Aristotle’s counter of time with an understanding of his associated interpretation of what initiates the changes that time counts. The world is always changing. Any change furthermore is the cause of subsequent changes. Beyond these causal connections however, Aristotle believes that something must have impelled change to begin generally. This he calls a “first agent of change” (Aristotle 1996, 8.6.258b10).

48 

W. JOHNCOCK

Such an agent cannot be changing itself. As the initial condition of change, if it also changed this would mean it contradictorily required another cause for its change. The first agent of change is thus outside change. Given how intimately change and time are related, for Aristotle being outside change demands that this first agent of change is also outside time. This agent is God. Because God as a metaphysical entity is outside time, this coheres with Aristotle’s philosophy of time belonging to his physics rather than to his metaphysics. God as an “eternal and unchanging agent” (8.6.258b10), the “unmoved mover” (8.5-6), is timeless. We can differently situate Chrysippus’ definitions of time generally, and of the present specifically, from the eternally timeless underpinnings of Aristotelian and Platonic time. Fundamentally, all three schools posit intimate connections between time and motion. We have covered how this occurs for Plato and Aristotle. A source of the Stoic belief in this position is Simplicius of Cilicia, a later Neoplatonist and crucial Aristotelian commentator. In his On Aristotle’s Categories, Simplicius’ account is of a Stoic thesis that Zeno authors and Chrysippus perpetuates concerning time being “a dimension of the world’s motion” (Simplicius, SVF, 2.510, in L&S, 304). Time is not in itself motion/movement. As Sextus Empiricus clarifies in Against the Professors, time for the Stoics is in fact an “incorporeal” (meaning an unbodied) feature of a bodily moving world (Sextus Empiricus 1949, 10.218). In thereby attending to what kind of “dimension” time is of the world’s motion, we find that Chrysippus defines it as a “measured dimension” (Simplicius, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). This measured portrayal evokes Aristotle’s description of time as the enumeration of changes from motions. It also seems not too unlike Plato’s assertion that heavenly orbits that exhibit time can be “measured in numerical terms” (Plato 2008a, 39d). We must be careful though when comparing the measurement or enumeration of time between Chrysippean, Aristotelian, and Platonic perspectives. For Aristotle the numbered enactment of time occurs via a soul that counts motions and changes that are distinct from it. Chrysippus associates time and change more monistically than this. Time in his model requires no separate counter of changing phenomena. Stoic time instead straightforwardly “accompanies the world’s motion” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). Rudimentarily this might instead appear to present a stronger coherence between the Stoic and the Platonic positions. Both correlate time with motion without the necessity for an abstract counting function. We

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

49

must be cautious here too though. The Platonic impression is that time is a moving image of a divine eternity (Plato 2008a, 39d). This gives time a theological ontology. While theological conditions are also true of time and the entire universe for the Stoics, where the two schools differ is in the unavoidably metaphysical constitution of Platonic time’s reality. Platonic time is an image of a transcendent divine realm. Contrarily the relation between time and physical change requires no transcendent creation or backdrop for the early Stoics. This less qualified interpretation of time concerns how Stoicism positions God internally to a changing, temporal universe. If we involve Aristotle’s position in this comparison, we can recall how in his view God is timelessly outside a changing universe that God has caused to change—the “unmoved mover.”7 Stobaeus reports that conversely for Stoics such as Chrysippus, everything not only moves in time but exists in time, whereby “every single thing moves and exists in accordance with time” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). As we will see, this “every single thing” includes God. It is through this all-encompassing sense of time that we can counter arguments that time has a greater reality for Plato than its incorporeal status means it can have in the Stoic world. In On Plato’s Timaeus the Neoplatonist Proclus provides one such argument that “Plato had a quite different view of time from the Stoics” because, for the Stoics, time is “one of the incorporeals … and non-existent” (Proclus, SVF, 2.521, in L&S, 305). Plutarch similarly posits in his Quaestiones Platonicae that “time for the Stoics is an incorporeal ‘extension of bodily motion’ and therefore an accident without substance or potency” (Plutarch in Plêse 2010, 98). In response we should note that the Stoics’ conception of time as an incorporeal does not deny time a reality. It is true that incorporeals for the Stoics do not bodily exist in the world. The Stoic incorporeals do nevertheless “subsist” in a bodily world. We will unpack the notion of subsistence shortly. For now though, we need to observe that while time itself is incorporeal for the Stoics, their view is also that time as the earlier considered “dimension of motion” is not straightforwardly incorporeal. As Anthony Long and David Sedley observe, time might not itself be a body but “Chrysippus was prepared to treat day and night and longer durations of time as bodies” (Long and Sedley 1987, 308). Given that a really existing body such as the sun that dictates such durations is God for Chrysippus, we can further interpret that the Stoics’ pantheist orientations confirm rather than deny the reality of time.

50 

W. JOHNCOCK

We will explore Stoic pantheism more heavily in later chapters of this book. It suffices to know now though that in all eras of Stoic thought we find pantheistic descriptions of God as present everywhere in the universe rather than as transcendently overseeing it. Regarding Chrysippus specifically, Cicero informs us in his On the Nature of the Gods of these kinds of pantheistic beliefs within Chrysippean philosophy. In Cicero’s account, Chrysippus calls “the world itself god” and implicates God’s divine ration in and as the “water, earth, air, the sun, moon and stars, and the all-­ embracing unity of things” (Cicero 1997, 1.39). The Stoic God here is self-moving as the universe. This differs from Aristotle’s God, which is the unmoved mover of the universe. It also diverges from Plato’s God of whose eternal perfection our universe offers an image.8 I agree accordingly with the analysis provided by Panayiotis Tzamalikos that the “Stoic definition should not be associated with either the Platonic or the Aristotelian one” (Tzamalikos 2006, 187).9 Tzamalikos instead determines that early Stoicism “is clearly a third view” in that their “time is neither something related to the Beyond or to metaphysics in any respect … nor is it an intellectual mathematical perception, namely a number or measure” (187). What is unique about the Stoic position is that time in their view invokes nothing other than the associated worldly motion. This is the earlier encountered Chrysippean “measured dimension” of motion, or what Tzamalikos translates via Zeno and Chrysippus as motion’s “natural extension” (187). That all things move and exist in accordance with time for Chrysippus’ Stoicism reflects one aspect of time’s universally pervasive, “infinite” constitution (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). Stobaeus reports that Chrysippus explains time’s infiniteness in terms of its extension. Both the past time and future time for Chrysippus extend continuously and infinitely. Because in Chrysippus’ view time in its totality is an infinite continuity, then time must be “infinite on either side. For both the past and the future are infinite” (2.509, in L&S, 304). We can pay particular attention to the wording here that time extends infinitely “on either side.” This refers specifically to either side of the present. By reviewing how time extends infinitely on either side of the present, we will now see how a belief in time’s infiniteness shapes the Chrysippean impression of the conversely finite present.

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

51

The Inexact Present Now Attending to the Chrysippean present requires appreciating another aspect of time’s infiniteness according to his perspective. This concerns how time is divided. Chrysippus’ logic is that if time is infinitely continuous, and it can be divided into parts (pasts, presents, and futures), then there must be an infinite number of these parts. Infinite time’s divisibility marks time’s infinite divisibility, for “since continuous things are infinitely divisible, on the basis of this division every time too is infinitely divisible” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304).10 The notion of time’s infinite divisibility seemingly comes from the identical idea presented in Aristotle’s Physics regarding continuous time (Aristotle 1996, 4.10.218b20–21). We should not interpret from this argument that each part of time is simply infinite. If parts were infinite, they would not be distinguishable as individual parts of time. Instead, through Stobaeus’ presentation of the Stoic Posidonius’ definition of time, we get an insight into how for Chrysippus the present limits past and future parts of time. Posidonius guides us in reporting a Stoic definition of time from a voice that, we can interpret, belongs to Chrysippus.11 Here Chrysippus expresses a present-­ centric limiting of time’s flow of states in that “the past and future … they are each limited only in respect of the present” (Posidonius 1999, Fragment 98). Both sides of the temporal equation—past and future—are bounded by a present. This means the finiteness of each divisible part/side of time is determined by its limitation at and with that present. A state of time’s change from being present to being past is enacted by a new present that limits the previous present state’s presentness. Similarly a future state is finitely bordered by a present state that limits its current presentness. Despite this mode of finiteness, Samuel Sambursky reminds us that we must be careful not to interpret that this present “limit of time” is entirely “sharp” (Sambursky 1959, 103). Time for the early Stoics is also continuous after all. The present limit accordingly participates in a dynamic and ongoing temporal “continua” (103). This continuous or ongoing temporal flow means that the present limit for Sambursky “forms a fringe” with other time states (103). We will comprehensively consider the ambiguous borders between continuous time states soon via Henri Bergson in order to evaluate the finite extensions of Stoic time. Raising the notion that the present operates as a limit returns us to Aristotle’s traces in early Stoic conceptions of time. Aristotle defines the present instant as a “now.” The limiting function of this now is apparent

52 

W. JOHNCOCK

in Aristotelian theory when he straightforwardly defines each present now as the “limit of time” (Aristotle 1996, 4.13.222a11). The now is the limit of time for Aristotle because as it enacts a new present while limiting the presentness of a previous present it marks “the beginning of one time and the end of another” (4.13.222a11–12). Complementarily the now is also that which, in connecting states of time, “is what holds time together” and “makes past and future time a continuous whole” (4.13.222a10–11). The Chrysippean position regarding time’s continuity is apparent here. Because the now is both the limit and the connection between past and future, it is for Aristotle simultaneously time’s “division and unification” (4.13.222a18). It is through this dual function of the now that what the present means for Aristotle versus for Chrysippus will become clearer. We can refine our earlier understanding of Aristotle’s impression that time manifests via the counting of the changes of befores and afters by clarifying that what are countable for Aristotle are these instants or “nows.” Time counts the before and after nows of a change which as “ends of a line form its number” (4.11.220a14). The counting of time is the counting of the magnitude in change between nows. These relations between nows condition time given that “there would be no time if there were only a single now, rather than different nows” (4.11.218b27). The fact that there can be infinite different nows for Aristotle illustrates how the Chrysippean position on the infinite divisibility of time  likely develops features of the Aristotelian model. We have noted that there are two modes of the now for Aristotle. Aristotle considers this duality in asking whether the present “now” that “appears to divide past from future” (4.10.218a8) remains the same now or is always becoming different. Firstly, Aristotle affirms that the now perpetually remains self-identical. This refers to the now always being the present limit of time. The now as present universally divides past from future, marking why what “it is that the now is is the same (since it is what is before and after in change)” (4.11.219b26–28). The now is not simply the universal  difference between before and after, however. Instead, the now divides and links infinite such before and after changes as time’s continuous flow (4.11.219b912–15). This has the ramification for Aristotle that while “single and identical” (4.11.219b912) as the general condition of before and after, in another regard “what it is to be the now is different” because the now’s enactment depends on the specific before and after that it enacts (4.11.219b27). This marks the

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

53

duality of continuous temporality for Aristotle. The now is the universal condition of the before and after of change, as well as a present which “in so far as it is to be found at successively different points, it is different— this is what it is to be now” (4.11.219b13). There are infinite different nows (4.12.220b5–10) in accordance with the infinite different befores and afters of infinitely continuous time. That in the first mode discussed however the now is always universally what it is—a division or limit between past and present states—means that for Aristotle it has a timeless or durationless mode.12 As a durationless limit of time, the now is not a “part of time” (4.11.218a6–8).13 This mirrors the eternal and external status of the Aristotelian God in relation to time. In dividing time without being a part of changing temporal interrelations, the now remains outside time and has never “ceased to be in itself” (4.10.218a17).14 Chrysippus will not agree with key features of this argument. As with his contestation to the timelessness of the Aristotelian God, for Chrysippus the now has no immediacy that is outside other states of time. The reason for this is that in Chrysippus’ model no state of time is ever “wholly present” in a way that would extract it from time (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). Understanding this logic requires returning to Chrysippus’ conception of the infinite divisibility of continuous time. As we have covered, time for Aristotle and Chrysippus is infinitely continuous. Furthermore, for both thinkers this continuity is divisible into infinite parts. Any past or future direction of time comprises infinite smaller pasts and futures. As our Stoic protagonist Chrysippus defines it, “every time is infinitely divisible” (2.509, in L&S, 304). While Aristotle and Chrysippus share such positions regarding time, it is via the topic of its infinite divisibility that we find a Stoic divergence. In the above citation, Chrysippus specifies that “every time” is infinitely divisible. This is significant for our inquiry because it indicates that the Stoic condition of infinite divisibility also applies to the present. Conversely, we have seen that Aristotle does not define the now as divisible, for in one mode it is entirely outside time. We should recall here the perspective raised in this chapter’s opening thoughts regarding the demand to be present. If regarding the “present,” we assume an immediacy with a now-moment that is not occupied by what already occurred or will occur, we can identify an inconsistency between such a perspective and Chrysippean philosophy. For Chrysippus, when we describe the present we typically neglect the infinite not-present

54 

W. JOHNCOCK

components that actually do constitute that present now-moment. Such not-present parts are the past and future parts of what we otherwise believe is only a present now. As Plutarch explains in his On Common Conceptions, the position that Chrysippus maintains is that “whatever one thinks one has grasped and is considering is present is in part future and in part past” (Plutarch, 1081C–1082A, in L&S, 304). No time is ever exclusively or even primarily present in this view. Stobaeus offers us a relatable everyday example of this. Of importance here is recognizing that for Chrysippus past and future states “subsist” rather than “exist” in what appears to be the present alone. To explain this notion of “subsistence,” Stobaeus shares Chrysippus’ discussion about walking. The predicate “walking” exists as your present only when you are actually walking. When you are sitting after walking, we would conventionally interpret that your present state is one of sitting as opposed to walking. While you are sitting, however, walking still subsists as an aspect of your present state (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). Walking is a past that is infinitely constitutive of what you interpret to be your present state of existence. A not-present state such as the past does not in this sense exist. Nevertheless, its subsistence in the present is real, which is why John Sellars neatly describes subsistent states as “non-existent realities” (Sellars 2006, 84; author’s original emphasis). Time’s subsistence refers to the inter-temporal dependencies that define everything the present is, whereby Chrysippus indeed clarifies according to Plutarch that “the present has no part which is not future or past” (Plutarch, 1081C–1082A, in L&S, 304). For this Stoic perspective, the way we typically discuss the present is accordingly inexact. Our references to the present inadvertently accommodate non-immediate pasts and presents and the associated extensions of duration. These durations can range from a present to its immediately preceding past moment, or to longer periods like an event which last days, or to an era such as an entire generation! From such a conclusion we must therefore consider where this leaves the present to which we refer in modern vernacular. When we ask if someone is focused on the present, are we referring to a state that could never manifest as a part of time nor state of the self? Is presentness as we understand it ever possible? A more recent development of these kinds of considerations comes in the social theory and philosophy of Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941). Bergson’s interrogations of time-relations will most interest us in examining Chrysippus’ concern that our conception of the present is imprecise. Ramifications will here emerge for questions around whether we are ever present and what we even mean by presentness.

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

55

Magnitudes of Time Bergson’s work prominently attends to what is intuitive about our immediate experience. Complementarily he compares such immediacy to the abstracted impressions of time that socialized being requires. Or in short, he examines how we live the flow of time intuitively but measure it with scientifically and socially constructed abstract symbols. It is the focus on the “immediate” of time-experience that will serve our questions into how in an everyday regard we might describe someone as “present.” While this was not necessarily Bergson’s philosophical concern it is through his integration of themes of intuitive immediacy that he would explore the topic of the present. This interest would lead to him participating in a prolonged debate on the question of simultaneity and the present with the physicist Albert Einstein.15 Bergson establishes his position on the relationship between time and intuitive immediacy in the published version of his doctoral thesis Time and Free Will. In this work, Bergson allocates worldly phenomena into two groups. One of these groups, “extensive magnitudes,” includes the aspects of the physical world that are measurable and comparable. “Intensive magnitudes” are conversely aspects of the conscious self and sense experience which are neither measurable nor comparable (Bergson 1960 (1889), 3). We will begin our Bergsonian engagement with a focus on “extensive magnitudes.” Space for Bergson exemplifies what is extensive about the world. What is spatial or extensive can be divided into distinct or atomic units (1). These divided units can then be measured, aggregated, or compared. Think of pebbles as an example of extensive units. Each is distinct and yet when added together with other pebbles forms a relatively sized collection of pebbles. To aggregate a “collection of units” (75) there must be something common to or homogenous about each unit (each pebble). Complementarily the units must be separately distinguishable from each other “otherwise they would merge into a single unit” (77). The separation of extensive units occurs in Bergson’s account via their mutual quantitative differentiation. Units that are otherwise the same differ only by size or degree. Because quantitatively differentiated units are individually distinct, they can be “set alongside each other” (77). This mutual juxtaposition is characteristic only of the spatial realm of phenomena. Bergson uses the example of sheep to illustrate this point. Each sheep is different in

56 

W. JOHNCOCK

that it is spatially distinct from the others. Counting the sheep however requires a recognition of their commonality. Aggregation needs us to “neglect their individual differences” in order to “take into account only what they have in common” (76). These conditions are not surprising regarding spatial or physical units. What is perhaps more interesting is Bergson’s insight that when time takes on these properties of calculability, comparability, and representability, it constitutes “a measurable magnitude, just like space” (104). It is this representation of time that we find on clocks and calendars which portray temporality via spatially visible intervals. What I would like to add to this commentary is that this spatial symbolization of time is potentially limitless. A clock could divide a second into milliseconds then microseconds then nanoseconds and so on. I find this interesting because this limitless division of spatialized time evokes one form of the infinite divisibility of time that we earlier encountered Chrysippus describe. Stobaeus has shown us that for Chrysippus the parts of time are themselves not infinite. It is the finite extensions of time’s parts that condition their respective distinguishability, where of time “some of it is past, some present, and some future” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3, in L&S, 305). The present as the limit of time enacts this finiteness as we have seen. Later we will consider how Stoic continuous time’s infinite limits complementarily indicate a completely different mode of time that discounts the interpretation of finite states. Also relevant to this comparative point with Bergson regarding time’s infinite magnitudes of extension is the Aristotelian perspective on the magnitudinal character of time that informs the Chrysippean position. We should recall that for Aristotle time manifests as an enumeration of these magnitudes (Aristotle 1996, 4.10.219a30).16 While Chrysippus does not number time, themes of enumeration and magnitudinal extension are nonetheless apparent in the Stoic’s conception. From the infinite divisibility of any part of time that Chrysippus proposes, the overall number of temporal parts increases as each part inversely decreases in temporal magnitude or extension. There is an important regard in which I correlate this Chrysippean sense of infinitely divisible limits with the spatialization that for Bergson represents the extensive form of time. Indeed I propose that Chrysippus’ infinitely divisible phenomenon would in one account be for Bergson an infinitely extensive phenomenon. This concerns how such division lends itself to time’s measurability. Stobaeus’ account informs us that Chrysippean infinite divisibility conditions time as a quantifiable measure for worldly motion:

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

57

Chrysippus said time is the dimension of motion according to which the measure of speed and slowness is spoken of. (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304)

Aristotle’s Physics in fact offers a somewhat similar commentary regarding time’s measure of faster or slower changes (Aristotle 1996, 4.11.218b910–20). As earlier indicated, Chrysippus does not reduce time to number as Aristotle does.17 Nonetheless Chrysippus’ connection of time to the extensive measurement of speed and slowness suggests that time for him is involved in enumerative processes. Chrysippean time’s consistencies with the parameters that for Bergson illustrate how we spatialize and quantify extensive time are evident. In flagging this, it is worth noting the genuine lack of scholarship dedicated to comparing Bergsonian and Chrysippean conceptions of time (a point that partly inspires my work in this chapter). We can readily find commentaries however that compare the time theses of Bergson and Aristotle (such as via Martin Heidegger’s criticisms of both).18 Bergson argues that the extensive or spatial representation of time allows us to harness and control time for various social utilities. He accepts that this kind of time is therefore undeniably an aspect of how we really experience time. There is for Bergson a concrete reality to this separation of time into distinct units. We do this for Bergson because it is what everyone else around us is doing. Doing this facilitates our participation in social arenas and suits “the requirements of social life” (Bergson 1960, 128). In The Creative Mind Bergson duly exclaims “how much simpler” life is when it is controlled by the spatial notions “stored up in language!” (Bergson 2007 (1934), 24). The use of spatial conceptions becomes necessary for social control and survival in this sense, for what “is spatial has a social utility” (16). Bergson cautions though that the mistake we make is to believe that this representational model is time’s only or all-encompassing constitution. Any such representation for Bergson is an imperfect, partial interpretation of time. This partiality is attributable to the restriction that is in-built to any representation. The restriction is that a representation is “taken from a certain point of view” (135). Bergson notes a certain irony to this restriction or partiality of time-knowledge. This is because the contrary appeal of spatially quantified time is how it must serve the human desire for complete knowledge and a measured control of the world. In exploring this topic of our attraction to concrete knowledge, he arrives at the conclusion that “fixity is what our intelligence seeks” (5).

58 

W. JOHNCOCK

In returning to the central topic of this chapter’s inquiry, it occurs to me that the question of whether someone is present could rely on this notion of concretely fixed and divided time. Implicit within the request for you to be “present” is a demand that you exclude distracting pasts, alternatively occurring presents, and anticipatory futures. This is necessary so that you are engaged only with the immediate now. Extensive time in this mode is seemingly comprised purely of simultaneously juxtaposed and therefore measurable points. Chrysippus has argued though that it is problematic to interpret the segregation of a present point/state from your other points/states. The infinite division of time for Chrysippus into past and future states means that “no time is present exactly,” even if, according to convention, “it is broadly said to be so” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). The everyday request to be present implies refining one’s focus to a currently occurring now. A ramification of this, as David Sedley notes, is that when we use the term “now” increasingly more narrowly to refer to a “week, today, this morning, the duration of this conversation, etc.,” certain aspects of the past and present will be “stripped away” (Sedley 1999a, 395). Even if this stripping narrows the present now it will never for Chrysippus, however, “yield an altogether durationless instant” (395). The present of which we speak is consequently inexact. This notion of the present’s inexactness inspires my curiosity about whether when we refer to the “present” (or as Chrysippus terms it, the “exactly present)” do we ever really intend to invoke a time state that is entirely outside past and future components? Surely in an everyday regard when we request someone’s attention and expect them to be “present,” we still assume that they will be embodying a whole range of past and future states. It is as a result of considerations not unlike these that for Bergson characterizing time only in terms of divided states is problematic. This query manifests a different appreciation of our relation to the present via an alternative understanding of Chrysippean infinite divisibility.

Present Belonging Aside from the time of spatially extensive, divisible states, Bergson emphasizes that we also experience time as an “intensive” phenomenon. The intensive experience of time is what he defines as time-as-duration/durée. Bergson differentiates this time from its spatial representation via three metaphors in The Creative Mind.

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

59

The most straightforward of these metaphors asks us to consider an infinitely small piece of elastic which when stretched progressively becomes a continuously longer distance. This evokes time-as-duration for Bergson if we focus on the action of stretching instead of on the stretched distance that eventuates (Bergson 2007, 138). If we simply focus on the resulting distance (as we do when we quantitatively represent time), our impression of time is strangely of something static that is outside time’s flow. This is the spatial magnitude that our intellect then subsequently divides into simultaneously discontinuous, aggregable points that are “homogenous to one another” (137). Such points equate with the Aristotelian now that remains the self-same durationless present. This we should recall is the timelessly present instant that Chrysippus’ position avoids. Alternatively for Bergson, if we remain focused on the continuous stretching, no two points of intensive time can be separated. This is because each point or time state manifests via qualitatively infinite relations with new points or time states that continuously emerge during the stretching (137). States of time in this durational regard differ from spatial states in Bergson’s estimation as “duration excludes all idea of juxtaposition and reciprocal exteriority” (138). What we might conventionally or socially describe as the present according to this durational perspective only manifests through its implication with other time states. The result is that divisibly separating out a discontinuous present from a continuous flow is not possible. This directs us to a discussion about the possibly similar qualities between Bergson’s impression of duration and Stoic continuous time. I am interested in two topics here. Do duration’s intensive qualities manifest in Chrysippus’ sense of the inexact present’s infinite division? Furthermore, what does this qualitatively differentiated form of time mean for our being present? To explore these topics, we will consider our “being present” via the notion of our “belonging” to the present. I direct us this way due to Chrysippus’ specific terminology regarding continuous time. “Belonging” to the present can conventionally refer to being consciously available to a current experience, the being present with the “here and now.” Chrysippus’ view as we have covered though is that there are infinitely divisible pasts and futures that “subsist” in the present. Following Plutarch’s evaluation in his On Common Conceptions of this definition, what manifests is that for Chrysippus these past and future parts which subsist in the present do not belong in the present. Plutarch guides us to read this distinction between

60 

W. JOHNCOCK

belonging and subsistence in terms of time’s “belonging” and “non-­ belonging” parts (Plutarch, 1081C–1082A, in L&S, 305). This terminology should not take us into entirely unfamiliar territory given our earlier discussion on such a matter. What is new for our inquiry however is Plutarch’s conclusion from this. For Plutarch, if the present for Chrysippus is always constituted by subsisting, non-belonging, past and future parts, there is nothing about time that ever entirely belongs (1081C–1082A, in L&S, 305). Could the conception of present time in which the non-belonging past and future always lurk, eradicate the idea of there ever really being a “here and now” present to which any of us consciously belong? If nothing about the present ever entirely belongs to the present, does Plutarch’s conclusion mean that via early Stoicism we are always outside a state of presentness? Is nothing about us ever exclusively or primarily present? We can respond via a different reading of Chrysippean time’s “infinite divisibility” that conditionally aligns with Bergson’s understanding of time as continuous duration rather than as discontinuous extensions. We have reviewed the dominant portrayal of Stoic time as continuous. From this, we must recognize that Chrysippus’ infinitely divisible parts of time are in one mode not quantitatively discontinuous. Gilles Deleuze also acknowledges this in forwarding a dual reading of Stoic time. Stoic time for Deleuze exhibits an “unlimited continuity” (which he terms “Aion”) (Deleuze 1990 (1969), 5) because the not-present inhabits the present. Even though the not-present past and future are outside time for the Stoics, these states condition temporality as they “inhere in time and divide each present infinitely” (5). Deleuze emphasizes that this “qualitatively intensive” Stoic time pairs with the “mutually exclusive” (“Chronos”) form of time. Chronos here marks the perpetual “subdivision” of time that occurs on either side of the extensively finite “always limited present” (61). As Ryan Johnson succinctly reviews, in appreciating both intensive and extensive aspects of Stoic time “Deleuze is careful not to sacrifice extensity for intensity” (Johnson 2017, 280). Indeed while mutually exclusive, these forms of time “simultaneously” co-function for Deleuze. My further reading is that the relation of extensive time to intensive time sets up an interesting point of difference between Bergson and the Stoics. In Time and Free Will Bergson attributes our conceptual division of time into magnitudinal extensions to the human tendency to interpret all of experience as discontinuous. The reason “we usually think” (Bergson 1960, ix) in terms of discontinuities is for Bergson traced to our language.

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

61

Our words conceptually separate our conscious experiences in a way that we believe reflects the apparent division of material bodies, by applying “the same discontinuity as between material objects” (ix). For the Stoics however neither material objects, nor extensions, are discontinuous. We will more expansively explore Stoic physics in later chapters. What we need to appreciate now though regarding the Stoic impression of continuous extension is that in their view everything in the world is composed by an active and a passive principle. The active animates the passive, or as Diogenes Laërtius reports of Chrysippus’ position, the “active exists in the passive” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68). What are these principles for Chrysippus? In On Bodily Mass Galen specifies that in Chrysippus’ view a “breathy substance” is the active principle that “sustains” all things (Galen, 7.525, 9–14, in L&S, 282). The passive principle conversely is matter, whereby via breath, bodies’ “material substance is sustained” (7.525, 9–14, in L&S, 282). Consistent with the Stoic belief in a pantheistic universe, Chrysippus describes the active principle, the breathy substance, as God and as rational. Diogenes Laërtius’ account is that this active principle “as primary god, passes perceptibly as it were through the things in the air and through all animals and plants, and through the earth itself” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.634, in L&S, 284). Crucially it is in Alexander’s opposition in On Mixture to this Chrysippean position that we learn not only that breath materially sustains material bodies for Chrysippus but also that it continuously bonds such bodies: What too is the tension of breath which binds bodies together so that they both have continuity in relation to their own parts and are connected with the bodies adjacent to them? (Alexander, 223, 25–36, in L&S, 283)

The topic of the body’s parts is notable. Just as Chrysippus defines time as infinitely divided, equally Stobaeus informs us of the Chrysippean view that material “bodies are divided to infinity” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.482, in L&S, 297). Chrysippus here compares continuous “things” and continuous “time” in that “since continuous things are infinitely divisible … every time too is infinitely divisible” (2.509, in L&S, 304). The body’s infinite divisibility means it lacks an absolute extremity for there can be no indivisibly final part. In On Common Conceptions Plutarch objects to this Chrysippean argument, given that it has the effect of “casting the object into infinity and indeterminacy” (Plutarch, 1078E–1080E, in L&S, 298).

62 

W. JOHNCOCK

For our considerations, this insight regarding indeterminacy is useful. Bergson has described intensive time as a progression of indeterminate or indistinguishable durations. We cannot for Bergson in this mode aggregate greater or fewer parts of time for they do not exist. Similarly, the indeterminacy that Chrysippus recognizes of body parts means that in his perspective there are “no more or less” parts of the body (1078E–1080E, in L&S, 298). Referring to a body by its supposedly distinct parts is thus for Chrysippus an “inexact” reference. We can note the similar terminology Chrysippus employs regarding the inexact present and the inexact body. Both the present and the material body extend as continuums in which the possible extraction of reciprocally external parts of either is refuted. We know from our earlier considerations that time for the Stoics is not itself a body. The way however that the present as time incorporates past and future is extended as a body. To repeat an already reviewed point, day and night are bodies for Chrysippus (Plutarch, On Common Conceptions, 1084C–D, in L&S, 306). What Bergson defines as discontinuously extensive is for the Stoics instead a materially extensive continuity. The material present for the Stoics is embedded in a continuum that does not entirely exclude not-­ present states. This is despite the Stoic belief that a not-present state does not exist and is not in time. In this mode, Stoic time coheres with the Bergsonian description of duration-as-time’s infinitely continuous conditions. The difference is that for the Stoics this time is extensive whereas for Bergson it is intensive. Where does this leave the issue of our “belonging” to the present? The everyday sense is that to be present is to be exclusively or primarily consciously available to an immediate now. The Chrysippean present’s non-­ belonging parts however contradict the notion of a present to which we can intensively belong that is outside what infinitely does not belong. Strictly speaking, we never wholly belong to the present for the Stoics. This does not necessarily discount what we mean regarding belonging to the present though. When someone asks whether you are present, a Chrysippean impression of time’s continuum invokes a presentness that requires, rather than requires excluding, the not-present. This might actually reflect the reality of our everyday experiences with the request to be present. Such a request cannot literally expect the negation of all other states of time or consciousnesses of those states of time. While this position obviously contests extreme suggestions of an exclusive focus on a present state, what this chapter more adventurously complicates is even what a primary attention on the present comprises.

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

63

Notes 1. George Mead, who we will engage in a later chapter, contests the reading of a permanently and inalterably finalized past. When appraising the past, we should not, in Mead’s view, be concerned with what it was as a prior present (Mead 2002, 46). Mead is instead interested in how the relation of the past to a new present changes what the past “was” (36). 2. Discussions around being “present” typically concern not only the interpersonal ethics of presentness but also the benefits to an individual of presentness. Desai (2014), Shapiro and Shapiro (2011), and Rice-Oxley (2017) provide examples in the mass media of the advisory that contrarily not being present will prevent us from fully experiencing our worlds. Related studies of the adverse effects of “not being present” have also permeated academic fields such as psychology and healthcare (Brown and Ryan 2003; Easter 2000; Morrow 2005). Pedagogical commentaries furthermore link an educator’s willingness to “be present with course material” to a capacity to critically engage such material and assist students (Greene 1984; McDonough 2015, 176–179). 3. Alfred Pearson reports how Cleanthes’ prominence is attributable to him succeeding Zeno in becoming the second head of the Stoic school (Pearson in Zeno et al. 1891, 35). Diogenes Laërtius informs us that Cleanthes was “originally a boxer” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.1) before arriving in Athens and studying Stoic philosophy under Zeno. It was only after this that Cleanthes “devoted himself to philosophy” (7.1). His philosophical presence is so considerable that he inspired David Hume to later feature a character called “Cleanthes” in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1998 [1779]). 4. This account of the early history of the Stoic school is seemingly ubiquitous in modern Stoic scholarship. As with many Stoic teacher-student relationships, Cleanthes and Chrysippus share certain points of view. Ricardo Salles notes how they were joint proponents of the interpretation that each new conflagration perpetually restores the universe to its previous condition as “the everlasting recurrence of everything” (Salles 2009, 118). This is a position that differentiates both from other major Stoics (even if they departed from each other on the details of this conflagration). 5. There are numerous aspects of the influence of Aristotle on Chrysippus. Outside the range of this chapter, for instance, is the Aristotle-Chrysippus relation that informs Stoic conceptions of logic. On this point, see Jonathan Barnes’ “Aristotle and Stoic Logic” (1999). 6. See also the discussion in The Symposium regarding the circular relationships shared between the celestial bodies and the sexes (Plato 2008b, 190b).

64 

W. JOHNCOCK

7. Despite Aristotle’s impression of time’s “everywhereness,” God in fact is not the only thing that does not exist in time in his worldview. Things that change but are also “everlasting” or “always are” are “not in time” for Aristotle (Aristotle 1996, 4.12.221b3–7). Edward Hussey’s accompanying notes to his translation of Aristotle’s Physics provide a useful guide on this matter. Hussey explains there are things which are both “everlasting yet changeable” in the universe for Aristotle. This is despite everlasting “implying unchangeable” (Hussey in Aristotle 1993, 169). Such things include “the celestial spheres, which move; animal species, which increase and diminish in number” as well as “the earth, which changes its surface conformation” (169). 8. This is not the only notable divergence between the schools. In considering, for instance, how each school frames philosophical expression, David Sedley reviews why the dialogue form is used by Platonic and Aristotelian schools but not by the Stoic tradition that stems from Zeno (Sedley 1999b, 149–152). 9. For a further discussion on the ambiguities around whether time for the Stoics is closer to Aristotle’s or Plato’s conception, see Rist (1969, 273–278). 10. We might open a discussion between Chrysippus’ perspective and the preSocratic Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes regarding motion (this Zeno should not be confused with the Stoic founder, Zeno of Citium). Aristotle’s Physics actually critiques Zeno’s “dichotomy paradox” in which walking from point a to point b firstly requires walking halfway to point b. Before getting halfway to point b though, one must walk a quarter of the way there, and before that an eighth of the way, and so on. Because of the infinite divisions of distance that this requires for motion, Zeno renders motion an impossibility (Aristotle 1996, 6.9.239b5–b9). Aristotle disagrees on the basis that movement over the fractional parts of the whole distance is not only possible but will each be achieved within a finite time. This is partly a result of his interpretation that such parts of distance are not infinite but finite, whereby “since these parts are finite … the time must be finite too” (7.7.237b23). 11. Kidd notes in his commentary on this fragment that the context of Posidonius’ discussion is “Stobaeus’ doxography on ‘time’” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 157). We have just seen that Stobaeus’ work here reviews what time means for Chrysippus. This claim is based on the text where Posidonius posits that “he defines time like this: an interval [or extension] of movement, or a measure of quick and slow” (Posidonius 1999, Fragment 98; my emphasis). “He” in this context I am interpreting to refer to “Chrysippus.” The validation for this interpretation is that elsewhere Chrysippus is reported by Stobaeus as defining time in exactly the same terminology; “Chrysippus said time is the dimension of motion according

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

65

to which the measure of speed and slowness is spoken of” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304; my emphasis). We analyze this specific feature of Chrysippean time later in this chapter, while being aware of its similarities with an Aristotelian assertion. 12. Aristotle’s conception of the timeless now is in part a response to the Platonic position on the durationless “instant.” This concerns Plato’s argument in Parmenides about how we commonly interpret that transitions from one state to another occur in time. For Plato, anything that occurs in time is either in motion or at rest. A transition from motion to rest, or vice versa, cannot be either state exclusively, nor both states simultaneously. Accordingly, the instant of such transition is not in time (Plato 1996, 156c–d). While any further discussion of the intricate differences between Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of the instant or now go beyond our needs in this chapter, for a long-established discussion of Plato’s position, see Cornford (1939, 194–202). Alternatively, for an analysis of what durationless means for the Platonic instant, see Strang and Mills (1974, 73–75). Bowin (2008) provides an overview of Plato’s and Aristotle’s respective theses on the instant of change. 13. This theory of the presence of the now has perhaps been most famously examined by Martin Heidegger. In Being and Time Heidegger criticizes the present-centrism of Aristotelian time by observing how in Physics “time shows itself for the vulgar understanding as a succession of constantly ‘present’ [‘vorhanden’] nows that pass away and arrive at the same time” (Heidegger 2010 (1927), 401). Heidegger believes that philosophy’s adoption of this “everyday interpretation of time” (402) produces an account of a permanently present-at-hand world; “the succession of nows is interpreted as something somehow objectively present” (402). Heidegger elsewhere launches a further attack on this position, taking aim at the Aristotelian reading of Being as “synonymous with permanence in presence” (Heidegger 1962 [1929], 249; author’s original emphasis). Aristotle in Heidegger’s view is susceptible to subscribing to the comprehension of Being’s total self-­evidence through time, which “determines the ‘Being’ of time from the point of view of the now, i.e., from the character of time which in itself is constantly present and, hence, (in the ancient sense of the term) really is” (250; author’s original emphasis). Heidegger’s alternative to this perspective is to construct an awareness of time that avoids a permanent presence. In Margins of Philosophy Jacques Derrida later notably builds on Heidegger’s insights (Derrida 1982 (1972), 61). By positing an entirely different reading of Aristotle’s work in which the now is both a determining limitation of time and its “accident” (61), Derrida argues against any dominating role for presence.

66 

W. JOHNCOCK

14. This notion of a durationless present instant re-emerges via Saint Augustine of Hippo. In contrast to the supposed non-existence of past-­duration and future-duration, the present-instant seemingly exists but has no duration according to Augustine. If the present was more than an unextended instant it would no longer simply be present but rather “could be divided into past and future” (Augustine 1961, 11.15). Such duration would mark its passing into the non-existence of what has been or what will be. The passing of the present which takes it into the realm of non-existence is nevertheless crucial. If the present did not extend or pass it would be eternal not temporal. As Augustine states, “in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present. Time, on the other hand, is never all present at once” (11.11). 15. See Bergson’s Duration and Simultaneity: With Reference to Einstein’s Theory (1965 [1922]). 16. In Being and Time Heidegger actually compares Bergson’s and Aristotle’s respective arguments. See where Heidegger laments that the “common understanding” of time “has persisted since Aristotle and beyond Bergson” (Heidegger 2010, 17). Heidegger responds to Bergson, as he does to Aristotle, by offering a model of time that is contrary to “Bergson’s thesis that time understood in the common way is really space” (18). My response to Heidegger however is that for Bergson our “common way” of understanding time is in fact twofold. This duality comprises our extensive, spatial representation of juxtaposed points and an intensive, indivisible, continuous flow/duration that we live. Even though Bergson concedes that we “find it extraordinarily difficult to think of duration in its original purity” (Bergson 1960, 106), he does not characterize it as outside common everyday experience. Whether Heidegger addresses this appropriately is much debated (Massey 2010; Protevi 1994). For further evidence of Heidegger’s position on Bergsonian spatial time, refer to his lengthy footnote (Heidegger 2010, 410) that links Hegelian, Aristotelian, and Bergsonian conceptions of time as space. 17. Bergson correlates the Aristotelian numbering of time accordingly with one of the two modes (the quantitative mode) that he characterizes in Time and Free Will; “we must admit two kinds of multiplicity, two possible senses of the word ‘distinguish,’ two conceptions, the one qualitative and the other quantitative, of the difference between the same and other. Sometimes this multiplicity, this distinctness, this heterogeneity contains number only potentially, as Aristotle would have said” (Bergson 1960, 121). 18. While not appropriate to be included in the Stoic-centric phase of this discussion, I direct interested readers to Seyppel (1956), Massey (2010), and Hill (2012). This is not to forget Bergson’s extended commentary in Creative Evolution in which he discusses Aristotelian and Platonic theories in terms of the metaphysics of the “intellect” (Bergson 1911 (1907), 330–356).

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

67

References Aristotle. 1993. Physics. Books III and IV. Translated by Edward Hussey. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1996. Physics. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New  York. Oxford University Press. Augustine of Hippo. 1961. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London and New York: Penguin. Barnes, Jonathan. 1999. Aristotle and Stoic Logic. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 23–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bergson, Henri. 1911 (1907). Creative Evolution. Translated by Arthur Mitchell. New York: Random House. ———. 1960 (1889). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by Frank Pogson. New York: Harper Torchbooks. ———. 1965 (1922). Duration and Simultaneity: With Reference to Einstein’s Theory. Translated by Leon Jacobson. Indianapolis; New  York; Kansas City: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. ———. 2007 (1934). The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics. Translated by Mabelle Andison. New York: Dover Publications. Bowin, John. 2008. Plato and Aristotle on the Instant of Change—A Dilemma. In The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter: Binghamton University, 382. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/382. Brown, Kirk, and Richard Ryan. 2003. The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (4): 822–848. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cornford, Francis MacDonald. 1939. Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides’ Way of Truth and Plato’s Parmenides Translated with an Introduction and a Running Commentary. London and New York: Routledge. Deleuze, Gilles. 1990 (1969). The Logic of Sense. Edited by Constantin Boundas. Translated by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. New  York: Columbia University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1982 (1972). Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Desai, Panache. 2014. Are You Present in Your Life? Banish Busyness and Start Living Your Soul Signature. HuffPost, September 14. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/panache-desai/are-you-present-in-your-l_b_5588670.html. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Easter, Anna. 2000. Construct Analysis of Four Modes of Being Present. Journal of Holistic Nursing 18 (4): 362–377.

68 

W. JOHNCOCK

Greene, Maxine. 1984. The Art of Being Present: Educating for Aesthetic Encounters. The Journal of Education 166 (2): 123–135. Heidegger, Martin. 1962 (1929). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Translated by James Churchill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2010 (1927). Being and Time. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hill, Rebecca. 2012. The Interval: Relation and Becoming in Irigaray, Aristotle, and Bergson. New York: Fordham University Press. Hume, David. 1998 (1779). Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, with; Of the Immortality of the Soul; Of Suicide; Of Miracles. Edited by Richard Popkin. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Johnson, Ryan. 2017. On the Surface: The Deleuze-Stoicism Encounter. In Contemporary Encounters with Ancient Metaphysics, ed. Abraham Greenstine and Ryan Johnson, 270–288. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Massey, Heath. 2010. On the Verge of Being and Time: Before Heidegger’s Dismissal of Bergson. Philosophy Today 54 (2): 138–152. McDonough, Kathleen. 2015. Performing Critical Consciousness in Teaching: Entanglements of Knowing, Feeling and Relating. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl e=1383&context=dissertations_2. Mead, George. 2002 (1932). The Philosophy of the Present. New  York: Prometheus Books. Morrow, Susan. 2005. Quality and Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research Counseling Psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology 52 (2): 250–260. Plato. 1996. Parmenides. Translated by Albert Whitaker. Indianapolis: Focus Publishing. ———. 2008a. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2008b. The Symposium. Edited by M.C. Howatson and Frisbee Sheffield. Translated by M.C.  Howatson. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Plêse, Zlatko. 2010. Plato and Parmenides in Agreement: Ammonius’s Praise of God as One-Being in Plutarch’s The E at Delphi. In Plato’s Parmenides and Its Heritage: Volume 1: History and Interpretation from the Old Academy to Later Platonism and Gnosticism, ed. John Turner and Kevin Corrigan, 93–114. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Posidonius of Rhodes. 1999. Posidonius: Volume III: The Translation of the Fragments. Edited by J. Diggle, N. Hopkinson, J. Powell, M. Reeve, D. Sedley, and R. Tarrant. Translated by I.G. Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3  WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 

69

Protevi, John. 1994. Time and Exteriority: Aristotle, Heidegger, Derrida. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. Rice-Oxley, Mark. 2017. How to Escape the Overthinking Trap: Stop Judging Yourself. The Guardian, January 16. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/16/escape-overthinking-trap-stop-juding-yourself. Rist, John. 1969. Stoic Philosophy. London and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Salles, Richardo. 2009. Chrysippus on Conflagration and the Indestructibility of the Cosmos. In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 118–134. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sambursky, Samuel. 1959. Physics of the Stoics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Sedley, David. 1999a. Hellenistic Physics and Metaphysics. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 355–411. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1999b. The Stoic-Platonist Debate on Kathêkonta. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 128–152. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sellars, John. 2006. Stoicism. London and New York: Routledge. Sextus Empiricus. 1949. Sextus Empiricus IV: Against the Professors. Translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Seyppel, Joachim. 1956. A Criticism of Heidegger’s Time Concept with Reference to Bergson’s “Durée”. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 10 (34): 503–508. Shapiro, Ed, and Deb Shapiro. 2011. Are You Here? Are You Now? Are You Present? HuffPost, November 17. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-anddeb-shapiro/mindfulness-meditation-ar_b_610500.html. Strang, Colin, and K.W.  Mills. 1974. Plato and the Instant. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 48: 63–96. Tzamalikos, Panayiotis. 2006. Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Alfred Pearson. 1891. The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes: With Introduction and Explanatory Notes. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.

CHAPTER 4

Why Do You Care About Yourself? The Early Stoics and Herbert Spencer on Self-­Preservation

Our First Impulse As we each navigate the world, it appears that we intentionally factor in our well-being. We might rudimentarily connect this regard for our own welfare to notions of survival. There is something about a living creature that seems to be inclined toward preserving its ongoing existence. Upon further examination we can even learn that this drive for survival might arise within an individual creature that is not merely concerned with itself but also with the survival of its species overall.1 A human’s self-preserving inclination could be apparent in their behaviors. Avoiding potential dangers or being attracted to sustenance are just two examples of the day-to-day drive to survive or self-preserve. What is less straightforward however is identifying the causal conditions of this motivation for self-preservation which go beyond elements of sheer survival. We can grant that self-preservation appears to correlate with a preference to survive. But from this emerges a more complex question asking why living beings are impelled to maintain their existence?2 In conjunction with such an inquiry arises the associated curiosity regarding from where these self-preserving, existence-maintaining tendencies manifest? For much Stoic philosophy, these kinds of questions are integral to appreciating self-preservation. We can consider the Stoic conception of the role of self-preserving tendencies via the feature of subjectivity that certain Stoics refer to as hormé. Hormé is a Latin term meaning “impulse” (that we will also encounter spelled as “hormai”, especially in a later © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_4

71

72 

W. JOHNCOCK

chapter’s discussion on reason and passion). Within the theme of hormé we will primarily be examining an exchange between Cicero (106–43 BCE) and the Stoic Cato (95–46 BCE). This exchange concerns the early Stoic sense of our practical orientation toward aspects of self-preservation. The Stoic interest in self-preservation is not restricted to its earlier eras and indeed is almost a universal theme across its ancient generations (Jedan 2009, 100; Robertson 2010, 80–81; Sellars 2009, 57–58; Stephens 2007, 13).3 See, for example, Marcus Aurelius’ later Stoic sense of how one’s “mind preserves its own serenity by withdrawal” from “unbearable pain” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.33). Given however that the interaction between Cicero and Cato occurs in a time that can only occupy itself with earlier Stoic principles, that era is accordingly the central focus of this chapter. Cicero was not strictly a Stoic philosopher. Vocationally as a Roman politician and lawyer, citizens knew him as one of the greatest orators during ancient times.4 While prioritizing such political endeavor over philosophical study, he nevertheless emerges as the most prominent commentator of the earlier Stoic periods. This is partly due to how Cicero recognizes the value of Stoic teachings for political and personal action. When writing about notions of natural law and justice in his De Officiis (On Duties), Cicero describes how philosophies that are concerned with the correlation between action and virtue offer benefits to the Roman Empire. Stoicism is a prime example of such philosophies for Cicero given its focus on virtue. He duly cites as valuable and related to our “first source of duty” studies that do not interfere with the “activity of the mind, which is never at rest,” but rather which contribute to our understanding that “virtue lies in action” (Cicero 1991, 1.19). It is in its dual foci of virtuousness and practical action that Cicero finds in Stoicism studies of such worth. Of direct relevance to this chapter is how when considering the ways practical action manifests, Cicero directs our attention to the Stoic impression of self-preservation. Cicero does this by raising in De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil) the importance for the Stoics of hormé. The aspect of subjectivity that is hormé captures for Cicero the sense of our personal drive from which our actions result. Given the particularity of anyone’s action-orientation, this impulse or “natural desire, which they [the Stoics] term hormé” (Cicero 1914, 4.14, 39) is different for each individual creature. To this extent Cicero emphasizes that “every animal has its own nature” (5.9, 25) and therefore its own hormé. While hormé is specific to each of us it is not for the Stoics an instrument that we can manipulate to serve any kind of life we might prefer.

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

73

Cicero observes that according to “Stoic phraseology” hormé is instead designed for a “particular mode of living” (3.7, 23). This mode, which becomes willed through “our faculty of appetition” (3.7, 23),5 is directed to the universal “ends” that are associated with the Stoic understanding of nature or reason. Cicero’s summation here draws inspiration from the Stoic Balbus’ account of Zeno’s position that “world-nature experiences all those motions of the will … that the Greeks call hormai” (Cicero 1967a, 2.18.58). What we can take from this is that hormé has a common objective reality in terms of its ubiquitous presence among all individual creatures. Complementarily as the preceding paragraph shows though, hormé also manifests with subjective features via the particularities of each living creature. Hormé overall marks the different ways we willingly embody the shared natural ends of life. Anthony Long duly describes the hormé-ends relation as that which “prompts action but right action” (Long 1968, 337). Cicero presents these positions in a discussion with the Stoic follower Cato the Younger6 (who I shall hereon refer to as Cato). Cato explains to Cicero that for “Zeno and the Stoics” self-preservation is the most primary of the ends toward which hormé pulses. This early Stoic system that Cato “adopts” (Cicero 1914, 3.5,  16) invests every creature with the instinct of self-preservation from the moment they are born: …immediately upon birth (for that is the proper point to start from) a living creature feels an attachment for itself, and an impulse to preserve itself and to feel affection for its own constitution and for those things which tend to preserve that constitution. (3.5, 16)

This natural impulse for self-preservation is in the Stoic reading complemented with a contrary aversion to anything that would harm oneself. Zeno expects, according to Cicero, that when encountering dangerous situations an animal will behave in a manner that exhibits an “antipathy to destruction and to those things which appear to threaten destruction” (3.5, 16). Cicero notes that the evidence offered by Cato’s account of Zeno’s thought is that living creatures have a primary impulse to self-­ preservation that is apparent even in infants. This portrays infants as expressing a natural inclination toward things that are conducive to their health. Infants conversely reject things that comprise the opposite, even if they have no experience with these things (3.5, 16). Cato consequently

74 

W. JOHNCOCK

describes an infant’s navigation toward things that appear to be beneficial as indicating for Zeno an “affection for their own constitution” (3.5, 16) that must be innate to creatures generally. An infant’s inherent self-­ affection symbolizes in this perspective our natural “love of self” (3.5, 16). This theme is widespread in early Stoic thought beyond the initial era of Zeno. It is also identifiable, for example, during Chrysippus’ leadership of the Stoic school. Diogenes Laërtius reports that Chrysippus’ On Ends posits that an “animal has self-preservation as the object of its first impulse, since nature from the beginning appropriates it” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.178, in L&S, 346). Beyond these eras, the later Stoic philosopher Hierocles similarly states in his Element of Ethics that primarily: …each animal does what contributes to its own preservation, avoiding every attack even from afar and contriving to remain unharmed by dangers, while it leaps toward whatever brings safety and provides for itself from far and wide whatever tends toward its survival. (Hierocles 2009, 5.55)

We might notice that the Stoics include human and nonhuman animals in discussions of self-preserving tendencies. Anthony Long and David Sedley caution from this that characterizing a “basic common ground in nature between animal and human behavior in preserving oneself” is “not saying we should do these things because animals do them” (Long and Sedley 1987, 352). The point rather is that the Stoics “are claiming that animals and humans alike are so structured that such behavior is natural and appropriate to them both” (352).7 From this universal impression of self-­ preservation, we will now learn that it, not pleasure, is our natural inclination.

Preservation, Not Pleasure, Is Our Primary End If self-preservation is the natural condition according to these Stoic appraisals, it will frame each individual’s actions. In his “defence of Stoic ethics” Cato accordingly describes the causality behind our behaviors and thoughts as exemplifying a self-preserving “primary impulse to action” (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 16–17). Cato here demands that for the early Stoics such as Zeno pleasure is not as primary as self-preservation. This evidently is a position that Cato supports; “pleasure, according to most Stoics, is not to be reckoned among the primary objects of natural impulse; and I very strongly agree with them” (3.5, 17). Diogenes Laërtius similarly reports

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

75

in his discussion around the Chrysippean position specifically and of the Stoics generally that they say it is “false” that “the first inclination of animals is to pleasure” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.52). The interpretation that the Stoics hierarchize self-preservation is indeed widely shared by modern scholars (Becker 1998, 128–130; Graver 2007, 32; Reydams-­ Schils 2011, 318). The primacy of self-preservation over pleasure is an indication that one’s hormé is consistent with Stoic natural “ends” (Cicero 1914, 4.13, 33). As a natural inclination, self-preservation will benefit the entirety of the self rather than any particular aspect of the self. Cicero is adamant regarding this portrayal of early Stoic thought, explaining that for the Stoics what is naturally self-preserving is “neglecting no side” of the individual (4.13, 34). There is an awareness from Cicero that the notion of the “entire self” could be relatively abstract. He accordingly clarifies that the early Stoics have here developed ideas from the Platonist Xenocrates and Aristotle in which “natural ends” refer to the preservation of our physical and mental attributes.8 Appreciations of the Stoic theory of self-­ preservation must duly take “account of body as well as mind” (4.7, 16). The bodily aspects of this theory of self-preservation translate to straightforward counsels regarding the avoidance of physical danger or the aversion to gluttony. The ramifications for our mental life of self-­preserving directions are however more complex. In the Stoic position that we have reviewed, actions resulting from mental processes stem from our primary impulse toward objects that we deem will benefit us. Cato’s defense of early Stoicism describes such actions as “appropriate acts” (3.7, 23). “Appropriate” evidently encompasses a reference to the Chrysippean position on self-preservation. As we have encountered it is the term used by Chrysippus in his On Ends regarding our inclination toward preserving our “own constitution” and our “consciousness of this” preservation (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.178, in L&S, 346). Cato notes that for the Stoics any act which is “appropriate” must have been designed as a “means to the end of attaining the primary needs of nature” (Cicero 1914, 3.6, 22). This incorporates Chrysippus’ earlier contestation to the false presumption that pleasure is our primary end. Cato posits accordingly that “appropriate acts” directly serve, in accordance with a Stoic sense of Nature, the primacy of the self-preserving “End.” Cicero’s capitalization of the word “End” (4.10, 25) emphasizes this point, concurrently deeming that acts of the mind and body are worthwhile in themselves if they serve this end/End. He consequently describes

76 

W. JOHNCOCK

the early Stoic account of “acts of cognition” which serve our self-affection as features of a living creature that have been “adopted for their own sake” (3.5, 18). As Cato via Cicero asks rhetorically in channeling Stoic thought, why would we conversely develop cognitions designed to harm instead of to help ourselves? Appropriate thoughts are our nature’s selfpreserving thoughts. A similar interpretation applies to the body. The body becomes for the Stoics an exemplification of that which is in accordance with nature. If anything bodily was conversely opposite to one’s nature, the systematicity of Zeno’s early Stoicism demands that it would be “rejected” (3.6, 20–21). This evokes Plutarch’s interpretation in On Stoic Self-Contradictions of the Chrysippean position that we have an “appropriate disposition relative” not only to ourselves but to each of our “parts” (Plutarch, SVF, 3.179, in L&S, 348). In considering the parts of the body such as hands, feet, and organs, Cato’s Stoic impression is that such features appear to “have been bestowed on us by nature for the sake of their use” (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 18). Within such a perspective, however, it is determined that there are other parts to every living creature, such as the plumage of a dove, that seem to be purely “ornamental” (3.5, 18). This might be potentially a tense point in the theory. Who or what after all has the authority to decide where ornamentalism ceases and function commences? The answer is universal nature. What nature has attributed to us is always inclined toward our natural ends and self-preservation. We might interpret that a feature of ourselves or other creatures is purely ornamental. The universe’s divine rationality knows though that it serves the self-­ preserving “primary elements of nature” (3.5, 19). With this universal orientation to our self-preservation, we encounter aspects of being that go beyond our overtly subjective limits.

The Collective Orientation of Preservation In the introductory thoughts, this chapter briefly opened the question of one’s self-preservation to the collective phenomenon of an entire species’ inclination to preservation. In a related sense, Cicero considers whether self-preserving impulses do not simply refer to prolonging our own organic existence but also to that which serves a broader benefit. The preceding discussion with Cato does not necessarily present Cicero’s personal position on self-preservation. We instead encounter the early Stoic positions of Zeno and Chrysippus through the voices of Cato

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

77

and Cicero. Contrary to this style of commentary, it is in On Duties that we hear Cicero’s own argumentation regarding the collective benefit that ensues from self-interested preservation. In this mode Cicero demands that what is of interest to every individual is relatively “identical” to what is of interest to “the whole body politic” (Cicero 1928, 3.6, 26). Cicero correlates one’s self-preserving direction with what should be a simultaneous motivation to serve others within one’s group/kind. This position coheres with the Stoic mandate that each individual is impulsively “bound to their fellow citizens” (3.6, 28). Cicero indeed posits that pursuing an end with only self-oriented intentions represents an attempted denial of these mutual obligations. Given how this might defy the “common good,” the widespread adoption of such a mentality would result in the destruction of “human fellowship” (3.6, 26). The Stoic principles that we have been reviewing in his exchange with Cato have clearly inspired Cicero. As Cato says of the early Stoic position, just as “it is natural for us to shrink from pain” so we are born to love our offspring and other humans (Cicero 1914, 3.19, 62–63). Both the retreat from destructive situations and the pull toward our fellow humans are self-­ preserving tendencies. From this latter element of “common humanity,” individual humans are primarily aware of their compulsion to “do certain actions for the sake of others beside themselves.” Cato imparts that this “bond of mutual aid” is naturally derived for the Stoics and leads humans to “form unions, societies and states” (3.19, 63). A broader good duly manifests from such human unification that for Cato serves “more than … any single individual” (3.19, 64). Scholarship widely recognizes that for the Stoics notions of self-­ preservation incorporate an awareness of mutual welfares (Annas 1993, 265–266; Evans 2014, 89; Irvine 2008, 129). From a topic (self-­ preservation) that might seem to have purely subjective orientations we find in this discussion collegial figurations of self-benefiting tendencies. This recognition of the collectively dispersed conditions lurking within one’s sense of self-preservation is a noteworthy navigation in terms of one of the opening questions in this chapter. We might recall how that question asks from where our self-preserving tendencies manifest. Do these preceding insights mean that our predisposition for our own preservation originates both from beyond the self and is directed beyond the self? If so, what qualifications are necessary to the description of such a compulsion as a “self”-preservation?

78 

W. JOHNCOCK

In order to explore this collegial component of why living beings self-­ preserve, we will consider its intersection with the theory of self-preservation forwarded by the English sociologist, philosopher, and political theorist, Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). Theories of evolution inspire Spencer to situate individuated aspiration and well-being within a socially environmental structure.9 It is through this broader environmental framing of individual function and “fitness” that he develops a perspective that is most easily described as socially Darwinian.10 At stake in Spencer’s inquiry is not simply the individuation of self-preservation. He instead is interested in tracing our individual inclination toward self-­preservation to collective tendencies and originations. Spencer’s work recognizes that humans are social and organized in such a way that they can mutually benefit each other. His essay “The Proper Sphere of Government” exemplifies a commitment to these kinds of conditions by stating that a “community is a body of men associated together for mutual defence” (Spencer 1981, 99). This characterization of society as the seat of a collaborative “self-defence” among combined individuals would eventually transition into his broader adaptation of a social Darwinist position. Spencer on this theme argues that the best structure for a society is one where government intervention into the lives of all individuals remains minimal, making clearer the “boundary to the interference of government” (83). The associated thesis is that from less state interference a social arrangement occurs in which the “fittest” social members self-preserve and survive. This for Spencer will benefit the population overall. It is according to Spencer that even before this governmental interference into our lives as adults occurs, our education when we are children and adolescents adversely normalizes the acceptance of such interference. Contrary to this, Spencer investigates the ways in which education should be representative of a generally more organic, social design. In this model, citizens would actively embody a collective responsibility for their own educational structures, from which each younger citizen will rise “towards his fittest function” (127). One of Spencer’s better-known pieces—“What Knowledge Is of Most Worth?” found in Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical—appraises such education according to its anticipated ends. These anticipated ends for Spencer should address the question of “how to live?” (Spencer 1861, 16). In exploring this most “essential question” (16) about the ends that education serves, we will also consider how the knowledge that this education generates informs our self-preservation.

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

79

Happiness Is the Ultimate End Spencer identifies an individual’s happiness as the ultimate end that a properly socially structured education should facilitate. An interesting correlation here emerges with Stoic philosophy’s general emphasis on happiness as a natural end for every individual. As I have already indicated, the term that we have translated as “happiness” for the Stoics does not straightforwardly match how we use it in a modern context to feeling good. Happiness more broadly for the Stoics encompasses our rational and virtuous orientations. It is the earliest Stoics who perpetuate a belief in the primacy of a happy and virtuous life (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394). The Stoics advise not to directly target happiness though in order to achieve a consequent state or feeling. Instead, as commentators generally interpret (Annas 2007, 64; Brennan 2005, 35; Inwood and Donini 1999, 684), it is through living a virtuous life that we will each experience happiness as its ultimate end. Stobaeus observes of this intrinsic connection that the Stoics “say that being happy is the end for the sake of which everything is done, but which is not itself done for the sake of anything” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394). I have indicated in the Introduction chapter that the Stoic understanding of happiness as a rational and virtuous activity develops from ancient ideas around eudaimonia. An initial appearance of the term “eudaimôn” comes in the earliest Greek poetry from Hesiod. Eudaimôn here is a reference to a happy personal state that is “free from divine ill will” (Hesiod 1982, 826–828). We see that as this concept develops philosophically via the Stoics and their predecessors, a definition emerges of happiness as living in harmony with divine intentions by being virtuous. With the Socratic dialogues, we indeed encounter the sense that living virtuously and therefore wisely will induce the well-being of eudaimonic happiness. Given the lack of direct reference by Plato to the term “eudaimonia,” there is often concern among commentators (Bobonich 2010; White 2002) regarding where Socrates commits unequivocally to what we interpret to be eudaimonia. What we can however find via Socrates’ commentaries is the firm belief that our happiness manifests with and as virtuous orientations. In the Apology Socrates defines virtue as the necessary and sufficient condition to fulfilling the “greatest good” of happiness. That attending to virtue is the chief good is apparent in how conversely for Socrates “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 2002, 37e). This

80 

W. JOHNCOCK

kind of theme is present in other works such as the Meno, where Socrates explains how happiness is a wise and virtuous existence (Plato 1980, 88c–d). Just as the link between virtue and happiness becomes a central Stoic position, there are further features of Socratic/Platonic happiness that would re-emerge in Stoicism. One such feature is the distinction between pleasure and happiness. In Plato’s The Symposium we see a dissimilarity identified between the pleasure derived from wealth versus the happiness that being wise generates. Apollodorus tells his companions who are “rich money-makers” that he “feels sorry” for them “because you think you are achieving something when you are achieving nothing” (Plato 2008b, 173d). By instead now associating with Socrates, Apollodorus describes the happiness that manifests through being virtuous and wise (173a). Plato’s Republic also conceives of an inherent commonality between happiness and virtue. This notably appears in Book IV via an interpretation that the soul is divided into three parts. We will examine this division more comprehensively in Chap. 12. For our current purposes, it suffices to familiarize ourselves with the basic principle that the Platonic soul comprises the parts (faculties) of reason/logic, spirit, and appetite. Happiness is the virtuous or “just” application of these parts/faculties. Justness or justice here involves being “led” by our rational faculty but crucially also requires that each faculty should attend to the functions for which only it is designed. Plato defines this divided but interrelated function in terms of a soul’s “harmony” and draws an analogy with a supposedly harmonious division of functions between classes of people in a city state. Justice in Plato’s conception is not exclusively concerned with whether our acts toward others are just (Plato 2012, 4.441e–442d). Rather to be just marks one’s internal harmony (443c–d). Given how this harmony constitutes a virtue-happiness, Richard Parry observes that for Plato being just “is in one’s own best interest” (Parry 1996, 31). The point of this brief sketch of Socratic and Platonic positions is to identify the ancient link between happiness and virtue that the Stoics develop. A specific relevance for this chapter’s discussion regarding happiness for the Stoics and Spencer goes beyond Socrates and Plato however, to incorporate the later conception of Aristotle. My interest here concerns Aristotle’s focus on the role of virtuous activity in eudaimonia. Virtuous activity is undeniably also integral to Socratic and Platonic positions regarding happiness. It is however the emphasis that Aristotle places on what is internal about happiness’ enacted virtue, while also requiring and

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

81

involving external goods, that situates his view uniquely in relation to the Stoic model. In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle posits virtuously active conditions for happiness, whereby for him and “those who identify happiness with virtue … our account is in harmony” (Aristotle 2004, 1.8). Just as all things in the world have their respective functions, this virtuous activity manifests from our human function which is to have a rational nature; “the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle” (1.7). Our rational function can be involved in many of our ends. Aristotle though distinguishes for special attention rationality’s relationship to the end that is happiness. While other ends serve subsequent purposes in that an end is often done for the sake of another end, only happiness “is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else” (1.7). From this distinction, Aristotle describes rationalized happiness as the “final end,” “chief good,” and “self-sufficient.” To this extent, Aristotle’s account of happiness sounds quite Stoic and Socratic. Where the Stoics will diverge from Aristotle concerns the relationship of happiness to what is external to us. As we have encountered, Stoic reason and the associated happiness depend only on internalized functions and “goods.” The Stoic subjectivity is indifferent to externals. Less exclusively Aristotle involves in our happiness not only goods of the internal soul but also those of the body (health) and of externals. This differentiates not only Aristotelian and Stoic positions but also Aristotelian and Socratic positions. Unlike for Socrates and the Stoics, in Aristotle’s world virtue is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for happiness. Virtuous orientations are fundamental to happiness in the Aristotelian model. External goods such as friendships, having children, or being aesthetically attractive cannot in themselves engender happiness. He does not however see how we could be happy if some externals were not involved in our lives. Happiness as an overall activity “needs external goods as well” (1.8). Aristotle carefully qualifies this inclusion by reminding us that our activity should never target externals. Nor indeed should our activity target happiness in order to attain other subjective states or experiences in our lives. Happiness instead simply has its preconditions in our acting rationally and virtuously, duly marking it as “the end of action” (1.7). On this final point regarding happiness’ inherent presence in rationally oriented structures, the Stoics and Aristotle evidently cohere. Interestingly for Spencer, happiness is an end that should also be prefigured into our actions. In his thesis though,  such actions will emerge from  the

82 

W. JOHNCOCK

“appropriate” and rational functioning of social structures. This function and not happiness needs to be the focus in Spencer’s view (much like how for the Stoics and other ancients the focus is our rational function). If these functions are “appropriate” to our individual and collective development, then for Spencer “the method of culture pursued shall be one productive of an intrinsically happy activity” (Spencer 1861, 163). The similarity with the preceding ancient conception of achieving happiness not by focusing on happiness itself is striking. Appropriate actions facilitate the primary end of self-preservation and therefore of happiness for the Stoics. Likewise for Spencer, appropriate social structures facilitate happiness. Spencer’s just-encountered reference furthermore to the “activity” of happiness will become increasingly important as we progressively examine how he links this happiness to self-preservation. The problem for the Stoics with targeting happiness rather than fulfilling an inherently happiness-inducing activity is that happiness can be problematically interpreted merely as a precursor to pleasure. Happiness as an end is in the Stoic account forwarded by Cato and Cicero, as well as in the material that we have reviewed from Chrysippus’ On Ends, a matter of self-preservation rather than of pleasure. In responding to the Epicurean correlation between happiness and pleasure, Cato affirms the contrary Stoic view that happiness as a natural end is not reducible to “pleasure.” Because happiness is a natural end, its mode in each subjective “instinct does not seek pleasure” (Cicero 1914, 2.11, 33). As we have seen, the Stoic belief that virtue is the necessary and sufficient condition of happiness is evidently drawn from Socrates. What we should now consider is that this Stoic distinction between pleasure and happiness also has its roots in Socratic perspectives. In the Gorgias Socrates determines that because what is good and bad is not the same as what is pleasurable or painful, goods and pleasures must be distinct. We can experience a good that is not necessarily pleasurable and vice versa (Plato 1864, 497c.52–53). Similarly in the Phaedo Socrates notes that the soul is “happy having rid itself of” bodily pollutants such as “physical desires and pleasures” (Plato 1977, 81a).11 Socrates presents us with a conception of the soul that is “divine and wise.” The soul here is the “happiest” of all when it practices a “virtue” that enacts a state beyond pleasure (82a). We can also note that for Spencer happiness is not simply the pleasurable feeling that is associated with it. Happiness rather consists in the aforementioned “appropriate” structuring of life which exercises one’s

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

83

natural or “essential activities” as completely as possible. The experience of an “essential activity”—a term to be defined in a moment—will not, for Spencer, make “one happy in virtue of extrinsic rewards to be obtained” (where pleasure is one such extrinsic reward). The undertaking of the activity is instead itself infused with happiness “in virtue of its own healthfulness” (Spencer 1861, 163–164; author’s original emphasis). In expanding his definition of happiness to include what manifests through an activity’s self-sufficient requirements and outcomes, Spencer’s social theory radiates an increasing number of Stoic mantras. The issue of what comprises for humans an essential activity is central to Spencer’s reading of self-preservation. In Spencer’s words if we are to understand the relevance of activities (including those found in educational structures) to our lives, the “first step must obviously be to classify, in the order of their importance, the leading kinds of activity which constitute human life” (17–18). Quite contextually for this chapter’s inquiry, Spencer defines the most primary of these “leading kinds of” or “essential” activities as those which are self-preserving. Here he evokes of course the earlier Stoic recognition of self-preservation as the primary end for any living creature (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 16). Unlike the Stoics Spencer restricts his definition of self-preservation to humans (as is typical of much social theory). His prioritization nevertheless of “those activities which directly minister to self-preservation” (Spencer 1861, 18) highlights how his connection between education, happiness, and self-preservation intersects with the Stoic hierarchization of preservation. Attending to what is essential about self-preservation for both Spencer and the Stoics will help us to explore common elements between their perspectives regarding why we incline toward being self-preserving.

An Innately Ongoing Education We can recall that there is something naturally innate about the tendency toward self-preservation for the early Stoics. The evidence presented for this argument emerged in Cicero’s discussion with Cato. The Stoics observe infants as having no experience with destructive things yet nonetheless they exhibit a natural aversion to such things (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 16). I find it noteworthy then that similarly in Spencer’s reading of the inherently self-preserving character of humans he describes how self-­ preserving tendencies are identifiable in infants. For Spencer, when an infant hides its face and cries at the sight of a stranger, it shows “the

84 

W. JOHNCOCK

dawning instinct to attain safety by flying from that which is unknown and may be dangerous” (Spencer 1861, 24). This consistency between ancient and modern positions is further apparent in the portrayal of our natural “acquisition” of the self-­preserving tendency. We have reviewed via Cicero and Cato that what is innately self-­ preserving about our actions for the Stoics is attributable to the derivation of such actions from a faculty with which we are born; the “primary impulses of nature” (Cicero 1914, 3.6, 20). While we develop self-­ preserving habits, we do not have to go out of our way to initially acquire the propensity for self-affection (3.5, 16). It is in-built upon birth. Spencer arrives at a similar conclusion that we do not carry the burden of ever having to be proactively self-preserving. Instead, in his thesis such a direction is our natural constitution. This pleases Spencer considerably: Happily, that all-important part of education which goes to secure direct self-preservation, is in great part already provided for. Too momentous to be left to our blundering, Nature takes it into her own hands. (Spencer 1861, 24)

Spencer also shares commonalities with the Stoic presentation of the developmental capacity of our self-preserving apparatus. We acquire the knowledge of what constitutes our self-preservation in greater detail as we grow older for Spencer. Our continual navigations to avoid “death or accident” (25) are attributed to the fact that education is an “ever learning” process. So inherent is this impulse in us and “so well cared for by Nature” (25) that we do not need to give its ongoing development much attention. Our developing drive of self-preservation as a “fundamental education” instead perpetuates by default. This for Spencer marks self-preservation as an education that is intrinsic to life and that requires “comparatively little care” (25). Self-preservation is hierarchized in Spencer’s theory—as it is in Cato’s and Chrysippus’ Stoic accounts—as our naturally primary and directly essential activity. There are nonetheless also indirect activities recognized by Spencer to which our education is “naturally directed.” These include the activities by which we receive a wage, attend to family responsibilities, maintain social and political relations, and engage in leisure. In acknowledging a hierarchical order for these activities Spencer broadens the definition of education’s duty to posit that the “ideal of education should be one’s complete preparation in all these divisions” (21). Education here

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

85

takes on a more pragmatically socialized character, reflecting what is necessary to acquire the skills and sustenance of collective life. Correlations of self-preservation with our literal physiological survival emerge from this. Spencer reminds us that the knowledge acquired from education that is the most valuable or of “primary importance” is that which directly serves our ongoing physical preservation. The imperative here for Spencer is that through this knowledge we can prevent our “loss of health” or life (30). We must be careful with how straightforwardly we compare this loss of health or life in Spencer’s definition of self-preservation to Cicero’s perspectives on the Stoics. This is because for Cicero sometimes death might ironically serve the Stoic purposes of self-preservation more thoroughly than remaining apparently healthily alive. Even suicide can be a self-­ preserving action in the ancient account if it maintains our identity and subjectivity. Suicide in this context counters what is unhealthy in his estimations about remaining alive and changing “falsely.”12 As Cicero notes in On Duties it is a moral imperative that each citizen lives according to their natural, “individual endowments,” whereby everybody “must hold fast to his own peculiar gifts” and “follow the bent of our own particular nature” (Cicero 1928, 1.31, 110). To conversely try to be someone that “one is not” would not be to live in accordance with one’s nature, Cicero clarifying that “it is of no avail to fight against one’s nature or to aim at what is impossible of attainment” (1.31, 110). That nothing is “proper that ‘goes against the grain’” is for Cicero’s perspective on self-preservation an indication that sustaining a life of “uniform consistency” is essential to maintaining our “propriety” (1.31, 111). The particularities of each of our life’s natural proprieties mean that the course that is appropriate for one person might be the incorrect course for another. Richard Sorabji consequently notes that while Cicero declares that suicide was a self-preserving mechanism for Cato’s situation, this does not mean that it would have been “right for anyone else in the same circumstances” (Sorabji 2006, 45). Such a characterization holds true for Cicero even if numerous individuals live in the same environment or circumstances. We have encountered in preceding chapters that this heralds the Stoic sense of the internal mastery of each individual self or nature. This control occurs in resilience to circumstantial, external, and environmental forces. As a consequence, when Cicero turns to the topic of suicide and in particular the suicide of Cato, he identifies not a “loss” but the Stoic exemplification of a subject’s self-preservation.13 If conversely Cato had surrendered to the tyranny that was challenging his subjectivity and

86 

W. JOHNCOCK

had not maintained what Cicero just described as a “uniform consistency of self,” Cato would no longer have been living in accordance with his nature14: …suicide may be for one man a duty, for another [under the same circumstance] a crime. Did Marcus Cato find himself in one predicament, and were the others, who surrendered to Caesar in Africa, in another? … Cato had been endowed by nature with an austerity beyond belief, and he himself had strengthened it by unswerving consistency and had remained ever true to his purpose and fixed resolve; and it was for him to die rather than to look upon the face of a tyrant. (Cicero 1928, 1.31, 112)

For Spencer somewhat differently, the design of educational institutions should ensure our actual ongoing physical existence and well-being. For the Stoics self-preservation relates to our knowledge of who we each are. Seemingly conversely for Spencer knowledge is a tool that we can use to self-preserve in terms of sheer survival. As we will now consider though, part of the purpose of this knowledge for Spencer is also to familiarize ourselves with our true nature.

Knowledge Is Self-Preserving In considering which of the knowledge transmitted through educational structures is most directly self-preserving, Spencer prioritizes those found in the sciences. This is an economically pragmatic position to take in one regard. Spencer here integrates the assertion that aside from only “a very small number of classes” all men are “employed in the production, preparation, and distribution of commodities” (Spencer 1861, 32). The individual’s capacity to remain employed in such roles depends on an “adequate knowledge of their physical, chemical, or vital properties … that is, depends on Science” (32). Spencer even includes those working in the “Science of Society” as students and practitioners of “social science” (40) in this collective impulse toward a scientifically inclined state of knowledge. Spencer complements this pragmatic insight with a more ideological justification of the prioritization of scientific knowledge for human self-­ preservation. This concerns what he believes is the timelessly true character of scientific results, in that “the truths of Science in general, are of intrinsic value, they will bear on human conduct ten thousand years hence as they do now” (23). The intrinsic value of scientific knowledge becomes

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

87

apparent when comparing it to what he interprets is the contingent character of the knowledge of languages. This latter  knowledge for him is “quasi-intrinsic” truth that will “only last as long as the languages last” (23). Language is accordingly for Spencer what requires “memory” (83) whereas science solicits an individual’s “understanding” (83). The assertion that scientific knowledge contains timelessly useful truths or aptitudes is contentious. Most, if not all, sciences incorporate a developmental ethos in which their own theories supersede their previous theories. Despite this, we can use the point from Spencer here that there is something “intrinsic” (as he describes it) to our nature about our scientific inquiry of nature. The desire for scientifically engendered facts about the world connects human endeavor to its natural conditions. There is a symmetry that I identify consequently between Spencer’s hierarchization of natural human inclinations toward scientific knowledge, and Cato’s impression that for the Stoics any desire or impulse that is in accordance with nature is worthwhile for its own sake (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 18). For Spencer scientific knowledge is intrinsically valuable in its own right given its role in understanding our own nature. Likewise as Cato recounts of the “system of Zeno and the Stoics” to which he subscribes, knowledge derived from “the sciences … are things to be chosen for their own sake” (3.5, 18). This presents the early Stoic view that nature has bestowed the sciences because “they contain an element of fact established by methodical reasoning” (3.5, 18).15 Scientific perspectives are here grounded in reason and rationality and therefore are directed toward natural ends. The Stoic equation of a worldly intrinsic or rational knowledge with a knowledge justified for its own sake asserts that such knowledge represents a natural end. Through “acts of cognition” oriented toward such knowledge the Stoics say we execute natural acts (3.5, 18). If, contrarily, we stray from a cognitive method, we also stray, according to Cato’s account, from our natural reasoning. The result of such adverse circumstances for the Stoics is that we assent to what is not factual. Cato’s response to Cicero’s account of erroneous assent concludes that the “mental assent to what is false, as the Stoics believe, is more repugnant to us than all the other things that are contrary to nature” (3.5, 18; my emphasis). This relates to what Long describes in the context of other Stoics such as Epictetus as the generally “exacting standards the Stoics expected scientific knowledge to satisfy” (Long 2002, 151). We have

88 

W. JOHNCOCK

already established that for the Stoics it is maintaining a life in accordance with nature that serves self-preservation. I hope to have opened a possible appreciation that both the positions presented by early Stoicism and by Spencer share the belief in an inherent connection between (1) knowledge and (2) self-preservation as a natural end. This connection for both eras is an instinctive impulse toward aspects of the world with which an (infant) individual does not have experience. Of course the Stoics explain this by a universal rational nature sourced from God. We have seen that God infuses us with reason, whereby if we self-preserve we are fulfilling the Stoic God’s intention to live according to our nature. Fascinatingly the conceptual alignment of God with notions of self-preservation is also a significant part of the discussion for Spencer. We see this in the correlations that he opens between science and religion. Such a comparison can be surprising if this is your initial encounter with it. Spencer is adamant that comparing science and religion is possible and indeed necessary in terms of a theory of self-preservation. This is only the case though if both domains are liberated from their “ordinary, limited” definitions and the “superstitions that pass under the name of religion” (Spencer 1861, 85–86). Equally the portrayal of science as an “irreligion” (86) is incorrect says Spencer, instead asserting that it is the neglect of science that is irreligious (86). This is quite a curious development from a modern perspective in which science and religion have been increasingly polarized. From our present-day angle, we might duly ask how a theorist so concerned with prioritizing scientific knowledge can reduce its methodological provability to the faith embedded in religious ends. We will discuss a variation of this theme in Chap. 7 in considering how uncomfortable certain modern Stoic scholars are with retaining the pantheistic rationality of Stoicism in an era dominated by scientific reason. Scientific ignorance is religious ignorance in Spencer’s view because it represents an individual’s “refusal to study the surrounding creation” (86). What we see here for Spencer is a correlation between an interest in our natural environment and our consequent drive for the primary end of self-preservation. By attending to the things of the universe scientifically we exemplify an interest in the “Universe and its Cause” (87). This connects us to, rather than alienates us from, God. An interest in the cause of the universe (theological or not) also intrinsically symbolizes for Spencer an interest in knowing our own, natural origins, and what we might call the “mysteries of existence” (88). Spencer portrays any consequent knowledge gained as that which could only serve self-preservation. This he believes should be the interpretation of science even from a religious

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

89

perspective. Scientific understandings of physical phenomena potentially prevent the inadvertent physiological demise of any individual. I also interpret that if the religious individual ignored scientific enquiry entirely Spencer could view this as representative of a certain irreligious recklessness toward preserving a life that God had created. While we are not to fear the transience of earthly life, as I read Spencer a human of good faith should nevertheless embrace any capacities that a created existence affords them. The desire and acquisition of a greater knowledge of our existential conditions represents a self-preserving direction for Spencer’s social theory. There is a certain parallel that I draw here with Cicero’s recounting of how for the Stoics an impulse toward our self-preserving ends engenders a “wisdom [that] is the guardian and protectress” (Cicero 1914, 4.7, 17). This wisdom neglects no sides of the individual by incorporating a “complete” education that comprises cognitive, bodily, and scientific ends that are worth acquiring for our self-preservation and therefore for their own sake (3.5, 18). Wisdom in this view is not simply instrumental to saving a natural life but is an ultimate end of life as nature. The guardian as nature-­ wisdom preserves a life that is lived in accordance with it. With this characterization, we might indeed recall Epictetus’ daimon as encountered in this book’s second chapter. Cicero points toward a common nature that binds all individual natures. As seen earlier in Cicero’s On Duties, the self-preserving impulse toward one’s individual nature is concurrently a service toward a collegial end-nature. We have reviewed the early Stoic inspiration for this natural collegiality in Cicero’s statement that “the interest of society is the interest of the individual” (Cicero 1928, 3.6, 27). Indeed, in Cicero’s account, for the Stoics we embody this interest from birth. Equally for Spencer an individual’s “tacit worship” of the “Universal Power of Nature” (Spencer 1861, 87–88) answers not simply to the specific needs of one’s own self-preservation but also to that which “concerns all mankind for all time” (91). Cicero’s and Cato’s Stoic impressions of the concurrent inclination toward benefiting our own natural ends and the human fellowship on which individual preservation is dependent is mirrored, I argue, in Spencer’s sense of self-preservation as that which services a body politic. Spencer identifies widespread scientific knowledge as the natural end or the “indispensable key” (90) for a broader, collective prosperity. Every individual as a collegial condition of such prosperity incorporates a “collective, national life, past and present, without which they cannot rightly regulate their conduct” (90).

90 

W. JOHNCOCK

This self-preserving knowledge and regulation around one’s conduct that serves a broader good is for the Stoics and for Spencer a rational orientation. As we have seen in Chap. 2, the correlation of nature with rationality is the Stoic convention. Cato’s description is of a self-preserving hormé that impulses toward a particular and a common end via decisions and actions that are “fully rationalized and in harmony with nature” (Cicero 1914, 3.6, 20; my emphasis). This perspective on the harmonious rationality of our self-preserving end is drawing from what for Cicero’s era were recently past and current generations of Stoic thinkers for whom the rationality of nature was not in question. Spencer’s description of science as self-preserving knowledge likewise indicates a natural rationality or inclination. He states when pondering the mysteries of the self’s existence that this natural end of “science familiarizes with rational relations” (Spencer 1861, 83; my emphasis). That his examination of the self-preserving roles played by political and educational structures defines the scientific elements as rational is not that surprising. Characterizations of science’s rationality are the norm (as we discuss in the next chapter). What is noteworthy though is that Spencer goes to relatively “Stoic lengths” to accommodate our natural inclinations with this kind of rationality. Such a perspective does not restrict scientific rationality to a culturally developed technique used to uncover nature’s truth. This scientific outlook is instead the self-preserving truth of our collective nature. These collegially minded rationalizations of self-preservation found in early Stoicism and in Spencer address what commonly and naturally binds all individuals. The question of why you care about yourself is in this regard as much concerned with the prevention of your own annihilation as it is an exemplification of your innate duty to a nature from which you have manifested. In such a guise, every human’s knowledge about their own preservation expresses how their subjectivity is situated universally.

Notes 1. Sigmund Freud articulates this belief in “the immutable biological fact that the living individual serves two purposes, self-preservation and the preservation of the species … Here … we are studying the psychological concomitants of biological processes” (Freud 1949 (1933), 124–125). Numerous accounts forward these dual foci of self-preservation (MacLean 1959; Pearce 1987; Buck 2002). Research also shows that plants not only self-preserve but also help fellow plants of their species survive by reserving access to subterranean nutrients (Dudley and Fine 2007).

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

91

2. Not all individual creatures prefer their continued existence. Suicide occurs in humans and indeed in other species (Crawley et al. 1985). Suicide does not contradict the assertion though that individual members of a species generally have an aptitude for their survival. A Durkheimian interpretation from our preceding chapter might argue that because suicide is as much a collective phenomenon as it is an individual phenomenon (Durkheim 1952 [1897]), suicidal acts are part of a species “code.” We can grant this while remembering that suicide is not a statistically dominant behavior. 3. The consistency among Stoic thinkers across eras regarding self-preservation is noted by Diskin Clay in the “Introduction” to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Clay explains that while “the Stoics themselves were not united on every matter of doctrine … they were in their conception of … a divinely established hierarchy” (Clay in Marcus Aurelius 1964, xxvi). This hierarchy (that we will review elsewhere in this book) positions inanimate objects at its base, whereas humans are situated nearer the top, just below the “supreme rationality of the divine” (xxvi). This informs considerations of self-­preservation. Clay reports the Stoic belief that as with “any animal” positioned higher in this hierarchy, “the human animal as it develops gains a sense of itself … that is, a manifestation of its instinct for self-­ preservation” (xxvi). 4. Ingo Gildenhard (2011) provides one of the more fascinating analyses of this characterization of Cicero. Gildenhard not only gives a historical account of Cicero’s reputation as an eloquent orator but also critically examines how such speeches engage crucial features of human experience. 5. See Cicero’s Academica (On Academic Skepticism) for a similar description (Cicero 1967b, 2.8, 24). 6. We use the moniker Cato the Younger (formally known as Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis) to distinguish him from his great-grandfather, the famous Roman senator and historian Cato the Elder. Cato the Younger was himself a politician in a later era of the Roman Empire and an advocate of Stoic philosophy. See Geiger (1979) for an account of Cato the Younger’s political and philosophical legacies. 7. See also Long’s explanation that this sense of appropriation invokes the Greek term oikeiôsis, which in its Stoic use “primarily refers to a process or activity, innate in all animals, which explains why, from the moment of birth, they behave in self-regarding ways” (Long 1999, 352). 8. Links between Aristotelian and Stoic positions are common (as we see throughout this book). Xenocrates and early Stoicism are potentially connected however by a report that Zeno attended the lectures of ­ Xenocrates. This information is not certain though, coming as it does from Diogenes Laërtius’ possibly unreliable account of Zeno’s student life (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.3).

92 

W. JOHNCOCK

9. After having read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (2008 [1859]), Spencer recoins Darwin’s evolutionary theory of natural selection as the “survival of the fittest” (Spencer 1864, 444–445). 10. Social Darwinism has a relatively contentious history as the integration of the evolutionary theory of biological selection to human, social settings. Peter Bowler argues that the “term ‘Darwinism’ has come to be regarded as virtually synonymous with evolutionism” (Bowler 1989, 188). In social analysis it has been employed most familiarly to explain the plights of the poorer classes during early industrialized eras, by attempting to “justify the competitive ethos of Victorian capitalism in terms of the struggle for existence” (286). One critical concern about this is that Darwin’s theory encourages an “aggressive individualism” (Harris 1968). An alternative critique is that Darwin counters theories of individualism through his considerations of how a species collectively adapts (Greene 1977). Social Darwinism in its more extreme version argues for a laissez-faire economic policy that allows free competition in capitalist markets. This requires removing state interference from the lives of individuals. The prosperity or adversity experienced by each citizen is then attributable to the species’ evolutionarily developed abilities in those citizens. A collective progress is envisaged accordingly in which the fittest individuals become dominant and carry social development. In Spencer’s works spanning the early Social Statics (1883) through to the later, provocatively titled The Man Versus the State (1969), we find this sense of human evolution being inherently tied to socialized and economic developments. 11. Plato’s Timaeus offers one reference of how souls are initially “implanted” into bodies (Plato 2008a, 42a). 12. Timothy Marquis notes how this position evokes the belief which becomes apparent in the Roman period that it is appropriate for a citizen to “discern how his character best fits his persona—a sort of naturalized view of his social role” (Marquis 2013, 64; author’s original emphasis). Speaking to later considerations in this chapter around the justification of suicide to preserve one’s “persona,” Marquis indicates that “philosophical notions of persona grounded discussions of suicide in the late Roman Republic and early Empire” (64; author’s original emphasis). 13. Diogenes Laërtius also recognizes that if circumstances demand it, for the Stoics a “wise man will commit a well-reasoned suicide both on behalf of his country and on behalf of his friends” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.757, in L&S, 425). 14. Marcus Aurelius qualifies the notion of maintaining one’s sense of self at all costs with a reminder that we should avoid clinging to a life not lived in accordance with nature. To doggedly “continue the same man as you have been up to now, to be torn apart and defiled in this life you live, is just

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

93

senseless self-preservation like that of half-eaten gladiators who, mauled all over and covered in blood by the wild beasts, still plead to be kept alive” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 10.2). 15. Despite this apparent similarity, we must be cautious here. John Sellars notes that while there is no real distinction for the Stoics between “knowledge and wisdom” (Sellars 2009, 171), there are nevertheless two distinguishable forms of knowledge. Rational knowledge is occupied with “practical wisdom” (171). Technical knowledge conversely concerns theoretical expertise. In my estimation, scientific knowledge traverses both forms by being concerned with practical approaches to existence and with disciplinary specific intelligences. This dual reading could seemingly be accommodated within Sellars’ impression that Stoic technical knowledge “do[es] not reject” rational knowledge but “incorporate[s]” it (171).

References Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2007. Ethics in Stoic Philosophy. Phronesis 52 (1): 58–87. Aristotle. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and New York: Penguin. Becker, Lawrence. 1998. A New Stoicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bobonich, Christopher. 2010. Socrates and Eudaimonia. In The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, ed. Donald Morrison, 293–332. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bowler, Peter. 1989. Evolution: The History of an Idea. Berkeley; Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Brennan, Tad. 2005. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Buck, Ross. 2002. The Genetics and Biology of True Love: Prosocial Biological Affects and the Left Hemisphere. Psychological Review 109 (4): 739–744. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1914. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil). Translated by Harris Rackham. London and New York: William Heinemann and The Macmillan Company. ———. 1928. De Officiis (On Duties). Translated by Walter Miller. London and New York: William Heinemann Ltd. and G.P. Putnam’s Sons. ———. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1967b. Academica (On Academic Skepticism). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann.

94 

W. JOHNCOCK

———. 1991. In De Officiis (On Duties), ed. M. Griffin and E. Atkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crawley, Jacqueline, Mary Sutton, and David Pickar. 1985. Animal Models of Self-­ Destructive Behavior and Suicide. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 8 (2): 299–310. Darwin, Charles. 2008 (1859). On the Origin of the Species. Edited by Gillian Beer. New York: Oxford University Press. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Dudley, Susan, and Amanda Fine. 2007. Kin Recognition in an Annual Plant. Biology Letters 22 (3–4): 435–438. Durkheim, Émile. 1952 (1897). Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Edited by George Simpson. Translated by John Spaulding and George Simpson. London and New York: Routledge. Evans, Jules. 2014. The Stoic Mayor. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 87–93. CreateSpace. Freud, Sigmund. 1949 (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press. Geiger, Joseph. 1979. Munatius Rufus and Thrasea Paetus on Cato the Younger. Athenaeum 57: 48–72. Gildenhard, Ingo. 2011. Creative Eloquence: The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graver, Margaret. 2007. Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Greene, John. 1977. Darwin as a Social Evolutionist. Journal of the History of Biology 10: 1–27. Harris, Martin. 1968. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Hesiod. 1982. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Translated by Hugh Evelyn-­ White. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hierocles. 2009. Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts. Edited by Ilaria Ramelli. Translated by Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Inwood, Brad, and Pierluigi Donini. 1999. Stoic Ethics. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 675–738. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irvine, William. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jedan, Christoph. 2009. Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics. London and New York: Continuum. Long, Anthony. 1968. The Stoic Concept of Evil. Philosophical Quarterly 18 (73): 329–343.

4  WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 

95

———. 1999. Stoic Psychology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 560–584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maclean, Paul. 1959. The Limbic System with Respect to Self-Preservation and the Preservation of the Species. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 127 (1): 1–11. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. Marquis, Timothy. 2013. Transient Apostle: Paul, Travel, and the Rhetoric of Empire. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Parry, Richard. 1996. Morality and Happiness: Book IV of Plato’s Republic. The Journal of Education 178 (3): 31–47. Pearce, David. 1987. Foundations of an Ecological Economics. Ecological Modelling 38 (1–2): 9–18. Plato. 1864. Plato’s Gorgias. Translated by E.M.  Cope. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co. ———. 1977. Phaedo. Translated by George Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 1980. Meno. Translated by George Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2002. Apology. In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Translated by George M.A.  Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2008a. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2008b. The Symposium. Edited by M.C. Howatson and Frisbee Sheffield. Translated by M.C.  Howatson. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2011. Authority and Agency in Stoicism. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51: 296–322. Robertson, Donald. 2010. The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books. Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (Second Edition). London; New Delhi; New  York; Sydney: Bloomsbury.

96 

W. JOHNCOCK

Sorabji, Richard. 2006. Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. Chicago and Oxford: The University of Chicago Press. Spencer, Herbert. 1861. Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical. New York: A.L. Burt Company Publishers. ———. 1864. The Principles of Biology: Volume 1. Edinburgh and London: Williams and Norgate. ———. 1883. Social Statics: Or the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and One of Them Adopted. New York: D. Appleton and Company. ———. 1969. The Man Versus the State. Edited by Donald Macrae. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ———. 1981. The Proper Sphere of Government. In The Man Versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack, 181–264. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics. Stephens, William. 2007. Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. London: Continuum. White, Nicholas. 2002. Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

PART II

Knowledges and Epistemologies

CHAPTER 5

Do Preconceptions Determine New Knowledge? Epictetus and Max Weber on Truth

Skeptical Concerns We evaluate certain kinds of facts according to how scientific the processes are that bring them to us. Our confidence in the knowledge we have of a physically causal world, for example, shares a relationship with the perceived scientific status of the associated facts. Even where there are competing scientific perspectives, a belief pervades that science targets and approaches something timelessly true about the feature of the world in question.1 This point relates to the prevalence of the phrase “scientifically proven.” We see it in contexts as varied as discussions about an impending climate change catastrophe and advertising terminology that endorses vitamin supplements. When the facts that manifest from a scientific study are characterized as “objective,” the parameters of “falsifiability”2 and its experimental associate “repeatability”3 are typically involved. Take as an example where science analyzes multiple instances of the same type of rock. If by using the same experimental procedure on each rock we determine that they all have exactly the same density, we begin to believe that we have knowledge about the density of that type of rock. As the same results arise from repeated experiments in various laboratories so a certainty develops that we know that rock’s density. Notions of objective knowledge here manifest through what is replicable about an experimental process. The exclusion of the contingently subjective or idiosyncratic qualities of the experimenter or observer from the © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_5

99

100 

W. JOHNCOCK

scientific process is crucial. This interpretation demands that to directly and objectively access an aspect of the world (such as the rock) individual contingencies must not interfere.4 The facts that are presented will then supposedly be true for every instance of that aspect of the world (every one of those rocks). This avoids restricting facts to only being true for the localized specificities of a particular experiment. I have a concern with much of the preceding discussion. This is because we must take into consideration that a certain value-orientation will navigate any knowledge that we derive from the world. By this I mean that what an individual or a society considers to be important or worth investigating will in some manner inform why that scientific study occurs. This is self-evident. What arises from this straightforward point though is a more complicated consideration; could this value-orientation also be internal to the results derived from the study? If so, if our consequent knowledge is value-oriented, what does this mean for its possible objectivity? What indeed is “objectivity” in the context of knowledge? Knowledge does not typically arrive completely unexpectedly. Humans anticipate knowledge, for example, through the premises and hypotheses via which scientific processes are initially shaped. Our question now is whether subjective and collective value-orientations conflict with the just-­ reviewed presiding impression of scientific factuality. If our premises anticipate the composition of knowledge, do we only find truths which match those anticipations? Our premises certainly will lead our knowledge developments in certain ways and not others. That is not necessarily a problem. What is open for debate though is what this preconceptual orientation says about the objectivity of our knowledge. If our knowledge is contingent on preconceptions of the knowledge that manifest, does this make that knowledge less certain? Stoic philosophy explores these questions regarding the development of knowledge from the basis of preconceptions. Epictetus’ position on the conditions of knowledge is especially relevant here. To contextualize Epictetus’ position we must also involve the critique of Stoic knowledge claims from Sextus Empiricus. As a “Pyrrhonian skeptic,” Sextus symbolizes a group of thinkers who attend to the role that our pre-existing judgments play when experiencing and evaluating the world. One intention of the skeptical method is to help prevent preceding beliefs from incorrectly conditioning our subsequent claims of knowledge. Given how ever-­ present this concern should be, in Outlines of Pyrrhonism Sextus defines the enactment of this skeptical outlook as a “doctrinal rule” (Sextus

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

101

Empiricus 1933, 1.8, 16–17). The translation of the same section of this text by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes interprets that for Sextus “scepticism” is not just a rule. Skepticism is in fact an “ability” that is enacted by those who “coherently follow” a “correct persuasion” (Sextus Empiricus 2000, 1.8, 16–17). What is this “correct persuasion”? Along the just-­ mentioned lines of reflecting on the judgments that condition knowledge claims, this persuasion is where humans “set out oppositions among things which appear and are thought of in any way at all” (1.8, 4). By appreciating any oppositions or conflicts between our impressions of an aspect of the world, for the skeptic we “suspend belief” (1.8, 4) in our knowledge of that aspect. Sextus’ skepticism does not refute the notion of knowledge. It instead demands that we should not defer unconditionally to perceptual and empirical foundations for knowledge. Christopher Gill summarizes Pyrrhonist skepticism accordingly as searching for truth about the world but feeling “prevented from determining what is true by the conflicting appearances that the world presents” (Gill 2006, 393). What Sextus (and skepticism generally in this mode) denies is that what we observe, scientifically or otherwise, can be trusted enough to constitute “knowledge.” Sextus’ Against the Logicians (2005) explains his position by comparing it to the alternative justification for knowledge production that is held by Stoics such as Epictetus. Sextus’ imperative is to highlight the pre-existing conditions via which we acquire knowledge. This responds to the Stoic principle that preconceptions are a prerequisite of any investigation. Sextus evidently agrees with the Stoics that “when anything is being investigated, a prior notion (preconception) and conception has to come first” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 2.331a). His assertion here is that in encountering an object we never experience that object blindly or neutrally. Our experience with it instead develops through a web of related preconceptions. In mirroring aspects of the question from this chapter’s introduction regarding the anticipations of premises that condition scientific inquiry, Sextus asks: “how can anyone investigate if he has no conception of the object being investigated?” (2.331a).5 Acknowledging that preconceptions condition such investigations is a rudimentary point for Sextus. As I have earlier relatedly indicated, it is self-­ evident that we will investigate aspects of the world that we already hold to be important. It is however through an awareness of this kind of point that Sextus posits we reveal a more complex problem. This problem is that

102 

W. JOHNCOCK

in negotiating our preconceptions about a consequent object of analysis we have no way to decide objectively which of those preconceptions warrants authority. How do we know which preconception trumps the others in terms of an object’s “truth?” It concerns Sextus that there is no self-evident correlation between a preconception and an object. When appraising an object our mind wanders in a preconceptual fog in which “we have many conceptions and preconceptions of it” (2.332a). This multiplicity of preconceptions compromises for Sextus the capacity of any of our preconceptions to reliably inform what we consider to be knowledge, “thanks to our being unable to discriminate these and find the preconception with the most authority” (2.332a). This is the point at which Sextus’ characterization of the conditioning role of preconceptions in the production of knowledge dramatically diverges from Epictetus’ position.

Education and Unimpeded Preconceptions Just prior to Sextus’ interrogation, Epictetus offers a later Stoic view on the preconceptual conditions for knowledge. This Stoic position sharply contrasts from the skeptical view. There are two basic elements that we need to appreciate regarding Epictetus’ perspective. Preconceptions firstly are universal or “common to all” humans. These are general ideas that nature affords us. We use these universal preconceptions and embody their associated assumptions when encountering and understanding the world around us. Epictetus argues that evidence of their universality is apparent in that: … who among us doesn’t assume that the good is beneficial and desirable, and that we should seek and pursue it in every circumstance? And who among us doesn’t assume that what is just is honourable and appropriate? (Epictetus 2014, 1.22, 1)

The second element of preconceptions for Epictetus is that contrary to Sextus’ view, nature has invested humans with the reason needed to discriminate between preconceptions. While nature invests this ability in us, what is innate for the Stoics here is not necessarily an in-built distinction between all preconceptions. Epictetus instead attributes the development of our capacity to discriminate between preconceptions to formal education and informal social instruction. We develop, or make what Anthony

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

103

Long describes as “far more precise” (Long in Epictetus 2004, 21), our capacities to judiciously apply preconceptions to particular objects and experiences. Even though this indicates a developmental process, for Epictetus the shaping of our preconceptual orientations still manifests from our rational natures that we have covered in Chap. 2. Via rationalized inclinations, we equip ourselves to draw distinctions about the world (Brennan 2005, 29–30; Gill 2003, 43–44; Jackson-McCabe 2005; Long 2002, 80). Our ongoing sense of how to apply preconceptions thus occurs in agreement with a natural tendency toward rational judgment. Education and our nature coincide for Epictetus, whereby “we have need of education, so as to be able to apply our preconceptions of what is reasonable and unreasonable to particular cases in accordance with nature” (Epictetus 2014, 1.2, 6). This “natural” directionality toward only applying the appropriate preconception to instances of new knowledge acquisition is inherent to our being a rational and philosophical creature for Epictetus. Nature impels us in this sense to be rational and to steer our choices in a manner that in other chapters we have seen Chrysippus describe as “appropriate.” This connection between rational judgment and our nature guides our discrimination between perceptions. If operating well this discrimination according to Epictetus should mean for us that “one preconception doesn’t contradict another” (1.22, 1). This argument does not convince Sextus, however. His opinion is that “differently educated” individuals (as in different philosophers) will have alternative conceptions about which preconception for any object of knowledge is the most “authoritative.” Such differentiation prevents knowledge that is “objective” collectively developing if consensus on the truth of any object is always preconceptually splintered. What especially bothers Sextus is the associated Stoic justification that the cognitive impression that follows from a preconception will meet the “criterion for truth … if it ‘has no obstacle’” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.253). We can trace this notion of unimpeded preconditions for knowledge to the earliest Stoic era of Zeno. For Zeno if a preconception is to develop into a reliable “cognitive impression” of a real object, the impression must have “clear and distinct” conditions (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 7.53, in L&S, 242). Cicero also reports that for Zeno and the immediately subsequent eras of the Stoic school, it is only by having this unimpeded clarity that the resulting impressions and cognitions “reveal their objects” (Cicero 1967b, 1.40–41).

104 

W. JOHNCOCK

We will later explore the intricacies of Zeno’s model regarding the links between “impressions” and knowledge. Of more immediate concern is the central issue that Sextus posits regarding a contradiction in this notion of a rationally discriminated preconception. In one regard Epictetus claims that we can trust preconceptions because their source is of a rational nature. In another regard however, the Stoic view as we have just noted is that such preconceptions can be potentially deceiving and act as “obstacles” to our impressions and consequent knowledge. For Sextus, this means that the resulting impression is “the criterion of truth not without qualification, but when it has no obstacle” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.257; my emphasis). Given that there is the possibility of the obstacle, leading to what Zeno describes as an “incognitive impression … which is not clear or distinct” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.53, in L&S, 242), some other parameter is necessary for Sextus to verify a correlation between preconception, perception, cognition, and knowledge. Sextus even expresses bemusement at this caveat of the “obstacle” within Stoic epistemologies. In arguing that its possibility undermines the certainty that the Stoics portray regarding what can be known about a perceived world, Sextus suggests that “one who accepts objects, but attacks sensory appearance, through which one grasps objects, is completely deranged” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.260). This is a rather extreme response. The Stoic position is far from “attacking” the perceptual and preconceptual conditions of our knowledge. It instead recognizes frequent instances where those conditions might not produce knowledge. Nevertheless, Sextus’ contestation to Epictetus’ argument concerning the notion of the obstacle seemingly polarizes their respective positions. Despite this difference, from the preceding discussion we can recognize that Epictetus and Sextus interpret an inescapably coexistent relationship between preconceptions and knowledge production. Neither of their positions excludes preconceptions from associated assertions about facts and truth. This is not to say that their positions cohere otherwise of course. Epictetus attributes humans with the capacity to distinguish which preconception appropriately informs which apprehension of truth. Sextus does not agree. What is peculiarly apparent in any case for both Epictetus and Sextus about preconceptions epistemologically is that before humans determine something to be true, we already have a preconceptual orientation to that truth. We do not simply “discover” truth. We hold rather a certain idea of it in advance of realizing it and identifying it. Despite their differentiation regarding how this relates to our access to truth, both

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

105

Sextus and the Stoic model on which he commentates do assume that a truth in the world exists before we rational agents comprehend it.6 For Epictetus and Sextus therefore, the constitution of this comprehension comprises both preconception and a “newly developed” conception. In a separate theoretical context, Max Weber (1864–1920) also appreciates this co-constitution when reviewing the nature of scientific objectivity. Weber takes a study of the relations between preconceptions and knowledge in a useful direction for our opening considerations on objectivity. I refer here specifically to his deliberations about how the notion of a preconceptually conditioned knowledge might affect the value of our knowledge, specifically scientific knowledge.

Can We Know the Value of Knowledge? Epictetus and Sextus assert that we cannot investigate the truth of something without already having a preconception of it. Weber similarly analyzes how epistemological processes might relate to an inquirer’s presuppositions. Weber encourages us to appreciate what the ramifications for notions of knowledge are when we accommodate rather than exclude the presuppositions of an inquirer. As becomes apparent in this chapter, I will be drawing a connection between Stoic/skeptical impressions of a “preconception” and Weber’s sense of a “presupposition.” Weber’s perspective forms part of his assertion that all scientific methodology occurs through contextually interpretative rather than transcendentally absolute modes. Given my focus on socialized phenomena in this book, it is notable that Weber also  applies his argument about science generally to social science specifically. In The Nature of Social Action he asserts that even when observing the most standardizing of environments, the “meanings” that are derived about human behaviors should not be “thought of as somehow objectively ‘correct’ or ‘true’ by some metaphysical criterion” (Weber 1978, 7). Weber rather is intrigued about the traces of personal value and subjectivity present in perspectives and processes that we believe to be impersonally homogenized.7 These themes become most apparent in The Vocation Lectures when Weber builds on Friedrich Nietzsche’s insight that a paradox emerges when attempting to justify scientific inquiry.8 The paradox in question concerns how science in all its forms presupposes that the products of its inquiries are worth knowing. For Weber this presupposition actually indicates the restricted jurisdiction of scientific claims to objectivity. This is

106 

W. JOHNCOCK

because scientific inquiry, if it contains objective conditions, cannot via that objectivity validate its own presupposition of its worth (Weber 2004, 18). This brings to our attention the complications that an inquirer will experience when attempting to offer an “objective valuation” of a scientific inquiry. Such qualitative evaluations go beyond the jurisdiction of scientific objectives. Weber’s doubt here concerns whether science can ever verify the value or worth of science. Scientific projects do project a belief in their value. It is expressed in their premises and by their agents. Can a scientific project adjudicate on its value though? That science cannot validate the worth or value of its studies is a position that Weber takes when analyzing medical science in The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Weber argues that the objective of a practitioner or researcher in the medical sciences is to preserve life, with the associated responsibilities of preventing pain and suffering. This he posits is broadly recognized and quantifiably objectifiable. If we ask the medical practitioner or researcher why science preserves a patient’s life though, the parameters framing the response become less objectivity assessable. Any such response indeed ceases to be in Weber’s estimation of a scientific evaluation. Weber takes this example as symbolic of why scientific results can give people knowledge but not instruct them about the value of that knowledge, whereby “science cannot tell anyone what they should do— but rather what they can do” (Weber 1949, 54). What would Epictetus’ estimation be of the value-adjudicating capacities of science? Epictetus firstly does not focus on the literal “scientific” elements of Stoic philosophy. Direct discussions of science are in fact rare in his Discourses and non-existent in The Enchiridion. In commentating on this in the “Introduction” to Epictetus’ Discourses, William Oldfather also invites a Nietzschean observation. Oldfather emphasizes Stoicism’s Socratic roots in noting how for Nietzsche the Socratic schools by “looking at everything from the point of view of happiness … bound the arteries of scientific research” (Oldfather in Epictetus 1961, xxv). Oldfather shares this view to suggest that “this word of Nietzsche’s seems especially apt of Epictetus” given that Epictetus cared “not at all for science” (xxv). Despite this apparent disinterest in scientific formalities, Epictetus does continue in a Stoic tradition whose inaugurating principles emphasize the importance of empirically derived knowledge. Famously outlined in Cicero’s Academica (On Academic Skepticism), Zeno represents the possession of scientific knowledge “by gesture.” In this gesture, Zeno portrays a perceptual impression or “visual appearance” of the world with an

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

107

open palm. He then closes his fingers to indicate “assent” to that impression. Making a fist then exemplifies a stage of cognition or “comprehension.” Finally, by grasping this fist with his other hand, he symbolizes the “scientific knowledge” of the wise man (Cicero 1967b, 2.145). For Zeno this illustrates how sense-perception or “sensation” instigates a process that can generate knowledge. Zeno does not believe that all sense-­ perception is trustworthy. That our senses can however condition such knowledge means for Zeno that sensation is “trustworthy”: …not because it grasped all the properties of the thing but because it let go nothing that was capable of being its object, and because nature had bestowed as it were a “measuring-rod” of knowledge and a first principle of itself from which subsequently notions of things could be impressed upon the mind, out of which not first principles only but certain broader roads to the discovery of reasoned truth were opened up. (2.142)9

Zeno here describes how nature bestows the capacities for discerning the preconditions for knowledge. From this, we can interpret an influence on Epictetus’ conception of our natural inclination to rationally distinguish correct judgments that derive from our preconceptions and sense-­ impressions. Even without concerning himself with specifically scientifically empirical themes, Epictetus is operating within a Stoic heritage in which the perceptual conditions of knowledge occur in accordance with our nature. Epictetus illustrates the legitimacy of this assent from impression to knowledge via a thought experiment. This asks that during the middle of the day we try to believe that it is conversely the middle of the night (Epictetus 2014, 1.28, 2–3). Epictetus here asserts that because our impression will guide us against this “belief,” such an impression must be “adequate” (1.28, 2–3). The adequacy of other impressions more broadly determines that there is no need to entirely suspend judgment as the skeptics claim or to withhold assent. Sextus recognizes that “adequate impressions” could lead us away from the realm of misinformed opinion toward reliable or scientific knowledge. The concern though for Sextus is that this adequacy alone does not sufficiently guarantee knowledge. John Sellars reports that even beyond Sextus’ view this is because “adequate impressions can be held by anyone and thus do not in themselves constitute scientific knowledge. They are a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition of such knowledge”

108 

W. JOHNCOCK

(Sellars 2009, 161). As we have explored, this means that Stoic epistemologies do not necessarily satisfy knowledge conditions for Sextus. Epictetus though operates in the just-reviewed Stoic tradition in which if we adjudicate in accordance with nature our empirically derived impressions are conditions for knowledge. We can ascertain an explicitly scientific characterization of such knowledge for Epictetus from a passage in Discourses. As Robert Dobbin translates, in considering “what makes for freedom and fluency in the practice of writing” Epictetus identifies “knowledge of how to write” (Epictetus 2008, 4.1, 63). When moving onto grander themes Epictetus then notes that in the “conduct of life, there must be a science of living well” (4.1, 63). As we see Epictetus describe, knowledge conditions how we write or how we scientifically live well. To live well for the Stoics is to live according to nature. If the knowledge of how to live well is “scientific” as he states, then scientific knowledge thus assists us in living in accordance with nature. This establishes a scientific characterization of the knowledge of living in accordance with nature for Epictetus. We can from this insight open a discussion with Weber’s doubt about whether scientific knowledge ever has value properties. The preceding analysis suggests that for Epictetus the preconception-­ observation-­knowledge development occurs in accordance with our rational natural ends. That this knowledge for Epictetus is not only “scientific” but also evaluates and directs us how to “live well” (in accordance with nature) seemingly contradicts Weber’s belief that science cannot tell us what we should do. Epictetus’ position is that such knowledge can tell us what we should do and how we can live well. We could in fact recall that it is knowledge’s nature to inform these kinds of value-orientations, as we have reviewed in Chap. 2 via the topic of Epictetus’ daimon. We might also reflect on how in Chap. 4 our self-preservation relies on the natural value that the Stoics attribute to knowing our rational ends. Epictetus has now associated the naturally inherent value of these ends  of living well with a scientific knowledge. Zeno’s to Epictetus’ Stoicisms assert that we have a natural rationality that knows how to distinguish which preconceptions and impressions are true. By being aware of this nature we live a more virtuous life accordingly. Again, therefore, the science of living well or rationally tells us what we should do. Complementing the justification that there are no obstacles to our preconceptions if they are guided by rational and natural judgment,

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

109

Epictetus posits that conflict only arises between preconceptions when they are applied to “particular cases” (Epictetus 2014, 1.22, 2). As we will discuss now, this concerns how educated or knowledgeable we are when applying our preconceptions to individual situations. Take the example of climbing to  a dangerous height. One person’s preconception of the “bravery” of the act might condition their cognitive impression of it. Another person could alternatively have a preconception of the act’s “craziness.” In responses like these for Epictetus it is not the preconceptions that are in conflict. As earlier reviewed the preconceptions are universal, they are part of each of our natures in that we all carry them. The problem for Epictetus does not reside at the preconception level itself but in our uneducated manner of applying these universal preconceptions to non-universal cases. Epictetus advises that in such circumstances we need to “learn to apply our natural preconceptions to particular cases” in a way that is in “accord with nature” (1.22, 9). From such conformity comes a functional knowledge that will underpin our life’s value structures in “the nature of the good” (1.23, 2).10 Knowledge serves a good life. Weber’s portrayal of course firmly differentiates between function and value. We can evaluate scientific knowledge only in terms of operation and not in relation to notions of good or value (Weber 1949, 54). Impressions developed scientifically do not guide us ethically. They cannot tell us how we should live but instead only assist by informing us how we can live. Conversely for Epictetus’ Stoic position, through the transformation of impressions to knowledge, the Stoic individual understands their relations to themselves and the world in a manner that serves common value and virtue structures. This is not just Epictetus’ impression. Stobaeus reports the value that is inherent to the scientific conditions within Stoic knowledge generally in that for the Stoics “scientific knowledge [episteme] is a cognition … which exists in the virtuous man” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.112, in L&S, 256; my emphasis). The virtuous directions of scientific knowledge in this reading cannot avoid possessing answers to the “should” of a Stoic existence. Quite differently for Weber the benefit of scientifically derived epistemological insights can only explain the physically causal world. Science does not contribute to a knowledge-based development of a moral guide for individual lives. Having established this distinction we can now ask what the effect is of each position  for our opening considerations regarding the objective status of knowledge.

110 

W. JOHNCOCK

Orientated Objective Knowledge In The Vocation Lectures Weber explains that the distinction he identifies between function and value is symbolic of the direction of scientific and intellectual inquiries in early twentieth-century Germany (Weber 2004, 12). Weber reports that this emphasis on scientific functionalism is consistent at the time with dominant bureaucratic notions of rationalism and organizational efficiency. This societal and institutional trend positions science fortuitously in Weber’s estimation to benefit from the consequent narrowing of the country’s educational and ideological focus. As universities, for example, become increasingly concerned with practices that can be evaluated according to quantifiably rational and functional parameters, the apparently objective or factual ends of the sciences will be prioritized. By reducing the human experience of the world to a set of preconceived laws that can predict what will occur, humanity for Weber gets a seductive glimpse of the potential for total control over its physical environment. As an example that again uses the context of the medical sciences, this scientific emphasis provides a greater certainty about how to address human physiological vulnerabilities. The appeal of the sciences here for Weber is that no longer will our existence be “ruled by mysterious, unpredictable forces, but that, on the contrary, we can in principle control everything by means of calculation” (13). We can pause on this aspect of Weber’s review that with scientific knowledge comes an expected control of the world. Converse to this, Epictetus’ position is that in learning how to apply preconceptions in a naturally rational manner we do not head toward a complete control of our surroundings. An increased knowledge regarding the science of living well does not equate to an increased control. The effect for the Stoic is instead that via such knowledge we are better able to “draw the distinction that some things lie within our power while others do not” (Epictetus 2014, 1.22, 9). Stoic knowledge anticipates the capacity to distinguish what always was in our control versus what was never in our control nor ever will be. This counters the modern view that scientific knowledge heralds a new era in which we approach a more complete control of the world. Epictetus’ categorization of the features of our existence that are in our control (such as judgments) versus those that are not (body, possessions) is a topic of debate in Chap. 2 of this book. Interestingly in terms of the current themes of this chapter though, Epictetus here also states that another parameter which is in our control is “moral choice and all acts that

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

111

depend on that choice” (1.22, 10). For Epictetus our epistemological inclinations do not service a cold control of the world. Knowledge orientations are rather about rationally adjudicating the limits of that control in order to enhance the moral value and purpose of our lives. We again see function and value operate together in a manner that differs from Weber’s thesis. While for Epictetus preconceptions are universal and “common to all” humans (1.22, 1), how a person individually applies preconceptions will determine to what extent they function according to the natural values by which we should Stoically live. For this Stoic view, preconceptions and consequent knowledge inhabit the universal value structures that guide our nature. Weber interestingly also recognizes a universalized connection between values and preconceptions. In this regard, he refers to a fundamental preconception which assumes that there is a value to any truth that we obtain about the world. No truth manifests in value-free isolation, not even the general notion of truth itself. Weber duly demands that social scientists, for example, have always presupposed the possibility of an ordered and objective truth to the extent that it defines their disciplines’ heritage and development (Weber 1949, 105). This is a value-orientation that authorizes the search for facts that such practitioners “uncover” or “develop” (76). We have indeed covered via Durkheim in Chap. 2 how the foundations of sociology revolve around the belief that the objects of its inquiries (“social facts”) are as objectively knowable and therefore as valid as the facts of the physical sciences. That investigators of all fields embody this belief differently means for Weber that the history of scientific inquiry and objectivity incorporates a practitioners’ values which are “attempting to order reality analytically” (105). The notion of scientific objectivity does not simply demand what can be determined to be true about the world by removing an inquirer’s subjectivities. Objectivity is itself a value perpetuated and desired  by generations of subjectivities. The impersonality of objectivity is in this sense for Weber destabilized. An important subtlety to which we must be sensitive is that Weber does not intend to discount the possibility of objectivity based on the preceding insights. The just-­ mentioned destabilization is not a destruction of objective truth  but a reconstruction of how we conceive its actuality. This conception differs completely from its conventional status (as briefly considered at this chapter’s outset) which requires the neutral separation of an object of inquiry from the values of its inquirer (105).

112 

W. JOHNCOCK

This theme of maintaining a belief in objectivity despite objectivity’s intersections with preconceived values is also raised in Sextus’ concerns about Stoic theory. Sextus does not entirely negate the fact that we have objective conceptions. In declaring that our preconceptions about an object steer our overall and only sense of that object, his position is in his words “so far from saying that we do not have a conception of the entire object being investigated” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 2.332a). Or in other words for Sextus, despite the role of preconceptions we can still conceive the object we are investigating. The problem persists though that when appreciating that humans have “many conceptions and preconceptions” of the object” (2.332a), we must question whether “this object knowledge” is ever the true and verifiable perspective. These preconceptual conditions of knowledge require for Sextus (but not for Weber) a certain “suspension” of the belief that we know the object. In Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus further clarifies that while a skeptic might be “emotionally or compulsorily” driven to “yield … to assent,” this is better described as “nonassertion” rather than belief (Sextus Empiricus 1933, 1.193). Brad Inwood clarifies this “nonassertion” in terms of how it conflicts with assent proper. The skeptic who recognizes that they live as if they have knowledge, while remembering the nonassertions underpinning their decisions, “does not take responsibility for the propositional attitudes and beliefs to which his behaviour might seem to commit him” (Inwood 1985, 76). Straightforwardly, this skeptical view portrays Stoics and others as misguided about knowledge assertions. More interestingly, I believe that for Sextus skepticism is a practical outlook. Being skeptical allows us to function in the world while appreciating that our knowledge is conditioned by nonassertions about that world. For Sextus, we can be practically pragmatic in our existence without holding certainty regarding knowledge. This argument matters given the jurisdiction the Stoics usually have over the notion of practically oriented philosophical beliefs. What is objectively practical is in Sextus’ view the skeptic’s day-to-day functioning which accepts our “inability to discriminate” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 2.332a) between differently presupposed knowledge. So numerous are the possible complications with our generation of knowledge for Sextus that he even invokes the Academic Carneades’ contestation to Stoic knowledge-claims regarding the role of what is unreal. Appearances of the world for the Stoics and the associated cognitive impressions we develop from these appearances could not arise from what is not real. We have seen this in Zeno’s imagery of the fist of knowledge.

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

113

Long and Sedley describe Zeno’s reading of the cognitive impression as that which has “a real object as its cause” and that “represents the object with complete accuracy and clarity” (Long and Sedley 1987, 250). Conversely as portrayed by Sextus, Carneades demands that any impressions that we have of an object “come about from unreal things as well as from real ones” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.402). That such impressions are constructions of an object’s reality and unreality is because both aspects are “found equally striking and plain” as “an indication of their indistinguishability” (1.403; my emphasis). Such a thesis is consistent with the heart of Sextus’ own argument. If the sources of the impressions of what a thing is, as well as of what a thing is not, are indiscernible from each other, then we derive unreliable truths or knowledge from the judgments associated with such impressions. Sextus’ view is that believing we know what something is probably also always involves being coerced by what it is not. This supports Sextus’ call that the Stoic belief in the conditions for knowledge must be suspended. Weber somewhat differently does not call for the suspension of judgments and/or decisions regarding knowledge. He instead asks us to accommodate the unavoidability of value-oriented and preconditioned knowledge. This would even be applicable to Epictetus’ scientific knowledge of living well, for in Weber’s view “no science is absolutely free of assumptions” (Weber 2004, 28). Provided these assumptions are rationally discriminated preconditions, Epictetus’ epistemological structure would agree with Weber’s assertion. Where for Weber though such value-orientations are environmentally and subjectively fashioned, for Epictetus we find a universal rationalization of preconceptual conditions.

Notes 1. This interpretation informs critical reviews of the humanities and the social sciences via the “two cultures problem.” The two cultures problem attends to a belief in the following distinction; the natural sciences uncover singularly objective, timeless truths, whereas the humanities and the social sciences present contingently contextual, socialized/encultured phenomena. Snow (1998 [1959], 14–15) famously exemplifies this distinction. 2. The modern view on the role of falsification in scientific methods is somewhat informed by Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Popper distinguishes falsifiability from the logical empiricist notion of “verifiability.” Verifiability asserts that a claim is meaningful if other investigators can

114 

W. JOHNCOCK

authenticate it (Popper 2002 [1959], 9–10). This method intends to demarcate the empirical sciences from metaphysical philosophies and other fields. Popper contends though that verifiability renders meaningless certain scientifically useful, universalizing conclusions, where, for example, “no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify [according to the principles of verifiability] the conclusion that all swans are white” (4). Given that Popper recognizes a valid use for science of claims similar in construction to “all swans are white,” he counters the verifiability method. What Popper instead posits as distinguishing a scientific theory from a non-scientific theory is that the theory contains claims that might prove to be false. Non-scientific theories will not feature these potentially falsifiable parameters. There are numerous criticisms of Popper’s theory of falsification. The most impressive in my view is that of Thomas Kuhn (1962). Kuhn argues that an issue with Popper’s falsification concept is that observers will “falsify” (or not falsify) in contradictory ways. This renders every process of falsification as itself requiring examination for falsification. Popper nevertheless provides an example of why we might view the objectivity of the sciences as bound up in their capacity to resist falsification. 3. Jonathan Bartlett and Chris Frost explain that “repeatability” refers to the use of the same experimental conditions in subsequent examinations. This is in order to compare the results garnered secondarily with those previously obtained. The repeatability of the scientific apparatus will require measurements to be “made by the same instrument or method … on the same subject under identical conditions” (Bartlett and Frost 2008, 467). 4. I have explored this theme in an earlier work, “The Experimental Flesh: Incarnation in Terms of Quantum Measurement and Phenomenological Perception.” Via the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the theoretical physics of both Niels Bohr and Karen Barad, I consider whether we can reduce Being to “a separation of knower from what can be known, or of observer from what can be observed” (Johncock 2011, 140). While in that work I destabilize this subject|object separation, the important point to recognize here is the pervading interpretation that such a separation conditions objectivity. 5. There are various ancients whose thought Sextus could be even inadvertently developing in this question. Perhaps most notably the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, postulates that “if you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible” (Heraclitus 1889, 86). The interpretation here is that the impulse of hope is what leads to the result of hope. To some extent, this is consistent with the connection we are exploring between the preconceptions of ­knowledge and the knowledge-results of those preconceptions. Of perhaps greater prominence is Plato’s discussion of the “paradox of

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

115

inquiry” that Meno offers in response to Socrates. Plato posits that inquiry never strictly involves the “learning” or “discovery” of knowledge of which someone is entirely unfamiliar. Learning instead initiates the recalling of things that our immortal soul  already knows or expects to know (Plato 1980). A basis of Meno’s argument is that if you did not already know the answer to your inquiry you would not be able to recognize it when you “encounter” it. 6. This presumption of a world of pre-known truths that inhabit the world is not exclusive to any school. Before the Stoics we can turn, for instance, to Plato’s influential studies regarding wanting to discover the truth behind appearances. The “Allegory of the Cave” in Plato’s Republic (2012) could be the best-known example of this. 7. This attention on subjectivity in an era of mass socialized standardization and objectification would come to inspire Frankfurt School critical theorists such as Herbert Marcuse (2002 [1964]) as well as Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. In Dialectic of Enlightenment Horkheimer and Adorno argue that capitalist impositions beckon an end to subjectivity, in that “the individual is entirely nullified in the face of the economic powers” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002 [1947], xviii). 8. Nietzsche’s most compelling position on the value-laden quality of science comes in his The Birth of Tragedy (1995 [1886]). See, in particular, the chapter “Attempt at Self-Criticism” which did not feature in the book’s first edition (given that it is a commentary, in effect, on that first edition). For a complementary comprehensive study of Nietzsche’s broader reading of science, see Babette Babich’s Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life (1994). 9. Cicero elsewhere recounts how Zeno says of “sense presentations … some were false, but not all” (Cicero 1967a, 1.25, 71). 10. It is debatable whether this broad sense of conforming to nature is a satisfactory response to the concern about the ramifications of conflicting preconceptions. It definitely does not satisfy Sextus as we have noted. Anthony Long and David Sedley assert, for instance, that “for this quite promising move to work, the scope and content of preconceptions would need to be far more restricted than the Stoics were willing to admit” (Long and Sedley 1987, 253).

References Babich, Babette. 1994. Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bartlett, Jonathan, and Chris Frost. 2008. Reliability, Repeatability and Reproducibility: Analysis of Measurement Errors in Continuous Variables. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology 31: 466–475.

116 

W. JOHNCOCK

Brennan, Tad. 2005. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1967b. Academica (On Academic Skepticism). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. Epictetus. 1961. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments. Edited by T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E. Warmington. Translated by William Oldfather. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New  York: Dover Publications. ———. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. ———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gill, Christopher. 2003. The School in the Roman Imperial Period. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 33–58. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heraclitus of Ephesus. 1889. The Fragments of the Work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature. Translated by G. Patrick. Baltimore: Isaac Friedenwald. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor Adorno. 2002 (1947). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jackson-McCabe, Matt. 2005. The Stoic Theory of Implanted Preconceptions. Phronesis 49 (4): 323–347. Johncock, Will. 2011. The Experimental Flesh: Incarnation in Terms of Quantum Measurement and Phenomenological Perception. Phenomenology and Practice 5 (1): 140–154. Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Long, Anthony. 2002. Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

5  DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 

117

Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 2002 (1964). One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London and New York: Routledge. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1995 (1886). The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music. London and New York: Penguin. Plato. 1980. Meno. Translated by George Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Popper, Karl. 2002 (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York. Routledge. Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (Second Edition). London; New Delhi; New  York; Sydney: Bloomsbury. Sextus Empiricus. 1933. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Translated by R.G.  Bury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2000. Outlines of Scepticism. Edited and translated by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2005. Against the Logicians. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Snow, Charles Percy. 1998 (1959). The Two Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weber, Max. 1949. The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Edited and translated by Edward Shils & Henry Finch. Glencoe: The Free Press of Glencoe. ———. 1978. The Nature of Social Action. In Weber: Selections in Translation, ed. Walter Runciman, 7–32. Translated by Eric Matthews. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2004. The Vocation Lectures. Edited by David Owen and Tracy Strong. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

CHAPTER 6

Do People Know Why They Travel? Seneca and Anthony Giddens on Ignorance

Traveling for Tranquility For discontent individuals travel can seem to provide an appropriate change. Working in an unrewarding job, a recently ended relationship, or otherwise feeling stagnant in the all too familiar surroundings of home, regularly represent motivations for travel.1 An individual’s capacity to exhibit the self-awareness that a change in environment could benefit them often receives praise. The interpretation here is of proactively turning an adverse situation into an opportunity for a new experience. This emphasis on how to “take control” of your life intersects with a central Stoic mantra. The Stoic interpretation to which I am referring is that an unfavorable circumstance does not harm us but provides us with an occasion to prove our virtuousness. This requires as we have seen that we are resilient to a circumstance’s environmentally negative stimuli by instead focusing on what is within our power. For influential ancient Stoics such circumstances are consequently not adverse whatsoever. They are instead “blessings” which help us to distinguish the aspects of our existence over which we have control.2 We would not necessarily expect that modern interpretations of the traveler would look upon their motivations in terms of Stoic virtue. A present-day perspective instead often reads voluntary travel as an indication of a person’s desire to experience different cultures and see more of the world. Modern affluences and technologies have in this sense increased

© The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_6

119

120 

W. JOHNCOCK

attention on the topic of global travel and the question of why people travel where they do. Beyond the current era though, we can also find an interest in evaluations of the motivations for travel. A prominent ancient view appears in the commentaries of the Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5 BCE–65 ACE). These commentaries take the form of a series of letters addressed to Gaius Lucilius, the procurator of Sicily. In these letters, Seneca regularly discusses Stoic principles, which is why they are anthologized as Letters from a Stoic.3 Seneca’s interest in the topic of travel emerges from within this conceptual impetus and investigates the dual questions of (1) why we choose to travel and (2) what are the results for us that manifest from travel. In engaging Seneca on this topic, his personal wealth and political power are not irrelevant. We must in this regard appreciate the relative ease with which he was able to travel in comparison to the average Roman citizen of the era.4 It is within such a context that in referring to his own recent travel experience Seneca specifically explains that he journeyed to his “place at Nomentum.” This journey is not to escape anything about his current environment, “the city,” but rather because of “a fever” (Seneca 1969, 104, 1–5). The effect of travel upon Seneca’s health is seemingly positive in that he enthusiastically states that no sooner had he exited “the oppressive atmosphere of the city” with its “poisonous fumes” than he “noticed a change in his condition” (104, 6–11). Not everyone of course had the financial luxury of being able to travel to their countryside house to recover from illness. For Seneca though the ailment from which he was suffering is a valid justification for travel. So improved is his condition from the journey that he assumes openly in his writing that anyone could easily “imagine how much stronger I felt after reaching my vineyards” (104, 6–11). Here he presumes a general belief in the positive effect of traveling to a more tranquil setting when unwell. Even though Seneca talks fondly of the grass, the animals, and the pleasing natural environment in Nomentum, he makes an important qualification regarding what is most responsible for the upturn in his health. This he asserts is not his new surroundings but the capacity of his own mind to be able to enjoy this seclusion. While enjoying such calmness is an easy task in this rural setting, for Seneca a healthy mind should be able to feel calm in even the most frantic of environments. He refers to his newfound health accordingly as an indication of a state of mind that finds tranquility regardless of the external environment, whereby his current condition:

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

121

…is not something, however, to which mere surroundings are conducive, unless the mind is at its own disposal, able at will to provide its own seclusion even in crowded moments. (104, 6–11)

We can acknowledge then that tranquility in Seneca’s impression is correlated with a certain mental state. Tranquility is not simply bound to the contingencies of an external environment. Seneca’s “voyage to tranquility” indicates an inner journey instead of a physical or geographical movement. This is a theme that will arise later in this chapter’s discussion with Anthony Giddens in considering the kind of travel that Seneca does endorse. It is because of this distinction that for Seneca the individual who roams incessantly hoping that new surroundings alone will induce a sense of peace “will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing” (104, 6–11). No one benefits according to Seneca to “go overseas” or to “move from city to city” if they do not already possess this self-maintained mental conditioning. Commentators generally agree that for Seneca without this inner perspective our experiences of new surroundings will be encumbered by our concerns that preceded such travel (Inwood 2005, 317; Graver 2007, 99–101). In advising not to follow the lead of others in traveling just for the sake of it we see a consistency with Seneca’s general ethos that we should each think for ourselves. This directive extends to our relationship with our teachers. Elsewhere Seneca advises regarding the studying of Stoicism that in the way Chrysippus disagreed on aspects of philosophy with his teacher Cleanthes, so everyone should “claim his own freedom” (Seneca 1962, 113.23). This coheres as Gretchen Reydams-Schils observes with how for Seneca “Stoics are not beholden to the authority of a master” (Reydams-­ Schils 2011, 299). It is likewise why Massimo Pigliucci comments that in belonging to the “posterity Seneca is talking about,” in Pigliucci’s own Stoicism he feels “free to accept or reject whatever I find sensible in his teachings” (Pigliucci 2017b). Seneca’s outlook applies whether one’s master is a sage like Zeno or a compulsion to follow a trend like unthought traveling. This emphasis on freedom goes hand in hand with Seneca’s view that to escape an adverse state an internal rather than an external transition is required in which you become a master of the self. Becoming this master will allow us to escape what Seneca identifies as the greatest of internal afflictions.

122 

W. JOHNCOCK

Fear of Death For Seneca an internal journey is necessary to arrive at a peaceful state. This kind of “traveling” will help us to arrive at a different sense of self, whereby “if you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person” (Seneca 1969, 104, 6–11). The “things” that in Seneca’s terms “harass” an individual include what we have seen general Stoic principles believe contradicts our living in accordance with nature. One such thing is a desire for wealth and power. Seneca perceives that he is resilient to such forces given that he has both wealth and power and so neither controls him. In particular he demands that if we unhealthily value “wealth” or “success in public life,” no matter where we travel we will always be lacking what we need to be happy (104, 6–11).5 Another “thing” which Seneca believes is pivotal in preventing solace is our fear that death represents the “worst of all bad things” (104, 6–12). If you fear dying before traveling, you will for Seneca still fear it when you arrive somewhere new. You will indeed potentially fear it even more if where you travel you find different aspects of the environment which threaten your life. In again noting the pointlessness of traveling to quell such discontent, Seneca rhetorically laments “what difference does the character of the place make?” (104, 6–11).6 The fear of death is for Seneca related to our experiences of the deaths of others we know. Seneca does not believe that emotional reactions to such deaths are irrational. The argument that a Stoic mindset can be emotional about things is part of Seneca’s differentiation between an Epicurean sage and a Stoic sage. For Seneca the Stoic “feels” their “troubles but overcomes them” whereas the Epicurean “does not even feel them” (9, 2). Contemporary Stoic commentators also emphasize the point that either in Stoicism generally (Becker 2004; Sellars 2016a, 48) or Seneca’s Stoicism specifically (Farren 2014, 196–198; Robertson 2014, 35–36) there is not a demand to be unemotional. The imperative instead is to manage faulty reasoning which leads to unpleasant emotions. Seneca expects that we will be upset about losing a close friend or family member to death. Such experiences destabilize us because “other people are snatched away from us” (Seneca 1969, 104, 12). What however we need to be more attentive to is that if our fear of death remains unaddressed even when we are healthily alive “we are being filched away surreptitiously from ourselves” (104, 12).

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

123

This sentiment of a “filching” or distancing of ourselves from ourselves coheres with the Stoic concern about a life that is not lived in accordance with nature. Seneca says such self-distancing occurs in two ways. Firstly, the individual who is not responsive to their fear of something like death avoids “attending to their own self-preservation” (104, 12). This topic of “preservation” regards how we manage the threat that fear signals. Certainly in one sense, fear might be a valid precautionary self-defense mechanism in perilous circumstances. If however such fear continually dictates or controls us then there is nothing self-serving about the fear response (104, 12). Instead of incorporating fearful self-defense responses at all in fact, for Seneca the self-preserving actions that deserve priority are those which focus on what it means to live in accordance with what is in one’s control. Seneca here expresses the Stoic perspective on control that we have earlier seen expanded in terms of self-preservation. Complementing general concerns regarding self-preservation, the second way this self-distancing occurs for Seneca is that if we travel to try to dampen such fears, what actually occurs is a further separation from the aspect of the self that we should be addressing. This self-separation again results from repressing the fearful aspect of the self. As Seneca rhetorically critiques of the anticipated benefits from traveling such as clearing your mind, “what good has travel of itself ever been able to do anyone” in bringing about a greater self-awareness (104, 12)? It might seem peculiar that someone would be perpetually thinking about and fearing their death as Seneca claims. What we can nevertheless take from this stage of our Seneca discussion is that traveling to distract ourselves from our concerns is not in accordance with our nature. We are treading a very particular consciousness of death here. In one regard Seneca encourages us not to think of death in a way that engenders a fear of it that controls us. In another regard though we should not “improperly” attempt to repress the fear or distract ourselves from it. Seneca indeed acknowledges the potential in all of us to be healthily cognizant of the ramifications of death. This is a point that coheres with Seneca’s call throughout his On the Shortness of Life (1997). In an alternative letter to the one on which we have been focused Seneca similarly recognizes everyone’s capability to understand their inevitable mortality, in that “no one is so ignorant as not to know that some day he must die” (Seneca 1969, 77, 12). This portrays any such “ignorance” regarding death as an active choice to avoid reflecting on the most threatening of fears.7

124 

W. JOHNCOCK

That traveling to avoid internal reflection is an active choice does not stop Seneca from emphasizing its aimlessness. All the “hurrying from place to place” (104, 19) which travel comprises makes it an indirect orientation. A better definition accordingly for travel in Seneca’s view is “drifting.” This drifting does not simply refer to a physical meandering through the terrains and regions of the world. As we might expect it is also indicative of one’s growing ignorance about what is essential or most naturally accordable about life. An individual who is governed by fears or desires “remains in ignorance of what to aim at and what to avoid, what is essential and what is superfluous, what is upright or honorable conduct and what is not” (104, 19; my emphasis). This for Seneca leads to a voyage that “will not be travelling but drifting” (104, 19). The terminological diversion toward “drifting” might seem to liberate “travel” from some of the negative connotations it receives in Seneca’s commentary. He does distinguish traveling from drifting in the immediately preceding citation after all. I believe the reason for this however is to differentiate the beneficial experience that people assume traveling is, from the harmful experience that it often actually eventuates as. Traveling can never itself be the source of fulfillment for Seneca, arguing that “the trip doesn’t exist that can set you beyond the reach of cravings, first of temper, or fears” (109, 19). This distinction between what someone thinks travel is versus what its reality is leads us to Seneca’s portrayal of the ignorance behind our decision-­making. An ignorance of what sort of person you are will lead you to desire travel simply for travel’s sake. From this ignorance, you will carry a set of conditioning fears and desires from your home location to your travel destination (28, 2). The same ignorant self goes with you wherever you are. In focusing on the internalized ignorance of the self Seneca’s discussion possibly appears to be at odds with this book’s focus on our awareness of what shapes us that is “outside” us. We have indeed explored how our individuated decision-making occurs via social and universal elements that pervade beyond a restricted internality of the self. To contextualize Seneca’s sense of subjective ignorance within these kinds of themes we will open a dialogue with the sociology of Anthony Giddens. For Giddens, we must question any suggestion that we are ever unaware of what impels us to make decisions.

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

125

Are We Not Aware of Why We Make Decisions? This ignorance that Seneca aligns with travel refers to the Stoic principle of an unknowledgeable life not lived in accordance with natural ends. This refers to a person’s development in relation to what for the Stoics are the externals of the social sphere. Sociality is a reliable element to raise in exploring Stoic subjective ignorance. This is because for Seneca the ignorant are those who desire the “uncontrollables” of public status or social reputation. We have seen Epictetus highlight these exact concerns. Rather than wanting the acclaim of our peers, Seneca actively encourages us to develop an awareness of the “arts” that define a “social citizen.” By developing these arts he believes we acquire wisdom which is “the greatest art of all” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). From being a proficient public speaker to learning the intricacies of medicine, for Seneca such arts are crucial to how our citizenship manifests. Seneca delivers a further blow to traveling by opposing the acquisition of these arts from it, stating that “there isn’t a single art which is acquired merely by being in one place rather than another” (104, 19). To fulfill the techniques and requirements of social citizenship we need to stay where we are and work toward them. Conversely, the “being in one place rather than another” of travel does not facilitate the adequate production of a subject’s social artistry. With Seneca’s introduction of this socialized parameter to the production of subjectivity, we venture into the territory of modern social and sociological theory. We will here invite perspectives from Anthony Giddens on the topic of subjective self-knowledge in the context of our socialization (1938–). A specific aspect of Giddens’ considerable body of work that interests me is his accusation that “structuralist methodologies” unnecessarily constrain individuals. Structuralisms do this according to Giddens by positing already fixed modes of social being for the subjects that are subsequently born into social arenas. Giddens’ focus is on sociological theories rather than on philosophies such as Stoicism. Also, Seneca’s philosophy is not a structuralist thesis. Nevertheless, Giddens’ position is relevant to the preceding position found in Seneca, given that for Seneca a socialized subject is collectively and therefore structurally impelled to attain an already established art of social being. Giddens furthermore has much to critique about impressions that we are ever unaware of what motivates our decisions, even if those decisions follow social patterns or trends (such as travel). There is one constraint in structuralist approaches that concerns Giddens. This is that structuralisms describe how aspects of society

126 

W. JOHNCOCK

precede then produce individuals in ways of which individuals are not aware. We will consider whether this element features in Seneca’s sense of sociality. This concerns Seneca’s belief that we are generally not aware of why we choose to travel and might just do it because it is what is normally done. From this interaction, we will be able to contextualize through a modern perspective Seneca’s position on our decisions to travel. We firstly need to appraise Giddens’ contestation to the structuralist outlook. It is in The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration that Giddens most explicitly forwards his characterization of structuralist tendencies. Here Giddens identifies Émile Durkheim’s sociological study of suicide (which we encountered in Chap. 2 of this book) as a prime example of a sociological structuralism which suffocates subjectivity. This occurs by what Giddens describes as Durkheim’s whole focus on pre-established social ways of being for an individual. Giddens is particularly concerned with how, for Durkheim, social structures exist before and after any individual’s existence, where “the longue durée of institutions both pre-exists and outlasts the lives of individuals” (Giddens 1984, 170). This is the basis upon which Giddens argues that socially structural properties in the Durkheimian model, into which individuals are born, perpetually transcend individuals. The social structure from which an individual’s behaviors derive is in this regard “certainly exterior to the activities of the ‘individual’” (170). Durkheim in fact repeatedly reminds readers that the collective consciousness which comprises social structure is exterior to the individual consciousness that it shapes. Because of this externality of social structure that Giddens identifies in Durkheimian structuralism, his concern is that individuals have no agential role in their own production. As noted in Chap. 2, Durkheim does state that even if our decisions feel subjectively motivated, this should not prevent us from acknowledging that they are collectively coerced. This presents the interpretation of a “constraint [that] stems from the ‘objective’ existence of structural properties that the individual agent is unable to change” (176). If we think back to Seneca briefly there are likewise characteristics of this kind of structuralist operation exhibited in his impression of the individual acquisition of socialized techniques. Seneca like any Stoic prioritizes the internal control of the self. Social techniques or “arts” as Seneca terms them are nevertheless already structurally established and esteemed within an arena into which a subject is born. The inclination to acquire such arts and become social accordingly derives from collectively

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

127

structural authorizations. Preceding populations normalize these authorizations and present populations internalize them. The conception that I present here of Seneca’s perspective might concern Giddens if it means that Seneca is displaying the Durkheimian attributes of which Giddens is so critical. Durkheim’s structuralism is indicative for Giddens of social theories that attribute the production of subjectivity to an inextricable preceding social force. The structuralist belief Giddens laments is that after we are born into normalizing structures we are oblivious to the way that any decisions we make (such as the choice to travel) are socially shaped. Giddens consequently claims that Durkheim’s sociology imposes “circumstances, of which agents are ignorant and which effectively ‘act’ on them, independent of whatever the agents may believe they are up to” (xix; my emphasis). Giddens instead does not want to discount the role or intention of the individual agent, in that “there are some acts which cannot occur unless the agent intends them. Suicide is a case in point. Durkheim’s conceptual efforts to the contrary” (8). Giddens wants to respond to this notion that we unwittingly perpetuate social structures into which we are born. We are never entirely “ignorant” in his view of our behaviors, actions, and “productions” (26). He readily grants that our behaviors represent the patterns of predictable, collective forces (as Durkheim identifies). Given the individual’s participation in the production of such patterns however, “the knowledge they possess” of these trends and norms “is not incidental to the persistent patterning of social life but is integral to it” (26). This reflects Giddens’ demand to acknowledge a co-constitutive production between an individual agent and social structure. Rather than social structure antecedently and overpoweringly producing agents who ignorantly reproduce its predictable rhythms, there is for Giddens a “rationalization of action” by agents that is “chronically involved in the structuration of social phenomena” (26). Giddens recognizes an individual “rationality” about action that nonetheless behaves in a collectively predictable manner. This presents a potential agreement with Seneca’s appraisal of the Stoic individual’s inclination to acquire social arts and techniques. As we have encountered it is Seneca’s argument that in learning to be a medical doctor, or a public speaker, we are bound up in the acquisition of wisdom (Seneca 1969, 104, 19; my emphasis). Wisdom and rationality in this Stoic sense operate in tandem. Seneca indeed proclaims in an earlier letter that “the wise man is content with himself … for all he needs is a rational and elevated spirit” (9, 16; my emphasis). His argument therefore is that for the individual to be wise, to

128 

W. JOHNCOCK

acquire the social arts that precede them, is to act rationally. The individual knows they are acting in certain ways and why they are acting in those ways. Giddens would seemingly endorse this view of the individual rationalization of a socially oriented consciousness. Individuals are in this sense for Giddens aware of their own enactment of that which precedes them. This is because they are internal to such force if they are partly responsible for the shaping of its continuity.8 It is further argued by Giddens that individuals might not only be “cognizant” of this structural activity (as he earlier describes) but also feel a sense of social responsibility as a result. This counters the Durkheimian impression that he critiques of the individual that is blissfully unaware about their own structuration. Instead of following structuralism’s lead of looking “for the origins of their activities in phenomena of which the agents are ignorant” (Giddens 1984, 26), Giddens’ belief is that sociology should acknowledge the awareness that individuals have of their roles in their actions and self-­ production (26). The kind of “ignorance” that Seneca posits is, as we have seen, alternatively focused on subjectively developmental rather than collectively sociological concerns. The ignorant Stoic individual is unaware of their true subjective nature; the concern is not on how society might structure them. In his Stoic attention on how individuals “run away” (104, 19) from the aspects of themselves and their psyches about which they are ignorant, Seneca observes that ironically all such individuals run from is their true or natural self/ends. Despite this contextual difference between Giddens and Seneca, I want to consider whether there are conditions within Giddens’ critique of Durkheim regarding ignorance that he could also direct toward Seneca. This consideration picks up on my earlier note regarding the relevance of a structuralist mentality to Seneca’s position on the social acquisition of the “arts.” We will begin via suppositions regarding the temporality of ignorance.

Ignorance and Socialized Externality For Seneca individuals should not travel until they have first superseded their state of ignorance and become aware of the unhealthy control that their desires and fears have over them. Otherwise, such issues will continue to plague the traveling individual. Seneca advises that this is why already existing problems “weigh you down with just the same

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

129

uncomfortable chafing wherever you are” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). Only once an individual addresses such issues could they travel without harm (104, 12–19). This indicates for Seneca that there can be a “before” and an “after” to self-ignorance. One of the developmental aspects of this Stoic perspective is that we can acquire wisdom and transcend our previously ignorant state. This kind of progression toward self-awareness indicates for Seneca how we learn to rationally align our lives with nature, reflecting that “when she created us, nature endowed us with noble aspirations” (194, 26). A life increasingly lived in accordance with nature is “the greatest honour” of self-wisdom (194, 26). Conversely to this clear transition, I interpret that for Giddens an individual’s ignorance and self-awareness are not states that line up sequentially in time. Our capacity for knowing ourselves and for being aware of the aspects of our environment(s) that produce us is always in Giddens’ view a blend of social and subjective. Where the ignorant individual ends and the self-aware individual begins is indistinguishable. This is partly because such states are indistinguishable from a social fabric from which subjectivity is always inextricably manifesting. Giddens refers to this as the “structuration” of our sense of self, where “what a person is ‘aware of’ cannot be fixed at a particular point in time” (Giddens 1984, 49). If our self-awareness is not fixed to a point of time then neither can our self-­ ignorance be. This feature of subjective temporality conditions Giddens’ contestation to essentialist impressions of subjective ignorance. For Seneca of course an individual might be “ignorant of what is essential” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19) about life and decide to travel accordingly. Giddens could have concerns about how this attributes the compulsion to travel to a source that is external to an individual’s self-awareness. This reading of externality would of course be consistent with the general Stoic perspective to divide experiential phenomena into categories of what is inside versus outside subjective control. Conversely for Giddens, rather than anything external dictating the self, there is a structural co-­production between an individual agent and social structure of all authorship and decision-making. This inside-that-is-an-outside-that-is-an-inside shared between subject and social demands that “the moment of production of action” for the individual agent “is also one of reproduction of the contexts of the day-to-day enactment of social life” (Giddens 1984, 26). As the social life enacts us so we are aware of our internality to the re-­ enactment of its/our contexts.

130 

W. JOHNCOCK

There is a consequent co-implication here in Giddens’ sociology of the intentions of everyone with the reproduction of the conditions that make intention possible. Individual intention is social intention. Individual consciousness is social consciousness. This logic would thus apply to the intention and consciousness of travel. The decision to travel for Giddens would never mark what Seneca describes as a self-ignorance or a breakdown in self-consciousness that is then at the mercy of external forces. Such an impulse for Giddens would rather be just another manifestation of a socially enacted individual consciousness that perpetually inhabits its own  generative conditions, whereby “human agents always know what they are doing on the level of discursive consciousness under some description” (26). While for Seneca there are self-authoring aspects of the individual about which they might be ignorant, for Giddens there is a collective set of motivations from which the individual is never truly “outside.” Self-­ knowledge is for Giddens a structural phenomenon that the individual conditions and by which they are conditioned, whereby “structure has no existence independent of the knowledge that agents have about what they do in their day-to-day activity” (26). This avoids the blind spot that we might have according to Seneca’s Stoic impression of where external phenomena manipulate us. Sociologies such as Durkheim’s posit the production of the individual by an external socialized consciousness. In Giddens’ reading of Durkheim, the individual is outside their own conditions and thus outside something about the self. Giddens might be equally critical on these grounds of Seneca’s characterization of the alienation from the self. We have covered earlier how for Seneca the ignorant and drifting traveler seeking the “novelty of surroundings abroad” (Seneca 1969, 28, 2) is perpetually “filched away from themselves” (104, 12; my emphasis). The ignorant individual is divided from themselves here in being driven by what is beyond their nature. Consistent with much of the Stoicism that precedes Seneca, externally uncontrollable phenomena direct the ignorant individual in this mode. Ignorance and self-alienation duly present as complementary characteristics. Not only is the subject ignorant of their “wounds” (104, 12) as Seneca describes but they are more importantly ignorant of themselves while the wounding occurs. This conception of self-alienation and/or self-ignorance sits in contradistinction to Giddens’ thesis. For Giddens the collective structuring of self-knowledge is always practically and intentionally enacted by individual agents (Giddens 1984, 27). We can never be ignorant of, or outside,

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

131

ourselves as a result. It is worth clarifying here the equation of knowledge and awareness for Giddens who asserts that “‘knowledge’ equals accurate or valid awareness” (90). By enacting social rules or protocols, we exhibit knowledge both of those rules and of ourselves. Seneca will obviously maintain that a misguided individual is self-­ ignorant rather than self-knowing. Nevertheless, where for Seneca the individual acquires the social arts we can interpret an intersection with the collegially conditioned self-knowing subject for Giddens. Seneca  holds that if we ignore the normative compulsion to travel simply for an escape and instead remain in an environment where we develop the social arts, we become more aware of ourselves and our nature (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). While this marks our self-development, the arts themselves are collectively pre-authorized ways of being. In being aware of these arts, which is an awareness that also comprises knowledge of social protocols or rules, we manifest a self-knowledge. We have indeed seen Seneca define this as an individual’s wisdom and rationality. The individual becomes rational through an alignment with social structure. Likewise, for Giddens this awareness of socialized structures via which we become socially sanctioned individuals also represents a subject’s self-­ knowledge. By enacting ourselves through collectively established directions we show our “awareness of social rules, expressed first and foremost in practical consciousness” (Giddens 1984, 21). Our awareness rather than ignorance of what it means to be practically social is for Giddens (and also seemingly for Seneca) at “the very core of that ‘knowledgeability’ which specifically characterizes human agents” (21). Giddens’ position counters readings of one’s self-ignorant externalized production. There are nevertheless realistic limits in his view to our socialized knowledgeability. While an individual’s actions are intentional and self-aware, they might know “little of the ramified consequences of the activities in which they engage” (26). This reflects Giddens’ interpretation of the deeply experiential knowledge that “social actors” (91) embody. Every individual is aware of the direct results of their actions. They do not however know of the “indirect” (27) effects that are dispersed around a social structure in “contexts which they do not directly experience” (91). Knowledge and awareness are locally situated phenomena for the individual. Giddens possibly underlines a justification of social science here. Because we do not appreciate the indirect causal effects of our actions, social scientists serve the role of communicating the ramifications of an individual’s or a group’s actions upon others.

132 

W. JOHNCOCK

Socialized localization restricts our knowledge in Giddens’ view. For Seneca conversely, knowledge can be limited at the subjective level. This subjective restriction is not a feature of Giddens’ sociology. Despite this difference, as we have just seen there is a collectively situated nature to individual knowledge and awareness in Seneca’s thesis that coheres with the sociological perspective. This reading might sit awkwardly with typical impressions of the internality of the Stoic self. As a result, we need to expand on this consideration. Such expansion can occur by appreciating a conditional form of “travel” that Seneca does support. This concerns the sedimented knowledge that he believes we experience, depending on the “company we keep.”

Collectively Sedimented Knowledge Seneca targets people who are ignorant of how unhealthy desires and fears dictate their lives. Regarding travel in particular he argues that rather than travel because we want the novelty of new experiences, we should instead “move to better company” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). Seneca even provides a list of those figures among whom we should live. He describes this as a process via which our standards of company might be “bettered.” This list begins by proposing to the afflicted individual to “attach yourself to Socrates and Zeno” (104, 19). Reflecting his specifically Stoic associations he further advises that a focus on the self can be achieved if you “live with Chrysippus, live with Posidonius,” because “they will give you a knowledge of man and the universe; they will tell you to be a practical philosopher” (104, 19). By suggesting this transition of our “company” toward philosophical doctrines rather than physical locations, Seneca presents a different sense of journey. Cohering with his contestation to the desire to move “from place to place” (104, 19), for Seneca knowledgeable travel instead consists in how self-aware we are able and willing to become. This kind of knowledge in his view trumps the contingent “knowledge of other countries” that the traveler usually collects to show to others (104, 12). Seneca posits that a consequent self-knowledge derives from an already established collective pool of philosophical knowledge. Here Seneca appears to recognize interpersonally structured conditions to subjectivity and the consequent authoring of decisions. He duly states that to supersede the state of ignorance “we must spend time in study and in the writings of wise men, to learn the truths that have emerged from their

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

133

researches” (104, 19). This does not contradict his earlier qualification that our own opinions can diverge from wise predecessors. His focus instead is how “authorized others” participate in guiding our internal transitions. Could we interpret from this that there is something consistent between the thought of Seneca and Giddens. Specifically, is Seneca recognizing a socially dispersed source of self and self-knowledge? An opposing voice to such a suggestion might be that knowledge does not necessarily socially originate for Seneca in the way that a sociologist like Giddens might claim. Certainly when dealing with any Stoic thinker we must be sensitive to the belief that the universe itself is rational and the source of all human rationality. This is a point with which Seneca illustrates a consistency in his characterizations of our “individual spirit” as “a spirit very like the universe” (104, 26). Alongside these features of his argument though Seneca does posit how knowledge is socially enacted and radiated among generations. This evokes the elements in Giddens’ theory which attend to the transgenerational transmission of practical knowledge. Giddens presents the language of society’s peers and elders as playing an important community role. This is similar to how the writings of the early Stoic “wise men” disperse knowledge in Seneca’s view. It is in this guise of a socially structured heritage that for Giddens “all social actors know a great deal more than they ever directly live through, as a result of the sedimentation of experience in language” (Giddens 1984, 91). The present-day actor in Giddens’ estimation embodies a historically established socialized knowledge. This continually reactivates a knowledge that is discursively “sedimented” over time. As society’s knowledge of itself perpetuates in this way, we might be reminded of Seneca’s call for us to be aware of the knowledge that structures proper philosophical and communal citizenship. The difference is that for Seneca our perpetuation of this knowledge requires us to actively pursue it whereas for Giddens it is inescapable. Despite this inescapability, the sedimentation of knowledge that Giddens identifies does not match the deterministic structures for subjective development that he identifies in structuralisms such as Durkheim’s. The perpetuation of this structured knowledge instead occurs, according to Giddens, via the agent’s “intentional” reproduction of them (26). It is inescapable that we will intentionally reanimate socially structured phenomena. Despite its socially shaped character, there is nevertheless a novelty in the direction we each take. The novelty of an individual’s actioning of structured knowledge means that Giddens’ human history is never

134 

W. JOHNCOCK

deterministically predictable. The individual is aware of their intention and role in structuring their own history. This is a history that in turn participates in restructuring a collective history. In contradistinction to Durkheim, Giddens demands that individuals who “make their ‘history’” are “cognizant” that they are making their history (rather than history making them). In being aware that they are making their history, individuals for Giddens thus attempt to bring history under their control (27). The individual is here aware of their adaptation of what is socially structured. They are however never able to entirely reduce this informing structure to a purely subjective event, in that it “persistently eludes efforts to bring it under conscious direction” (27). If we were to alter Giddens’ terminology, we might suggest that there nonetheless is a conscious direction that is involved in social structures. This is because such structures comprise the consciousnesses of self-aware individuals. History in this interpretation remains an intentional and ongoing production that the individual is conscious they are maneuvering through their social role. This is contrary to what Giddens interprets in the Durkheimian reading of history, of an externally unrelenting force from an untouchably distant past about which the individual is oblivious. We could in fact  read a Giddens-like position in Seneca’s contestation to the view that an antecedent socially structured philosophical knowledge dictatorially perpetuates subsequent individuals. Seneca states that as we become philosophically sound we individually “carry on the search ourselves for the answers that have not yet been discovered” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). This terminology of the “not yet discovered” indicates the ongoing production of collective history that is consciously enacted by present individuals’ involvements. For Seneca we perpetuate collectively authorized rationalities while re-­ orienting them. This complements Seneca’s earlier point to challenge one’s authorities/masters in pursuing knowledge. We must be cautious though in ascribing too much consistency between the two thinkers on the temporality of collectively sedimented knowledge. The Stoic conditions of much of Seneca’s thought would after all demand that because of a presiding belief that universal nature is rational, knowledge and truth would always already exist in the world. This leaves the individual who is inclined toward living in accordance with nature to discover (and therefore, to know) an already existing truth that is providentially administered by Zeus/Nature. Conversely for Giddens, knowledge and truth, as socially structured phenomena, are always in the process of

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

135

becoming originarily through the intentions and navigations of the individual agents who enact and animate them. This attention on the intentionality of individuality is a key aspect of how Giddens separates his theory of structuration from preceding structuralist sociologies. We have flagged that an issue for Giddens is Durkheim’s use of the terms “exteriority” and “externality” to describe the subject’s relation to social forces. Giddens’ critique wants us to attend to what is internal about our socialization, in that “structure is not ‘external’ to individuals, as memory traces, and as instantiated in social practices, it is more ‘internal’ than exterior to their activities in a Durkheimian sense” (Giddens 1984, 25). While I am receptive to many positions forwarded by Giddens’ theory of structuration I believe more needs to be considered about his attack on Durkheim’s use of loaded terms such as “exteriority.” Durkheim’s intention with such terminology is seemingly to emphasize that behaviors (like suicide) are not exclusively motivated by separately individual minds as is often interpreted.9 In an earlier chapter’s debate between Epictetus and Durkheim, I indeed endorse this feature of the individual-social co-­ constitution posited in Durkheim’s sociology. This reading argues that Durkheimian social structure manifests not as pure constraint (as Giddens supposes) but as an expression of a conditioned and conditioning individual. Giddens and I therefore agree that “structure is not to be equated with constraint but is always both constraining and enabling” (25). Where we differ concerns the nature of the constraint and exteriority in Durkheimian sociology specifically. In the preface to the second edition of The Rules of Sociological Method Durkheim indeed critiques readings of the first edition that characterize social facts as externally constraining and deterministic. Giddens’ commentary would later come to fall into this category of readings. Durkheim, responding to claims that his school of thought was only “explaining social phenomena by constraint” (Durkheim 1938 (1895), liii), presents the clear refutation that “this was far from our intention” (liii). Social facts are malleable in the Durkheimian conception. Whichever institutionalized forces are contextually/currently prevalent shape them. This differentiates social phenomena from physical phenomena in Durkheim’s presentation given that “the peculiar characteristic of social constraint is that it is due, not to the rigidity of certain molecular arrangements, but to the prestige with which certain representations are invested”

136 

W. JOHNCOCK

(lv). The collectivity of the social-fact-as-thing manifests uniquely because it is informed but not determined by its cause. The individual is not absolutely outside this process for Durkheim, despite Giddens’ claims. For there to be a social fact for Durkheim a collaboration occurs in which “several individuals must have contributed their action; and in this joint activity is the origin of a new fact” (xlv). This is a footnote to the comparative discussion through which Seneca and Giddens have guided us. Having said that, this Durkheimian clarification could contain the thematic glue of this chapter’s discussion. That theme which has held Giddens and Seneca together in dialogue is “exteriority.” For Seneca our ignorance of either our motivation to travel or of our fears and desires represents a state of the self that externalities dictate. This ignorance informs a lack of awareness about why we make any decisions that we do. Before we have “moved to live with” philosophical company it is Seneca’s estimation that we perpetually move in a manner about which we are ignorant. Conversely for Giddens the notion of exteriority from aspects of our decision-making apparatus is less entertainable. We are always aware of how we intentionally individuate ourselves even if such intentions are socially structured. Our externality, where externality refers to our socialized constitution, is our internality. While the issue of how we come to be the individual that we each are is at stake in both Seneca and Giddens, the novelty of how we travel to such individuation splinters in their respective theses. This splintering or traveling is nonetheless  for  both Seneca and Giddens a journey through a situated knowledge of our subjectivity.

Notes 1. The French mathematician, physicist, and theologian, Blaise Pascal linked the desire to travel to dissatisfaction with life at home; “all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town” (Pascal 1958 [1670], 2.139). Sigmund Freud relatedly argues that travel connects to notions of escape from home environments; “[the] longing to travel was certainly also an expression of … dissatisfaction with home and family” (Freud 2006, 76). 2. Epictetus explains in one of many similarly themed illustrations that a horrible father is bad for the father in terms of his unjust life that is not lived in

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

137

accordance with nature. For the child however their horrible father “represents a blessing” (Epictetus 2008, 3.20, 11). This blessing is attributable to how the situation provides the child with the opportunity to realize and enact their Stoic virtuousness. In transposing this logic onto all adverse situations, Epictetus explains how every difficult “circumstance represents an opportunity” (3.20). In a thematically similar fashion Marcus Aurelius speaks of how when encountering an obstacle we can turn it to our advantage. Via the power of cognitive adaptation, the mind, according to Gregory Hays’ translation of Meditations, “adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.20). See also Maxwell Staniforth’s translation of this passage as where the “mind adapts and turns round any obstacle to action, to serve its objective” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.20). This objective is a life lived in accordance with nature/virtue. Ryan Holiday (2014) has recently popularized this theme of reconfiguring a bad circumstance to the status of an opportunity. 3. Seneca is often referred to as Seneca the Younger given that  his father’s name was also “Seneca” (a reference to his full name; Marcus Annaeus Seneca). This is a pertinent point given that history has at times, as James Ker reminds us, made the error of “lumping together” the work of the younger and elder Seneca and attributing it all to “the same statesman” (Ker 2011, li). 4. Madeleine Jones reviews numerous accounts of Seneca’s life in noting that biographical recordings of Seneca’s great wealth and political power are so comprehensive that we should doubt neither element (Jones 2014, 394). 5. It is important to clarify that wealth is not itself bad or anti-Stoic for Seneca but is something to which we can be indifferent. The issue is not even in choosing wealth over poverty in certain circumstances. Unhealthily desiring wealth is instead the issue. Seneca’s position indeed is that it could be easier to be resilient to wealth when you are poor and not familiar with its indulgences. In conversely maintaining a healthy indifference to wealth when you are rich you demonstrate great virtue. Seneca does not deny that an individual should embrace poverty if that is their position in life (Seneca 1962, 20.10). If you are poor, things you say that exhibit your acceptance of your position will not seem suspicious, as though you are “merely saying them.” Your poverty will instead evidence that “you will be demonstrating them” (20.10). Seneca does not believe that this excludes wealthy individuals from virtue and goodness though; “he also is great-souled, who sees riches heaped up round him and, after wondering long and deeply because they have come into his possession, smiles, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It means much not to be spoiled by intimacy with riches” (20.10). Brad Inwood observes of this mentality that for Seneca if you “understand fortune” (Seneca 1962, 51.9) then it will “cease to have power over you”

138 

W. JOHNCOCK

(Inwood 2005, 317). These kinds of themes motivate John Sellars to also argue that for the Stoics “there is nothing wrong with choosing wealth rather than poverty” (Sellars 2016b, 2). 6. A thematic consistency presents on this theme of death with Seneca’s overriding argument in On the Shortness of Life. There he demands that everyone should confront their inevitable mortality and live a rewarding life free of wasted time (Seneca 1997, 5). For Pigliucci the Stoic view generally is that death is our life’s logical “natural end point, is nothing special in and of itself and nothing that we should particularly fear” (Pigliucci 2017a, 7). 7. Raising the possibility of actively “choosing” a path that is not in accordance with our nature ventures into the elaborate terrain of Stoic conceptions of agency, fate, and providence. Anthony Long and David Sedley note that Chrysippus recognizes universally fated aspects to our being. Chrysippus though does not want to “abandon altogether” the “could have done otherwise” criterion regarding our choices and actions (Long and Sedley 1987, 392–393). This tension in the Chrysippean position is illustrated by Eusebius’ portrayal in his Evangelical Preparation, in that Chrysippus “says in book 2 that it is obvious that many things originate from us, but that these too are none the less co-fated along with the government of the world” (Eusebius, SVF, 2.998, in L&S, 389). From this we can contextualize the characterization in Alexander’s On Fate that the Stoics “deny that man has the freedom to choose between opposite actions, and say that it is what comes about through us that is in our power” (Alexander, SVF, 2.979, in L&S, 389; author’s original emphasis). While this suggests a certain determinism, we can also acknowledge that what eventuates “through” us for the Stoics is to an extent oriented by each of our natures. 8. This characterization is not entirely unlike claims made by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (who we engage in Chap. 8). In The Logic of Practice Bourdieu conceives of the human body as a site that concurrently structures and is structured by socialized practices (Bourdieu 1990a [1980], 5; Bourdieu 1990b, 156–167). Giddens credits Bourdieu as a result for offering “a standpoint in some respects similar to that which I want to suggest here” (Giddens 1979, 217). Despite, or perhaps because of, this ideological similarity there are few other references to Bourdieu in Giddens’ work. This is a point of contention for certain commentators (Jenkins 1982, 271; Schwartz 2001, 4). 9. Sociologist Jack Douglas expands on this novelty of Durkheim’s perspective. During the era in which Durkheim proposes socialized compulsions regarding suicide, contrarily “the common sense view of suicide was that it was an intensely individual act” (Douglas 1967, 16).

6  DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 

139

References Becker, Lawrence. 2004. Stoic Emotion. In Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 250–276. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990a (1980). The Logic of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 1990b. In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology. Translated by Matthew Adamson. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Douglas, Jack. 1967. The Social Meanings of Suicide. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Durkheim, Émile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by George Catlin. Translated by Sarah Solovay & John Mueller. New York: The Free Press. Epictetus. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. Farren, Jen. 2014. Stoicism & Star Trek. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 196–200. CreateSpace. Freud, Sigmund. 2006. Letter to Romain Rolland (A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis). In The Penguin Freud Reader, ed. Adam Phillips, 68–76. London and New York: Penguin. Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan. ———. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Graver, Margaret. 2007. Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Holiday, Ryan. 2014. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumphs. New York: Penguin. Inwood, Brad. 2005. Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jenkins, Richard. 1982. Pierre Bourdieu and the Reproduction of Determinism. Sociology 16 (2): 270–281. Jones, Madeleine. 2014. Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius: Hypocrisy as a Way of Life. In Seneca Philosophus, ed. Jula Wildberger and Marcia Colish, 393–430. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Ker, James. 2011. A Seneca Reader: Selections from Prose and Tragedy. Mundelein: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books.

140 

W. JOHNCOCK

———. 2002. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New  York: The Modern Library. Pascal, Blaise. 1958 (1670). Pascal’s Pensées. Translated by W.F. Trotter. New York: E.P. Dutton. Pigliucci, Massimo. 2017a. How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. New York: Basic Books. ———. 2017b. What Do I Disagree about with the Ancient Stoics? How to Be a Stoic, December 26. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/12/26/ what-do-i-disagree-about-with-the-ancient-stoics/. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2011. Authority and Agency in Stoicism. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51: 296–322. Robertson, Donald. 2014. Stoics Are Not Unemotional! In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 33–36. CreateSpace. Schwartz, Sean. 2001. Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sellars, John. 2016a. Stoicism and Emotions. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 43–48. CreateSpace. ———. 2016b. Introduction. In The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, ed. John Sellars, 1–14. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 1962. Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales: Volume 1. Edited and translated by Richard Gummere. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 1969. Letters from a Stoic. Edited and translated by Robin Campbell. London and New York: Penguin. ———. 1997. On the Shortness of Life. Translated by Charles Costa. London and New York: Penguin.

PART III

Physical Conditions

CHAPTER 7

Is Climate Change Natural? Marcus Aurelius and Barbara Adam on Death

A Nature Contaminated by Humans? Is there a tendency within climate change debates to characterize the relationship between humans and the natural environment in oppositional terms? When arguing that human activities have primarily contributed to changes in the world’s climate, is human life portrayed as a subsequent imposition upon Earth’s natural state? Another way to phrase this is, do we deem humans to be intruders on what was otherwise a naturally cohesive environment/system? Even if there is a propensity for conceiving of the human-Earth relationship in this kind of way, we might ask what the point is of challenging it. Such a conception seems to serve a useful role as an intervention to the possible human “destruction” of the planet. Its ethical authority comes from its attention on what is detrimental about the human effect on the planet’s climate for humans and nonhumans alike. Furthermore, this conception highlights the structural inequalities between nations that eventuate from climate change. One example of the unequal distribution of climate change effects is that rising sea levels will affect a very particular set of low-lying countries and populations first and most adversely.1 Economically such populations will be at a structural disadvantage through loss of infrastructure and physical displacement. Existentially such populations will have their lives threatened, particularly if there are catastrophically sudden climate change related events. The irony we are told is that such populations are © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_7

143

144 

W. JOHNCOCK

often likely to have contributed least to the industrially induced warming of sea temperatures and consequent elevations in ocean heights.2 In attending to such inequalities, it can therefore garner critical respect to characterize the cause of climatic shifts as the aforementioned industrially intrusive arrival of humans on a natural ecological scene. The concern that expands from this attention is that climate change jeopardizes the existence of all humans by making the planet entirely uninhabitable for our species.3 This complements the interpretation that human industrialization (aligned with social and cultural development) has adversely affected the natural environment in an unnaturally destructive manner. Human developments must also endanger the existence of many other species in this regard. This portrays much of nature as powerless in comparison to the externally imposed dominance of human processes. Climate change and death become pervasively complementary themes. In raising this debate, I recognize the utilities of environmentally concerned discourses which present humans as unnaturally destroying a natural environment. I nevertheless wish to respond to this discussion by asking whether there is something odd about characterizing humans and the planet in polarizing terms. How can humans have evolved from the Earth’s natural environment only to be able to unnaturally affect that environment? Can natural beings on a natural planet induce unnatural causes and effects? From this, I am curious about whether there is a danger that in characterizing human-induced activities and effects as unnatural or artificial we conceptually separate humans and nature. This unsettles me because opponents of the  industries, which have seemingly disregarded our natural environment and caused climate changes, argue that such a separation equally proliferates in the outlooks of those industries. What interests me in discourses occupied with arresting climate change is which jeopardies are involved in viewing its human industrial sources as unnatural. It is with such a theme that the work of British sociologist Barbara Adam (1945–) aligns. This especially relates to her focus on the topic of time.4 Adam explores many aspects of society’s relationship with time. In particular, we will be reviewing how her intrigue about the rhythms shared between clocked time and naturally evolutionary time contributes to her views on environmental time. Adam examines the interplay between culturally industrial and naturally environmental temporalities most closely in Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. From this interplay, Adam

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

145

determines an oppositional distinction between human activity and the natural world, such as when discussing how adversely “seasons and tidal extremes are affected by industrial activity” (Adam 1998, 12). Human culture in this view comprises an army of intruders that have infected what was an already existing and self-regulating nature. Given social theory’s attention on cultural practices, it has a responsibility in Adam’s opinion to examine how “nature is inescapably contaminated by human activity, that is, by a way of life that is practised and exported by industrial societies” (23). Part of the commentary about this human effect on the natural arena describes species’ extinctions that have already occurred or are straightforwardly impending. What becomes particularly apparent when reading Adam’s account though is that the primary “death” about which the human species is concerned regarding climate change is its own. Environmental discourses for Adam benefit from this prioritization of our own species’ survival for “it is the recognition of human endangerment through hazards arising from the industrial way of life that precipitates the increasing interest in nature and environmental issues” (27). A species’ focus on its own prolongation is not necessarily surprising. What makes this point noteworthy however is how it plays on the equation between an increase in human-caused climate changes and an increase in the threat of human extinction. The conceptual polarization of human activity from the natural environment participates in galvanizing popular consciousness around climate change issues. It is peculiar that it is uncontroversial to conceptually separate nature and humans. Humans have emerged from nowhere and from nothing but such a nature. The natural arena is the site of origination of human beings, as it is of the natural elements now under threat from “human intruders.” Nevertheless, Adam’s terminology characterizes this relationship adversarially by describing the “contamination” of Earth by humans. She indeed exacerbates this sense of division with the idea that the environment is responding negatively to humans. Adam explains this reactive separation by portraying climate change as the result of human industrialized “threats to bases of existence, pushing back the boundaries of nature, going against nature by imposing ‘unnatural measures’ and nature retaliating” (30). The tone is that humans do not simply live on Earth nor with the naturally environmental features of Earth. Humans instead have arrogantly instigated a battle against Earth.

146 

W. JOHNCOCK

Humans “Out of Sync” with Natural Timings Adam’s most important sociological work as indicated concerns the topic of time. Human industrialization is part of a discussion about time for Adam in that she defines it as an effort to transcend the finitude of our mortal temporality. This view describes how industrialization shares an intimate relationship with clocked and calendared time. Contrary to what is unknown about our time after death, Adam notes that these industrialized timings will seemingly continue “on indefinitely, day after day, year after year” (Adam 1998, 70). Modern industrialized temporalities thus offer a conditional immortality to otherwise mortal beings. As industrialization ticks on indefinitely our ongoing presence is possibly preserved via our contributions to it, even when our death seems to herald our finiteness and absence. Industrialization might offer for Adam this apparent potential for immortality but the flip side is that its climatically conditioned destruction of human life really represents our contrary finality. In considering how environmentally oriented discourses express concern about the impending death of the human species, Adam calls for more attention on the parameter of time. She duly argues in “Time and Environmental Crisis” that in terms of the “environmental crisis … whilst the spatial dimension has been brought to the fore in a number of disciplines, the temporal equivalent has stayed implicit” (Adam 1993, 399). What Adam means by the “spatial dimension” here is the physical or material aspects of climate change. As we measure seawaters rising and witness crops dying, the material changes of climate change are visibly evident. Adam’s apparent concern is that within this focus the temporal factor in climate change discussion has remained comparably invisible. This perspective I will note is consistent with our general experience with time. We can see space. Often we can touch its physicality. Space is materially verifiable. Time conversely is apparently everywhere but nowhere. We perpetually live it and perhaps even within it but we cannot necessarily locate it or touch it.5 In order to obtain a sense of control over this otherwise unwieldy phenomenon that we call time, humans have created representational models on clocks and calendars. These manifest as cultured and indeed as industrialized tools via which we can track and use time. Through this measurable version of time, we also see how time concretely speaks to impressions of the adversarial and existential threat posed in the climate change debate.

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

147

As with any discussions concerning existence and death, the prospect of time’s measure becomes apparent in discussions about the ramifications of a changing environment. Measurable time informs resulting fears about how much time one (or one’s species) might have remaining. This quantifiable form of time has an interesting double character in terms of climate change. Such time is an opponent against which we are racing to “save the planet” (i.e. to save ourselves), as well as a resource that if used efficiently can potentially arrest the threat. Measured or quantified time becomes a resource just like any other that is bought and sold, used or lost. Adam’s opinion in this context is that “effective action” has been taken too late against climate change, which means that “we are running out … of time” (401, 406).6 This lack of a timely response to climate change characterizes for Adam a human species that is “out of sync” with its natural environment. A prime example of this is the changing constitution of the ozone layer around Earth. The depletion of the ozone is for Adam the most obvious example of this lack of synchronicity between humans and nature (401). The primary cause of ozone degradation is the increased use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). That we have not entirely removed CFCs from use indicates for Adam “out of sync time-lags” (402) between how humans live and the natural environment in which they live. The proposition that humans are out of temporal sync with nature and their environment sums up the tendency to conceive of an oppositional human-environment relation. It is my reading however that with conceptions of such opposition an unexpected tension presents. I can identify this tension in how Adam on the one hand describes a “global, ecologically networked interconnectedness” of which humans are a part (401; my emphasis). This recognizes a worldwide association not just between different groups of humans but between humans and the environmental (ecological) realm. It also posits such interconnectedness as an aspect of human existence to which industrialization must be more sensitive. The suggestion here is not that human-ecology interconnectedness is a possibility that humanity can proactively choose. Adam’s presentation rather is that interconnectedness reflects our inescapably ecological origins. We are a species among other species in an overall earthly system. By also positing “out of sync time-frames” (401) however between humans and the rest of this ecological structure, a disconnection underpins Adam’s sense of these relations between humans and the environment. In Adam’s view, the rest of nature is connected in sync while we

148 

W. JOHNCOCK

have somehow broken free. This latter position coheres with Adam’s earlier appraisal of climate change as the result of an adversarial relationship between humans and the natural Earth. In Adam, we thus encounter a dual perspective. Humans have an obligation to maintain the environment given that we are an inherent part of the environment. She awkwardly complements this demand though with the common assertion of combative relations between our species and the ecological arena on which our industrialized processes “impose.” I describe these tandem characteristics as awkward given that if humans are one part of an ecological system, can we or indeed anything of that system ever alienate itself from its original (and ongoing) conditions? Can we represent humanity as a part of nature but at the same time characterize this human aspect of nature as manifesting (industrializing) something that is antithetical to nature? Are humans as a part of nature able to denature their natural origins?

Stoic Pantheism: Humans as Nature It is by integrating later Stoic perspectives on nature and change into the discussion that we can differently reflect on humans’ “connectedness” to the world. Furthermore we will consider whether natural beings are ever able to cause unnatural changes to natural conditions. Passages where the ancient Stoics express literal concerns about the environmental impact of human actions are sparse. We find a notable example however in Margaret Graver and Anthony Long’s translation of Seneca’s letters. This concerns where Seneca criticizes the habitation of humans around natural landmarks: Now I turn to address you people whose self-indulgence extends as widely as those other people’s greed. I ask you: how long will this go on? Every lake is overhung with your roofs! Every river is bordered by your buildings! Wherever one finds gushing streams of hot water, new pleasure houses will be started. Wherever a shore curves into a bay, you will instantly lay down foundations. Not satisfied with any ground that you have not altered, you will bring the sea into it! Your houses gleam everywhere, sometimes situated on mountains to give a great view of land and sea, sometimes built on flat land to the height of mountains. Yet when you have done so much enormous building, you still have only one body apiece, and that a puny one. What good are numerous bedrooms? You can only lie in one of them. Any place you do occupy is not really yours. (Seneca 2015a, 89.21)

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

149

Not only are instances of direct discussion by the ancient Stoics on the human-environment relation rare but there are also relatively few modern inquiries into Stoic philosophy’s relevance to environmental issues. Kai Whiting and Leonidas Konstantakos recently raise this point of the “limited amount of work done by modern Stoics” on environmental topics (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 4). What analysis there is on the intersection between Stoicism and environmentalism tends to be concerned with Stoic pantheistic perspectives of our relation to the rest of world. I will review this kind of commentary now in order to distinguish my contribution to Stoic-themed discussions on the environment. Firstly, I should explain what pantheism means in a Stoic context. Michael Levine (1994) and Whiting and Konstantakos (2019) exhibit a consistency across much Stoic scholarship in conceiving of Stoic pantheism as referring to a divine impulse that is present in all parts of the “whole.” Both works cite Huw Parri Owen’s famous characterization to support this position, which defines pantheism as where “god is everything and everything is god or that the world is either identical with god or, in some way a self-expression of his nature” (Owen 1971, 8). The Stoic pantheistic outlook begins in the earliest eras of the school. Alfred Pearson’s “Introduction” in The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes argues that the Stoics after Cleanthes are considered to take a pantheistic outlook in which “God and the world are identical” (Pearson in Zeno et al. 1891, 22). Elsewhere in the fragments of Cleanthes we see Cicero state that Cleanthes was “a pantheist, and identified God with matter” (Cicero in Zeno et al. 1891, Fragment 17).7 God, as the Stoic “logos,” is here what we have seen described as the rationality of nature that connects everything.8 The Stoics in this regard use different terms to refer to logos such as God, Zeus, reason, and intellect. Whiting and Konstantakos are nonetheless correct that a logocentric divinity is for all such Stoic references “a natural presence (a material soul) … permeating the whole” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 2; my emphasis). Given the identification of an omnipresent God with(in) this all-encompassing nature, Whiting and Konstantakos further note that we can best describe the Stoic pantheism as a “naturalistic theological” worldview (5). If we live in a way which accords with the Stoic God’s rationality, we cohere with the Stoic maxim to live in accordance with nature. The pantheistic logocentric element of the Stoic natural world is the cause of much debate. Lawrence Becker (2017) claims that Stoicism’s logocentric foundations are not something we should casually dismiss. As

150 

W. JOHNCOCK

Massimo Pigliucci (2017c) explains, this does not mean that Becker discounts the worth of decoupling Stoic philosophy from theology. Stoicism’s theological logocentrism is dismissible rather for Becker only if we can provide a new account of the Stoic logos. From such orientations, Whiting and Konstantakos express concern about an anti-theological/anti-­ pantheistic shift that they identify in modern Stoics such as Irvine (2008), LeBon (2014), and Pigliucci (2017b, 2018).9 Their concern is with how this trend argues that maintaining Stoicism’s pantheism is not possible given modern scientific sensibilities. Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez explicitly state, for example, that most “modern Stoics are not pantheists, but accept the contemporary scientific account of the world” (Pigliucci and Lopez 2019, 59).10 For Whiting and Konstantakos, these issues manifest because modern scholars are uncomfortable with using the term “theology” in conjunction with the Stoic pillar that is “nature.” This is especially the case when we are dealing with a scientifically investigable nature. The suggestion here is that pantheism’s inherently theological parameters problematically invoke an association with spiritually transcendent religious parameters. The consequent modern discomfort with the theological component of Stoicism is said to have “derived from a cultural understanding of ‘god’ which is dominated by monotheistic interpretations and the superstitious and supernatural baggage that such beliefs imply” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 8). If you are going to use Stoicism and science to discuss a topic like climate change, the concern is that the theological component of Stoic pantheism might compromise Stoicism’s perceived relevance to the evidence-based underpinnings of modern climate study. The ancient Stoics though would not have distinguished as we presently do between religious thought and scientific inquiry. For orthodox Stoicism God is implicated in and as the world rather than relegated to a position of its separate overseer. The assertion here follows the impression of pantheism offered by Dirk Baltzly (2003) that the Stoic God reveals its divinity, a perfect rationality, in physical processes and scientific facts (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 7). This point is consistent with the empirical outlooks of the Stoics that we have reviewed earlier in this book. It is via these co-incorporated theological and empirical principles in ancient Stoicism that Whiting and Konstantakos disagree with Becker’s atheistic approach to replace the Stoic call to “live according to Nature” with the demand to “live according to the facts” (Becker 2017, 46). The primary condition for Whiting

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

151

and Konstantakos’ contestation is that the ancient Stoics were already asserting a life in accordance with facts. A naturalistic theology is in the Stoics’ view both entirely rational and empirically knowledgeable. The Stoics’ “naturalist theological framework” is thus already inherently scientific: Stoic theology is more like (modern) science than other theological perspectives because the material Stoic god is more aligned with what atheists or agnostics might refer to as the “scientific worldview.” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 8)

This position sees no problem with using ancient Stoic pantheistic perspectives for modern climate science considerations. The work of certain modern Stoics (Boeri 2009; Jedan 2009; Long 1996; Striker 1996) is also recognized for its assertions that the orthodox Stoic view of theology is essential to Stoicism’s ongoing coherence. Such arguments contribute to the impression that the Stoic God does not contradict scientific pursuits in the natural environment by being spiritually untouchable. Whiting, Konstantakos, Angeles Carrasco, and Luis Gabriel Carmona further explain that the orthodox Stoic pantheistic perspective is rather “intrinsically grounded in physical reality and thus action, not simply thought” (Whiting et al. 2018, 3). To this end, an environmentally conscious modern Stoic is also “a religious Stoic” who must learn to “give up the alleged transcendental god for an immanent one” (15).11 The earlier referenced Dirk Baltzly is also comfortable with appraising Stoic pantheism in a way that co-accommodates theology and natural science. Baltzly’s assertion in fact is that the pantheistic outlook of the Stoics only manifested as a result of their scientific proclivities. From their empirically based appreciations of a divinely ordered universe, Baltzly asserts that pantheism is a “conclusion that I believe the Stoics reached largely a posteriori on the basis of their scientific understanding of the world” (Baltzly 2003, 3). Baltzly recognizes ontological and ideological elements to this Stoic perspective. Ontologically, everything that exists constitutes a pantheistic unity. Ideologically this unity is divine in a way that makes it appropriate to take up a religious attitude toward it (4). Because this unity is divine, God must necessarily be omnipresent within the world’s material reality. To support this position Baltzly cites Diogenes Laërtius’ characterization of Stoic principles (that we comprehensively engage in the next chapter) in which everything in the universe is either that which acts or is acted upon:

152 

W. JOHNCOCK

That which is acted upon is unqualified substance, i.e. matter; that which acts is the reason [logos] in it, i.e. god. For this, since it is everlasting, constructs every single thing throughout all matter. (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.300, in L&S, 268)

Long and Sedley’s translation here of the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (SVF)  engages a passage from Diogenes’ The Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Charles Yonge’s translation of this passage from Diogenes’ work similarly describes how the Stoics: …think that there are two general principles in the universe, the active and the passive. That the passive is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality. That the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For that he, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter, makes everything. (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68)

The belief in an activation of matter by a universally present logos evokes for Baltzly, as well as Gretchen Reydams-Schils (1999), an idea from Plato’s Timaeus (2008a). For Plato, the Forms, the Demiurge, and the World Soul are active agents, whereas the Receptacle takes on the form of a passive materiality.12 Baltzly notes an adaptation of this in the Stoic version. The Stoics collapse the three active principles into a single active element, God, which is present in all matter: They [the Stoics] also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. And that … he turned into water the whole substance which pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the produce, so too, he being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those things which were to come after; and then, first of all, he made the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. And Zeno speaks of these in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics. (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68)

God interpenetrates the entire material world. This omnipresent divinity of materiality indicates for Baltzly that in Stoicism “matter and god are two ways of thinking about one and the same body” (Baltzly 2003, 10). The body of God is the physical world. For the Stoics inquiries into the physical world are thus inquiries into the divine. Hence the co-­accommodation of science and theology. We must be careful though not to assume that this pantheistic materiality simply refers to a natural arena of flora and fauna.

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

153

Michael Levine indeed notes that “there is a tendency to picture pantheists (other than Spinoza), outdoors and in pastoral settings. This has roots in the Stoics’ veneration of nature” (Levine 1994, 121). An issue with this conception of Stoic pantheism is that not all environmental or ecological elements are equal for the Stoics just because their God pervades all of nature. Stoic pantheism is not an ontology of existential equality. What is instead pantheistic about Stoic nature is primarily rationality. It is via this conception of pantheistic rationality that we will debate the Stoic belief in a human-nature interconnectedness. As it stands, Adam’s reading of the human-nature relation contains certain tensions that I anticipate the Stoic view can address. I have noted that a pantheistic rationality for the Stoics manifests in the orderings of the material universe. In Chap. 2, we discussed how these ordered constitutions are identifiable in the regular physical patterns of the world. We might recall that such reliable patterns are for Epictetus the radiating presence of a rational God: How else, after all, could things take place with such regularity, as if God were issuing orders. When he tells plants to bloom, they bloom, when he tells them to bear fruits, they bear fruit, when he tells them to ripen, they ripen. (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 3)

That a key ingredient of Stoic pantheism is rationality will inform how I bring ancient Stoicism and a modern environmentally oriented consciousness into discussion. We will encounter issues here with the belief of “deep ecologists” that all of nature is equal. This indeed is Baltzly’s angle when arguing that the Stoic naturalistic theology is not “congenial” (Baltzly 2003, 15) to deeply egalitarian impressions of ecological life. In fact, more than one commentator differentiates ancient Stoicism’s rationalized nature from the sense of nature proffered in modern ecologically concerned perspectives. To explain this crucial point I will briefly outline what deep ecology means before incorporating prominent Stoic-inspired responses.

Stoic Pantheism Is Inconsistent with Deep Ecological Egalitarianism The “deep ecological movement” is said to have been conceived by Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Arne Naess who in 1973 introduced the phrase “deep ecology” to environmental literature (Drengson

154 

W. JOHNCOCK

2012). Deep ecology is distinguishable from “shallow ecology.” For Naess the latter is concerned only with the symptoms of environmental degradation such as “fighting against pollution and resource depletion” (Naess 1995, 3). The deep ecology movement rejects this “human in-­ environment” perspective. Deep ecology instead endorses a “biospherical egalitarianism” (4) that will regard human existence as just one of many equal components of a global ecosystem. This view shares features with Adam’s earlier-reviewed outlook. I say this because Adam’s commentary posits that humans have misconceived of themselves as hierarchically positioned in relation to nature and therefore feel entitled to recklessly use and abuse its “resources.” Given Stoicism’s mandate of living in accordance with nature, comparisons between its philosophies and those of the deep ecological movement are not surprising. Jim Cheney provides one well-known claim that ancient Stoicism and deep ecologies share an affinity (Cheney 1989, 294). William Stephens however vehemently contests this reading. The rational rather than the ecologically egalitarian emphases of Stoic pantheism mean for Stephens that Stoicism’s impression of the natural environment “couldn’t be farther from the biocentrism and the anti-anthropocentrism of deep ecology, despite Cheney’s claims to the contrary” (Stephens 1994, 278). The Stoic relationship with the material natural arena is instead for Stephens preoccupied with the task to “perceive and affirm the rational and beneficial arrangement of the universe and to seek to understand it through the systematic study of logic and physics” (276). Alan Holland similarly suggests that given the pre-industrial era in which they existed, ancient Stoic motivations could hardly have matched the circumstances that motivate deep ecologists (Holland 1997, 151). An appreciation of the hierarchy of rational creatures that Stoics such as Epictetus observe will further emphasize this distinction. For the ancient Stoics there is little sense of an equal ecological status and right to life or preservation. Holland raises the Stoics’ belief that we have encountered in previous chapters in a “hierarchy or ‘ladder’ of value, with humans somewhere near the top, lower than God but higher than all other creatures” (161). This makes the respective content of Stoic philosophy and deep ecology incompatible for Holland. Ecologically oriented views centralize a mandate of “biospherical egalitarianism” (159). As we see with Epictetus, a Stoic perspective is conversely that nonhuman animals are created to serve humans:

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

155

And so for the beasts it is enough to eat, drink, sleep, breed and do whatever else it is that satisfies members of their kind. But for us who have been given the faculty of understanding, this is not enough. Creatures whose constitutions are different have different ends and functions accordingly. So, for creatures whose constitution is exclusively designed for use, use on its own suffices; but where the capacity to understand that use is added, the creature will only reach its end by bringing that capacity into play. God created some beasts to be eaten, some to be used in farming, some to supply us with cheese, and so on. To fulfil such functions, they don’t need to comprehend impressions or make distinctions among them. Man was brought into the world, however, to look upon God and his works—and not just look, but appreciate. And so it is inexcusable for man to begin and end where the beasts do. (Epictetus 2008, 1.6, 14–20)

Whiting and Konstantakos also recognize Stoicism’s “incompatibility” with biocentrism’s position that “humans are not inherently superior to any other species or the living organism that Earth constitutes” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 4). This gives the human-nature relation its peculiarly Stoic character. What eventuates is an impression of Stoicism that is both logocentric and anthropocentric. We see the world through the universe’s general (logocentric) rational nature. Concurrently though we enjoy a specific (anthropocentric) kind of rational nature that is privileged over less-rational aspects of the world. This rationality that Epictetus connects to our capacity to “appreciate” is what distinguishes humans from less-rational nonhuman animals and other entities. What this means for Stephens is that the Stoics deny the inherent value of things in the ecological arena, such as “the value a flower or a tree or a whole species of flower or a whole species of tree has in itself (or with respect to an ecosystem) independent of a valuer” (Stephens 1994, 278). The valuer of such entities can in this reading only be human beings (or certain other animals) who attribute such entities with value. Because for Stephens “deep ecologists do maintain the ‘inherent value of things’” (283) their movement sits counter to Stoic perspectives. It is in this sense that Dirk Baltzly not only describes how “Stoic pantheism is breath-takingly anthropocentric” but laments that this “has not prevented some modern interpreters from trying to recruit them [ancient Stoics] to the green camp” (Baltzly 2003, 15). This is not to say that ancient Stoic philosophy and modern environmental ethics are entirely unable to be brought into dialogue. Holland indeed notes the resilience required in ideological battles regarding

156 

W. JOHNCOCK

combatting climate change and that “the very fortitude that the term ‘stoicism’ now conjures up could be put to the service of environmentalism” (Holland 1997, 163). Christopher Gill similarly discusses why “Stoic ethical ideas help us respond more effectively to the current environmental crisis” (Gill 2016, 119). For Gill this effective response is bound up in the features of Stoicism’s pantheism which concern virtue. Via Stoicism’s pantheistic outlook we appreciate our interconnectedness with a transitioning natural environment, incorporating “the Stoic beliefs that human beings form an integral part of nature as a whole and that human ethical life should consist in part in bringing our life into harmony with nature” (119). Any consequent dialogue between Stoicism and environmental ethics for Gill involves an extension to the way we conceive of virtues, for in his view we typically only “tend to think about them [virtues] in terms of our relationship to other human beings” (120). This is a point also raised by Whiting and Konstantakos in describing the importance of a virtuously inclined relationship not only with other humans but also with the “environment of which we are all part” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 12). It is within this context of the pantheistic whole that a Stoic engagement with environmental ethics recognizes our membership not of a species specifically but of an entire nature. Adam’s earlier commentary would of course agree with this point. In her estimation, we are blinded by a species-specific orientation that leads us to neglect our relations with nature. This theme of the human relationship with a whole nature guides my own perspectives on how to generate discussions between Stoicism and environmentally inclined discourse. I agree with Holland and Gill that Stoicism has great practical contributions to make regarding activating the general human motivation “to repair the damage that we have done to the natural environment” (Gill 2016, 125). I too am interested in practically applying this imperative to very specific questions of sustainability. This  kind of application might follow the example of Konstantakos, who  asks whether a Stoic “would save the elephants” (Konstantakos 2016). Rather than focus  in this chapter  though on Stoic philosophy’s relations to the particular forms or effects of climatic and environmental change, my contribution here to this field of debate targets the parameter of change itself. In asking in this chapter whether climatic change is natural, I want to compare a later Stoic conception of pantheistic material change with Adam’s impression that we have caused unnatural changes to nature.

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

157

Change Is Inherently Natural For the second-century Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ACE), change is a fundamental and unavoidable aspect of the world. His Meditations (largely written during military campaigns13) discusses change in terms of the virtuousness that is engendered by remaining indifferent to it. While I work primarily with Maxwell Staniforth’s translation of Marcus’ Meditations (1964) in this and other chapters, I will regularly incorporate more recent translations by Gregory Hays (Marcus Aurelius 2002) and Robin Hard (Marcus Aurelius 2011) in order to compare different readings of Marcus’ terminology. Marcus identifies the inescapability of change and transition as applicable to both his existence as an individual human and to that of the entire world. Just as the world’s “substance” changes constantly and uncontrollably so does one’s own form. These forces that bring about all changes lead Marcus to characterize himself as being “made up of the causal and the material” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.13). Gregory Hays’ translation perhaps even more directly targets this notion of substance than Maxwell Staniforth’s here, in describing how we are “made up of substance and what animates it” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.13). Given the constant refrains of “materiality” and “substance” in Marcus’ work, I should remind us that we are not dealing with a typical understanding of matter. Marcus’ philosophy exhibits the nuanced appreciation of nature’s matter that we have seen from the Stoics in which material substance carries a pantheistic rationality.14 Indeed in discussing nature alongside materialist themes we must remain attentive to how the Stoic discussion of nature is not simply a reference to an ecologically physical environment. We will rather be sensitive to how nature for the Stoics comprises a universally rational constitution of which we are a part. Consistent with this Stoic focus on the human relation with the entirety of universal being, our concern now in this chapter is with the Stoic part-whole relations that Marcus targets regarding change. For Marcus an individual’s material or physical changes provide an insight into their relationship with the entire universe (the “Whole”). Each individual entity represents one part of this Whole. We need to think broadly in order to appreciate what Marcus is saying about all aspects of the universe. As we define how the bodies or parts change that constitute this Whole, it is imperative for Marcus that “whether atoms or a natural order, the first premise must be that I am part of the Whole which is

158 

W. JOHNCOCK

governed by nature” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 10.6).15 Our changes as parts are not isolated nor incidental. Localized changes for Marcus are rather symbolic of nature’s perpetually original condition. Material transition is entirely natural. Furthermore such transition is expected because nature is rationally ordered matter. Marcus declares in this sense that the changes of the Whole’s individual parts should not alarm us. He criticizes the outlook that is surprised by change, for “how absurd it is to combine the assertion that the parts of the Whole are naturally subject to change with surprise or resentment as if this change was something contrary to nature” (10.7). Identifying that change is the “originary condition” of the world will bring solace to the Stoic thinker. In seeing how our body or the things of the world of which we are fond change shape and character, Marcus asks us to remember that we and they were only ever made of the transitional substance of the universe. Our constitutions are composed of and conditioned by this universal change itself. As this universal material changes form it is entirely understandable that “every part of me will be assigned its changed place in some part of the universe, and that will change again into another part of the universe, and so on to infinity” (5.13). It is also worth noting Robin Hard’s translation here which asserts not simply that for Marcus our parts will take new or changed positions but more emphatically that these new positions are “assigned by change” itself (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.13). Already this indicates the different stakes from the modern argument that we have presented earlier. For Adam, human life and our industrial materials contaminate a separately established world-purity. Conversely for Marcus, the manifestation of humans and any productions which radiate from humans are expressions of the one same world. There is no permanently prior pre-human purity. The material that constitutes humans and the material that humans exude into the world can only ever be parts of and derive from that very world. It is all the same substance. This acknowledges a common constitution to all selves, all parts, and all things. Marcus describes this common constitution emphatically as a “universal substance” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 12.32), which facilitates his argument that all things in the universe are in some way always already “meshed together” (7.9).16 Such common meshing is inescapable and seemingly not something industrialization could transcend. As prominent as this point is within Marcus’ Meditations, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that there is an element of his

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

159

perspective which might contradict this sense of enmeshed human-nature relations. This concerns how Marcus describes the individual human as sometimes not living in accordance with the “unity” of nature. In this context Marcus separates such an individual “away from the soul of all rational beings … separating himself from the principle of our common nature” (4.29). As encountered in other chapters an existence lived in accordance with this common rational nature is for Stoicism one that is not dependent on externalities over which we have no control. To live appropriately and rationally is to only depend on what is internal to the self. The curiosity as we have noted is that the internality of the self is concurrently a universal rational nature which extends beyond the self. What Marcus is positing in the preceding paragraph is that conversely, the irrational individual who “depends on others and does not possess within him all he needs for life … fails to recognize … the universe” (4.29). The afflicted individual is in this mode “splintered” or separated from universal nature and is what Robin Hard’s translation describes as “a person who has no knowledge of what it [the universe] contains” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 4.29). This is not simply because the individual fails to recognize the universe but because they fail to recognize the universe in themselves. While I include this sense of alienation for Marcus, there is a key difference between his interpretation of a separation from nature and Adam’s reading of the same phenomenon. Adam conceives the entirety of modern humanity to currently be “out of sync” with a worldly nature. All humans are in danger of extinction as a result of the collectively lax responses to climate changes. Adam’s position is that in the modern industrialized era the default or normative human status is to exist in opposition to a contaminated natural environment that is reacting against us. Marcus’ sense of separation from the natural Whole is conversely of an individuated abnormality. We see this when he informs such an individual that “you have made yourself an outcast from the unity of nature” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 8.34). The default status for the human in Marcus’ philosophy differs significantly  from Adam’s view, as the just discussed Stoic  enmeshment within the natural unity of the Whole. We are naturally inclined to be rationally in sync with nature. This means that when Marcus emphasizes that our natural state features a dependency exclusively on what is internal to the self, such internality is a nature that is dispersed among or enmeshed with an entire changing universe.

160 

W. JOHNCOCK

Change as Death Is Natural and Harmless For Marcus therefore a perpetually materially changing world is natural and rationally expected. In considering the different forms of this perpetually transitioning universe however, we cannot simply say that changes in climates are as rationally oriented as all other physical changes. What if increasing global temperatures, for example, are the result of irrational actions and hence from a Stoic perspective cause us harm? We are building to this kind of consideration. Before we get there though we must confront this notion of harm. Themes of climate change conjure connotations of seemingly the ultimate form of harm; death (both at an individual and a species level). Interestingly though Marcus’ Stoicism does not always conceive of our material death as a harmful or irrationally unnatural change. As reviewed in Adam’s social theory, the “out of sync” relations between humanity and the natural realm indicate that we are “running out of time” (Adam 1993, 402). The time that Adam believes we are running out of is twofold. Firstly, it refers to the point beyond which it will be too late to maintain a climatic stability of the planet. Secondly, it indicates the death of our species, the end of our species’ time, that will eventuate without such stability. Adam endorses characterizations as a result which fear that climate change and “environmental damage” is indicative of how we are “consuming and polluting our way to extinction” (Adam 1998, 84). Marcus’ Stoic interpretation of death at both individual and collective levels is conversely not of an aspect of being that warrants fear. This is because all that death represents in his Stoicism is nature’s originary and perpetual transition. As parts of a universal nature humans come and go, change and mutate, as readily as other parts of the universe. Even the death of one’s child is for Marcus not something by which we should be shocked. He notes in Meditations how inspired he is by Epictetus’ argument that “nothing is ominous” about any death because it “points to a natural process” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 11.34). William Stephens clarifies in response that of the fourteen children that Marcus had in 30 years of marriage only six would live to be adults. When reading Meditations it is evident that in dealing with his own experiences his signification of death as natural change becomes “a lesson Marcus needed to repeat” (Stephens 2012, 17). Marcus incorporates earlier notions of pantheism on this topic. He states to anyone not wanting to “die” or bemoaning that their relatives might pass away that as “you have subsisted as a part of the Whole,” even

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

161

after death you will merely reintegrate “into that which gave you birth: or rather you will be changed, taken up into the generative principle of the universe” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 4.14).17 Adam’s concern about the ramifications of a human imprint on a fragile nature (Adam 1998, 23) contrarily seems fixated on maintaining what exists in the present or a recent pre-industrial past. Marcus’ sense of human life as inevitably temporal expressions of that nature is alternatively not so oriented. The fragility of this current environment could in this view not necessarily be something against which nature requires safeguarding. An environment’s degenerative transitions might instead exemplify nature’s regenerative, ongoing process of mutating, dying, and re-originating. What occurs to your constitution upon death in this Stoic interpretation is therefore not consistent with our usual understandings about the perishing of the physical body. Nor is it in concert with Adam’s fear that if the climate changes dramatically we will be obliterated and absent from the world. What is at play in Marcus’ Stoicism is instead a process where after “death” you become universally “scattered” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 10.6). This scattering occurs among a world-as-nature from which you and the human species came. This does not mark the end of an individual’s or a species’ nature but instead heralds how each individual and each species has materialized “one further part of nature’s will” (9.3). Any subsequent death of any life really just reflects transition. As Marcus demands regarding the transitions of part-whole relations, “the parts of the Whole, all that form the natural complement of the universe, must necessarily perish—and ‘perish’ should be taken in the sense of ‘change’” (10.7). Adam’s view is the orthodox view in climate discourse. The adverse effects of human industrialization will not only harm the planet but potentially bring about the end of the human species (not to mention many other species). This signifies change as an external agent that can enact a future absence for humans and environments. By conversely engaging the Stoic pantheistic reading of an internal connectedness between all parts of a Whole—the aforementioned “meshing together”—humans and environments are coincidental with change. Marcus’ pantheism makes us reconsider when humans and our effects can be properly defined as existing outside nature. Adam’s position is that via industrialization what materially and culturally manifests from humans somehow operates outside and upon nature. We have reviewed how this commentary touches upon something that lurks within the modern consciousness of climate change. If environmental transition rapidly

162 

W. JOHNCOCK

continues, we become increasingly likely to die because of it. Nevertheless, if even modern Stoics who shun Stoicism’s pantheistic element still subscribe to the orthodox Stoic position that we are part of a grander nature, is it ever Stoically possible to characterize our death as anything but a universally natural and rational transition?

Change Can Be Irrational and Harmful Regarding this natural transition, Marcus claims of nature that it has no reason to ever do itself wrong (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 6.1). We will begin this final section by running with this idea that there is “no external cause” to nature that “can force it to create anything harmful to itself” (10.6). My particular query is whether we should read this in a way that the climate change caused by the parts of nature that are human might not necessarily be harmful to nature. If indeed this was the case, such climate change would not be harmful to humans either. The effects of climate change would simply be a hallmark of nature’s human kinds of changes. According to this reading, Marcus would be demanding that we should not resent nor fear anything brought about by nature’s mutative and transitive processes. Climate change as we are often told affects our whole world’s environment. In the preceding discussion, we see however that for Marcus “nothing which benefits the Whole can be harmful to the part, and the Whole contains nothing which is not to its benefit” (10.6). Does this mean that if the Whole contains nothing that is harmful, and climate change is contained in the Whole, that climate change is not harmful? The simplicity of this reading is seductive. It is however too reductive to interpret that any change which occurs in the Whole is beneficial rather than harmful to the Whole in Marcus’ Stoicism. We have seen the pantheistic conditions of Marcus’ Whole. To live in accordance with the will of Whole nature is to live in accordance with the will of God. Not all our actions will always be in accordance with nature/God though. We have reviewed that humans will act irrationally in Marcus’ view and these acts will harm both oneself and the broader natural Whole. Returning to the citation that began this section, Marcus says that nature “cannot force” the creation of something harmful to itself. This does not mean though that humans will never irrationally cause harm of their own misguided volition. When we do act irrationally, our actions and our subjectivities will in some way be outside and not “contained” in the Whole accordingly.

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

163

In determining whether actions that have accelerated climate change are irrationally oriented and therefore unnatural and harmful, we should not be worrying about whether they will fast-track our ecologically induced death. If Marcus was to engage the topic of  possibly irrationally caused climate change, he would instead evaluate the irrationality of such actions according to their relationship to a Whole nature of which we are a part. In encouraging us to take up the “cosmic perspective” (5.24) Marcus does not direct us to worry about our own life or even that of our species. Robin Hard’s translation complements our sense of this perspective by interpreting that Marcus intends us to “think of substance in its entirety … and of time in its entirety,” rather than focus on our specifically minor roles (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.24). To act rationally for Marcus is to cohere with a universe by always appreciating that we are component parts of it: …even the most trivial action should be undertaken in reference to the end. And the end for rational creatures is to follow the reason and the rule of that most venerable archetype of a governing state—the Universe. (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 2.16)

As noted in preceding chapters, orienting ourselves universally brings personal happiness in the sense that happiness comprises a generally rational and virtuous nature. This orientation requires our relaxation to a “state of passive acceptance of what universal nature brings” (12.32). Do not interpret this notion of passivity straightforwardly. Marcus still implores us to be actively responsible for aligning our lives with a universal rational nature. If we are not actively interested in benefiting our world we will incur and cause the harm that moderns might identify with the apathy that allows environmental destruction to perpetuate. In such instances we are not contained in the Whole. An example of this view for Marcus might be where he states that the “soul of a man harms itself” when it allows itself to become “a separate growth in revolt from Nature … a sort of tumour on the universe” (2.16).18 This sense of the detachment of one party from the other in the human-nature relationship also permeates Adam’s account of nature’s “retreat” and “retaliation” from human harm (Adam 1998, 30). A certain coherence could appear to emerge accordingly between Marcus and Adam on the supposed separation of humans and nature. What Marcus is describing though is not a revolt caused by our harmful intrusion to the world environment. The direction of harm is not simply

164 

W. JOHNCOCK

from us toward a world. The human-nature separation instead occurs when we harm ourselves by being creatures who “give in to pleasure or pain” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 2.16). We are not a “tumour” on the world because we are an alien introduction to an otherwise natural setting. Marcus instead describes us as this separate growth because we do not align ourselves with our Stoic rational nature. Given the self-orientation of this harm, Adam’s notion of the revolt does not adequately exhibit how climate change  inducing actions  could be unnaturally irrational for the Whole for Marcus. Perhaps a better example is in Marcus’ repeated terminology around the interconnected natural harmony of everything. This monistic sense of being for Marcus means that in the “whole of things there is one harmony: and just as all material bodies combine to make the world one body, a harmonious whole, so all causes combine to make Destiny one harmonious cause” (5.8). Gregory Hays’ translation of this position is also notable in describing all bodies as comprising “a single harmony … comprising all purposes … in a harmonious pattern” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.8; my emphasis). With this conception of component parts to an overall rationalized harmony or pattern a modern environmentalist could argue that actions which disrupt such harmony are irrationally harmful and unnaturally oriented. The disruption of usual climate patterns is after all one of the most regular indicators proffered regarding climate jeopardy. When describing furthermore the relations which constitute one’s rational responsibilities, Marcus lists “[f]irst, to your environment; second, to the divine cause which is the source of all that happens … third, to your fellows and contemporaries” (8.27). If we neglect such responsibilities we cause irrational harm to ourselves primarily but also to the universe. For modern Stoic commentators such as Whiting and Konstantakos many aspects of industrialized human behavior do conflict with these kinds of responsibilities. Such behaviors in their view therefore fit the categories of irrational and harmful. With harm-­ reduction in mind, Whiting and Konstantakos make the consequent demand that “modern Stoics ought to call for environmental action” in order to better align oneself and other humans with “‘the will of god’ (the in-built order and rationality of the universe)” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 5). Human responsibilities to the whole are here different to the responsibilities other creatures have. With this point, we return to the theme earlier encountered of the concurrent logocentrism and anthropocentrism

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

165

underpinning Stoic ethics. Humans embody both a universal rationality and a particularly humanized rationality. In arguing that human rationalized virtue for the Stoics can only manifest via specifically human actions, we are again required for Christopher Gill in terms of climate questions to work “towards a view of virtue and happiness that is consistent with our understanding … of our human life as an integral part of nature as a whole” (Gill 2016, 126). William Stephens also discusses that our perspective on the human relationship to the environment must be sensitive to the “unique capacities and unique responsibilities of human beings” (Stephens 1994, 286). While humans exist in a wholly rational universe, we have reviewed how for the Stoics these unique human capacities and responsibilities refer to our relatively elevated position in the universal rational hierarchy. Stephens accordingly asks rhetorically regarding the basis of human actions in relation to climate change; “from what other than reason can a sound and viable environmental ethic be constructed?” (286). This perspective reduces our original question in this chapter of whether climate change is natural to the conclusion; yes, but only if rational (and therefore natural) actions cause it. According to converse perspectives found in the preceding commentaries, it is more rational to be concerned about the human responsibilities to an overall material harmony than it is to simply accept all climate change as natural. For Anthony Long this recognition of our responsibilities is consistent with Marcus’ position regarding the ongoing reliable ordering and prosperity of all features of nature: The goals of nature, in typical Stoic understanding of the expression, are the optimal functioning of the living beings that populate the planet—the fertility and fruits of crops, the healthy behaviour of animals according to their species, and the deployment of human reason in ways appropriate to oneself and one’s company. (Long 2018)

The pragmatic worth of this discussion is not to suggest that only a Stoic perspective on environmental issues is valid. What Marcus instead contributes is an appreciation of a transitioning world in which humans and human effects are always embedded. This encourages a reflection on theses of the separation of humans and nature. Instead of installing adversarial logics and terminologies, via Stoicism we might ask why we, as nature, bring about these changes to nature and thus also to ourselves? The

166 

W. JOHNCOCK

sobering effect of this insight for modern thinkers bound to more typical readings of climate change is that it could ask us to consider why we create the conditions that might accelerate the “demise” of our own species. If we are, as Marcus claims, just parts of a whole dispersing and scattering nature, why does this nature or whole manifest in human forms that apparently expedite our own scattering? Thinking adventurously and relatively conversely regarding this question, could it also be that as a natural form we are somehow aware that such demise would never be an entire obliteration of whatever it is that makes us who we are? Are we actually cognizant that the climate-induced death of our species would simply be a reconfiguration of a universe and a universal substance of which we are? Climate change discussion when infused with these Stoic perspectives could possibly expand in scope. This would concern how we comprehend death and interconnection. Such a direction would complement the abundance of works that are alternatively concerned with identifying strategies to combat climate change and to prolong the current specificities of human existence. In reviewing themes of death through questions of the human-climate relation, this method would furthermore navigate the debate about climate change specifically toward questions of time. This as we have seen is a direction that Adam’s social theory prompts. This Stoic interrogation of Adam’s perspective could in this regard serve as a complement to her call for a greater discursive attention on the time-parameters of climate change.

Notes 1. For a recent example of this appraisal, see Justin Worland’s “How Climate Change Unfairly Burdens Poorer Countries” (2016). 2. Robert Nicholls, Frank Hoozemans, and Marcel Marchand provide a useful introduction to this topic in “Increasing Flood Risk and Wetland Losses Due to Global Sea-Level Rise: Regional and Global Analyses” (Nicholls et al. 1999). 3. This is a presiding theme in climate change discourse. Anthony McMichael explains how such discourse declares that “global environmental change is the erosion of Earth’s life-support systems” which manifests as a “threat to the health and survival of the world’s living species—including our own” (McMichael 1993, xiii). For a more recent illustration of this correlation between climate change and human extinction see Anderson (2017). 4. In 1992 Adam conceived the still active Time and Society academic journal.

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

167

5. This characterization of time is not new. Elizabeth Grosz offers one of my favorite discussions of the interpretation that “time is more intangible than any other ‘thing’” (Grosz 1999, 1). Spatial things in the physical world are readily tangible and consequently seem to be accountable. Time contrarily operates with a relative invisibility and mystery, lurking as “a silent accompaniment, a shadowy implication” (1). 6. The argument that we are running out of time to prevent catastrophic climate change goes beyond Adam’s work. As a further prominent example, see Giorel Curran’s “Ecological Modernisation and Climate Change in Australia.” Curran uses the terminology “running out of time” (Curran 2009, 212) to refer to the adverse human relationship with industrially induced, ecological and climatic change. 7. This is a version of text (Cicero 1997, 1.37) from Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) (1997). 8. The closing lines of Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus refer to a “Universal Law” which earlier in the Hymn is described as “Reason harmonized.” This is probably why Keimpe Algra calls its closing passages a “prayer for rationality” (Algra 2003, 176). For Algra the Hymn projects the sense of the revealing of God through “the power of judgement,” so each human is provided with the occasion to “perfect one’s own reason” (176). 9. For background on Pigliucci’s position also refer to his chapter “God or Atoms?” (Pigliucci 2017a, 79–93). 10. Mark Vernon’s reading exhibits consistencies with both sides of this debate. In responding to Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus (Cleanthes and Thom 2005) Vernon maintains Stoicism’s inherent pantheism while opposing it from modern scientific insights; “the ancient view of nature is not the same as the modern scientific view, which is mechanical and dead, unlike the organic, living, soul-filled cosmos ancient ‘pantheism’ implies … Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus needs to be read as metaphysical poetry not modern scientific theory” (Vernon and LeBon 2014). Seneca reports that Cleanthes’ view was that the poetic style of the Hymn was the best way to express philosophical insights because “our thoughts are amplified by the stringent requirements of verse” (Cleanthes in Seneca 2015a, 108.9). For a consideration of Seneca’s personal investment in this style of philosophy, see Peter Anderson’s commentary on how poetic and rhetorical techniques infused Seneca’s own philosophical expression (Anderson in Seneca 2015b, xiii–xv). 11. See also Fisher (2016) for a publicly directed endorsement of “Traditional Stoicism” that centralizes the immanence of a logocentric divinity. 12. In The Symposium Plato develops the distinction between the Forms and sensible material or bodied objects (Plato 2008b, 211a–b). This theory receives its most comprehensive attention though in Plato’s Republic (Plato 2012).

168 

W. JOHNCOCK

13. As Edwin Bowen states of Meditations, if it “seems fragmentary and … lacking logical sequence” this is because of the “circumstances of its composition. For it was written on the eve of battles or in the midst of business engagements” (Bowen 1950, 78). 14. The kind of materialism forwarded by  Stoic perspectives which precede and overlap with Marcus’ era can perhaps be traced to Heraclitus. Diogenes Laërtius reports that Heraclitus was known at the time to have “written a book on Natural Philosophy” featuring an “important theory concerning the universal world and all that is contained within it” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 9.10). Heraclitus interprets that the metaphysical perspective of “constant flux” is instead an interchange of material elements. That “fire is an element” means in Diogenes’ estimation that one of the “main principles” for Heraclitus is that “everything is created from fire, and is dissolved into fire” (9.6). Heraclitus’ physics here correlates with impressions presented in early Stoicism that describe the process of worldly, material becoming as follows; “For that fire, when densified becomes liquid and becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth itself becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that everything else is produced” (9.6). Diogenes reports that this position inspired Stoics who “undertook to interpret his book” (9.11). 15. Marcus’ mention of “atoms” is to some extent probably a reference to the Epicurean perspective that the world is constituted by undifferentiated, indivisible particles or atoms. As Aetius reports, for Epicurus “the atom is so called not because it is the minimal [particle], but because it cannot be divided” (Aetius, Text 77, 1.3.18, in Inwood and Gerson 1994, 88). This is a theory largely inherited from Democritus. Aetius again reports however that in terms of the properties of an atom, “Democritus said that there were two, size and shape, but Epicurus added weight to these as a third” (88). The Epicurean position of discrete atoms sits largely contrarily to Marcus’ monistic sense of co-implicated part-whole relations. 16. See also Robin Hard’s translation of an “interwoven” relation (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 7.9). 17. The regenerative aspect of our substantial relation to the universe is emphasized in Gregory Hays’ translation of this passage in which Marcus instructs that “you have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what produced you. Or be restored, rather. To the logos from which all things spring. By being changed” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 4.14). 18. Or what Gregory Hays’ (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 2.16) and Robin Hard’s (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 2.16) translations both describe as an “abscess on the universe.”

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

169

References Adam, Barbara. 1993. Time and Environmental Crisis: An Exploration with Special Reference to Pollution. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 6 (4): 399–413. ———. 1998. Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. London: Routledge. Algra, Keimpe. 2003. Stoic Theology. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 153–178. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, Ronald. 2017. Well-Being, Future Generations, and Prevention of Suffering from Climate Change. In Alleviating World Suffering. Social Indicators Research Series: Volume 67, ed. Ronald Anderson, 431–448. Cham: Springer. Baltzly, Dirk. 2003. Stoic Pantheism. Sophia 42 (2): 3–33. Becker, Lawrence. 2017. A New Stoicism: Revised Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Boeri, Marcelo. 2009. Does Cosmic Nature Matter? In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 173–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bowen, Edwin. 1950. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius: A Condensation of a Paper. The Classical Outlook 27 (7): 77–79. Cheney, Jim. 1989. The Neo-Stoicism of Radical Environmentalism. Environmental Ethics 11 (4): 293–325. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cleanthes, and Johan Thom. 2005. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Curran, Giorel. 2009. Ecological Modernisation and Climate Change in Australia. Environmental Politics 18 (2): 201–217. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Drengson, Alan. 2012. Some Thought on the Deep Ecology Movement. Foundation for Deep Ecology. http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm. Epictetus. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. Fisher, Chris. 2016. The Path of the Prokopton—The Discipline of Desire. Traditional Stoicism, January 4. http://www.traditionalstoicism.com/ the-path-of-the-prokopton-the-discipline-of-desire/. Gill, Christopher. 2016. Stoicism and the Environment. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 119–126. CreateSpace. Grosz, Elizabeth. 1999. Becoming…An Introduction. In Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory and Futures, ed. Elizabeth Grosz, 1–12. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

170 

W. JOHNCOCK

Holland, Alan. 1997. Fortitude and Tragedy: The Prospects for a Stoic Environmentalism. In The Greeks and the Environment, ed. Laura Westra and Thomas Robinson, 151–166. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson (ed. and trans.). 1994. The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Irvine, William. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jedan, Christoph. 2009. Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics. London and New York: Continuum. Konstantakos, Leonidas. 2016. Would a Stoic Save the Elephants. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 127–140. CreateSpace. LeBon, Tim. 2014. Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Levine, Michael. 1994. Pantheism, Ethics and Ecology. Environmental Values 3 (2): 121–138. Long, Anthony. 1996. Stoic Studies. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. ———. 2018. Stoicisms Ancient and Modern by Tony (A.A.) Long. Modern Stoicism, October 6. https://modernstoicism.com/stoicisms-ancient-andmodern-by-tony-a-a-long/. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2002. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New  York: The Modern Library. ———. 2011. Meditations (with Selected Correspondence). Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. New  York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. McMichael, Anthony. 1993. Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. Cambridge; New  York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Naess, Arne. 1995. The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary. In The Deep Ecology Movement, ed. Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue, 3–10. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Nicholls, Robert, Frank Hoozemans, and Marcel Marchand. 1999. Increasing Flood Risk and Wetland Losses Due to Global Sea-Level Rise: Regional and Global Analyses. Global Environmental Change 9 (1): 69–87. Owen, Huw Parri. 1971. Concepts of Deity. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. Pigliucci, Massimo. 2017a. How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. New York: Basic Books.

7  IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 

171

———. 2017b. What Do I Disagree about with the Ancient Stoics? How to Be a Stoic, December 26. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/12/26/ what-do-i-disagree-about-with-the-ancient-stoics/. ———. 2017c. Becker’s A New Stoicism, II: The Way Things Stand, Part 1. How to Be a Stoic, September 9. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress. com/2017/09/29/beckers-a-new-stoicism-ii-the-way-things-stand-part-1/. ———. 2018. The Growing Pains of the Stoic Movement. How to Be a Stoic, June 5. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2018/06/05/the-growingpains-of-the-stoic-movement/. Pigliucci, Massimo, and Gregory Lopez. 2019. A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control. New York: The Experiment Publishing. Plato. 2008a. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2008b. The Symposium. Edited by M.C. Howatson and Frisbee Sheffield. Translated by M.C.  Howatson. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 1999. Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus. Turnhout: Brepols. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 2015a. Seneca: Letters on Ethics. Translated by Margaret Graver and Anthony Long. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 2015b. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations. Translated by Peter Anderson. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Stephens, William. 1994. Stoic Naturalism, Rationalism, and Ecology. Environmental Ethics 16 (3): 275–286. ———. 2012. Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. Striker, Gisela. 1996. Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Vernon, Mark, and Tim LeBon. 2014. The Debate: Do You Need God to Be a Stoic? Modern Stoicism, November 26. https://modernstoicism.com/ the-debate-do-you-need-god-to-be-a-stoic/. Whiting, Kai, and Leonidas Konstantakos. 2019. Stoic Theology: Revealing or Redundant. Religions 10 (3): 193. Whiting, Kai, Leonidas Konstantakos, Angeles Carrasco, and Luis Gabriel Carmona. 2018. Sustainable Development, Wellbeing and Material Consumption: A Stoic Perspective. Sustainability 10 (2): 474. Worland, Justin. 2016. How Climate Change Unfairly Burdens Poorer Countries. Time, February 6. http://time.com/4209510/climate-change-poor-countries/. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Alfred Pearson. 1891. The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes: With Introduction and Explanatory Notes. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.

CHAPTER 8

What Causes Your Behaviors? Zeno and Pierre Bourdieu on the Body

Only Bodies Exist When considering what directs our individual behaviors or actions, we might refer to the decision-making processes associated with the mind. This interpretation accommodates how external prompts and objects in the world steer our decisions. Conscious or subconscious responses to such prompts or objects in this view enact associated behaviors. Taking a particular bus, constructing a sentence with a certain formality, running from a dangerous looking dog, and myriad other examples reflect decisions that take shape according to how we mentally manage our environment and experiences of it. In reflecting upon this management, we can seek the causal links between thoughts or decisions about situations and the behaviors that are based on those thoughts or decisions. Our behaviors are coded through a cacophony of experiences, knowledge, memories, and expectations.1 In attempting to decode why someone behaves as they do, often the focus will be on questions concerning what “they were thinking” or by what “they were motivated.” The concrete, visual quality of the physical act becomes a potential insight into the not-physically-visible mental compulsions behind such acts. From this perspective arise impressions of a “mental pilot” of our actions.2 Inquiries concerning the causality and physicality of actions and behaviors take shape differently however in one of Stoic philosophy’s originary ideas. The idea in question comes from the earliest formal Stoic, Zeno of Citium (334–262 BCE). Only fragments provided by later writers have © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_8

173

174 

W. JOHNCOCK

survived of his work (as the diversity of the voices that brings Zeno to us reflects). What we can seemingly be certain of though is that Zeno created the Stoic school after arriving in Athens.3 In developing Stoic principles, Zeno adhered to a preference for straightforward relations between thought and causal  life. It is in considering the specific relationship between cause and action that he duly categorizes what can possibly act or cause action under one particular kind of entity; bodies. To explore this position—that only bodies can act—it is first necessary to appreciate the ideological context from which it emerges. Here we will benefit from familiarizing ourselves with preceding thoughts from Plato. The connection between Zeno and Plato in fact takes many forms. Zeno’s long-lost but most famous text, Republic, reportedly outlines an ideally egalitarian Stoic society and was described to have been developed as a response to Plato’s more famous work of the same name.4 Specifically regarding Zeno’s exclusive correlation of cause-and-action with bodies, it is necessary to identify how Plato contrarily attacks materialist ontologies in the Sophist. Written not long before Zeno’s birth (around 360 BCE), for Plato the materialist position is untenable if it interprets that all that exists is bodied (Plato 1871, 245–2495). Materialism in this perspective posits that for a “thing” to exist, that thing as bodied must be physical/sensible. Anything that cannot be touched cannot be bodied and thus does not exist, whereby for Plato the materialist is said to “obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or handled have being … because they [materialists] define being and body as one” (245). An adoption of the materialist position would rule out for Plato the possibility that souls exist. Plato is unwilling to accept this ramification. He accordingly presents to the materialists the counter-argument that if only bodies exist then their position excludes souls. Additionally says Plato, the materialist must exclude concepts such as virtue and justice that are evidently also not physically bodied (247). By convincing the materialists to accept a more moderate doctrine in which souls do exist but are separate from bodies, Plato believes he will strategically force the concession that something other than bodies is able to exist. If the materialists concede that souls exist, then in terms of the body “that which may be present or may be absent will be admitted by them [the materialists] to exist” (247). The result would be to compromise the entire claim of the materialists that bodies are all that exists.

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

175

In believing to have pre-emptively garnered this concession from the materialist position, Plato develops a model of existence that goes beyond bodies. More broadly, Plato defines existence as what can act or be acted upon, in that “anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment … has real existence” (247). This classification accommodates the immaterial soul’s capacity to act and the receptivity to be acted upon. Zeno’s intervention to this discussion begins from a position that is consistent with the materialists (and therefore in contradistinction to Plato). The original Stoic position here is that being or existence refers only to what is bodied. Aristocles brings us the insight that in this regard for Zeno clearly only bodies exist (Aristocles, SVF, 1.98, in L&S, 273).6 Rather than then conceding to Plato that phenomena such as souls either do not exist or do exist but are not bodied, Zeno maintains that actually souls do exist because they are also bodied. Zeno in fact agrees with the condition that we have just observed Plato install regarding the equation of existence with the dual capacity to act and receive action. This condition comes to define in Zeno’s school the two Stoic principles regarding the constitution of the universe as (1) that which acts and (2) that which is acted upon. According to Cicero’s reading in Academica (On Academic Skepticism), however, for Zeno this capacity to act and be acted upon is solely attributable to bodies. That the soul exists for Zeno means that it must simply provide an example of a body that acts and is acted upon, contrary to Plato’s assertion of the soul’s non-bodily separateness (Cicero 1967b, 1.39). Zeno emphasizes that this embodied capacity to act or be acted upon applies as much to obviously tangible objects as it does to seemingly less tangible objects. The reason for this is that what seems to be less tangible is in fact not less tangible. Aspects of the universe such as soul, virtue, and intelligence are for Zeno bodied. If as Cicero reports this Stoic position is to demand that only bodies have the capacity to act and be acted upon (1.39), then as Aristocles reflects even God must for Zeno be corporeal (Aristocles, SVF, 1.98, in L&S, 273).7 This conclusion seems odd, so we should investigate what exactly God is in this Stoic conception. Our discussion here will encompass the early Stoic belief in a pantheistic world that we have alternatively reviewed in other chapters according to how it manifested for later Stoics.

176 

W. JOHNCOCK

God and the Self-Moving Principle Beyond the specific topic of bodies, we first need to comprehend the general Stoic position of active and passive principles. What exists in the world is said for Zeno to consist of a common substrate or substance (Calcidius, SVF, 1.88, in L&S, 269).8 As we have covered in the previous chapter, Diogenes Laërtius reports of this common substance that what is acted upon, the passive principle, is “unqualified substance, i.e. matter” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.300, in L&S, 268) (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68). Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Physicists further defines the Stoic impression of this passive principle as that which “is without motion from itself and shapeless, and so has to be moved and shaped by some cause” (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 1.75).9 Because this matter cannot form or cause motion itself, an active principle is required. Matter, the passive principle, here needs what the Stoics call “God” in order to take the forms or activations that it does. We should begin to see the seeds of Stoic pantheism emerging accordingly. Consistent with our previous encounters with Stoic pantheism, this God is not an external agent of activation. God rather is eternally internal to matter as its omnipresent active principle: …the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For he, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter, makes everything. (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68)

The later Stoic commentator Galen has concerns about the Stoic impression of corporeal causation. Robert Hankinson remarks that this is because for Galen “the Stoics invoke not only causes of becoming; they introduce causes of being as well” (Hankinson 1999, 482). If only bodies exist, and bodies both act or cause and are acted upon or caused, then every body contains its own cause for coming into existence and existing. The problem is that this cause must then contain its own cause, and so on. Hankinson cites Galen’s concern about this immanence of the active principle that: If every single thing requires a containing cause without which it cannot exist, that cause, as it is an existent, must inevitably have another containing cause itself which must in turn have yet another—and so on ad infinitum. (Galen in Hankinson 1999, 482)10

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

177

In responding to Galen’s concern, we can note that the eternal characterization of the active principle (God) is important. Sextus identifies in this regard that for the Stoics an agent or power which acts is either self-­ moving/acting or moved/acted by something else. If the active agent is moved or acted upon by something else, this requires a third agent, and then a fourth agent for the third, and so on. This is the issue that Galen’s analysis raises. Asserting that this is “absurd,” Sextus instead notes the belief that the active principle for the Stoics is an agent which “in itself is self-moving.” This self-moving is an eternal principle because if there is no cause of its motion from outside it by a preceding agent then there is “no cause of its motion from a definite time.” The result for the Stoics is that an active principle must be “in motion from eternity” and its power to cause “changes is everlasting” (Sextus Empiricus, SVF, 2.311, in L&S, 269). Cicero is also intrigued by this feature of ancient metaphysics, whereby in De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) he reviews this vision of God as an “immanent and dynamic force in nature” (Cicero 1997, 1.10).11 The nature of Stoic self-moving causation hinges as we might now appreciate on a pantheistic appreciation of God and the world. The bodied Stoic God is not a reference to a deity sitting up in the clouds with an ever-aging corporeality. It is rather an indication of how God permeates all bodies as the active principle of matter. The purpose of this early Stoic argument is not to redefine constitutions or compositions of the body which acts or is acted upon. We can still maintain that such bodies have length, breadth, and depth.12 The Stoic intention (particularly for Zeno) rather is to demand that what is incorporeal (not corporeally bodied) cannot act on or in the world. This is not to say that for Zeno incorporeals cannot emerge from corporealities and corporeal action. The primary point instead is the adjudication that incorporeals cannot themselves be causes. Incorporeals are dependent in this regard on causally agentive corporeal functions and entities. Sextus duly reports in Against the Physicists that as Zeno posits: …every cause is a body which functions as cause to a body of something incorporeal—for example, the scalpel (a body) as cause to flesh (a body) of the incorporeal predicate “being cut.” (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 1.211)

Given that only bodies exist, it is not that what is incorporeal is dependent upon what is corporeal and self-moving for an incorporeal “existence.”

178 

W. JOHNCOCK

This dependency rather is simply that which affords the incorporeal, as Zeno describes here, its state of predication. We should flag this distinction between existence and predication as we will return to the topic of the incorporeal predicate at a later point. From this earliest of Stoic eras we therefore encounter the argument that only bodies can act or can cause. Behavior has bodily originations and explanations. How, we can now ask, would such a claim sit with the initially considered assumption in this chapter that our bodily behaviors and acts refer to causes that we might believe are not physical or bodied? This of course was a reference to our mind and its inherent knowledge, memories, and expectations. Considering the Platonic discussion which proceeded, we might now suggest that this reference to non-bodied causes could include elements beyond the mind, such as the apparently abstract qualities of the soul, justice, and wisdom.13 It seems appropriate to suggest that principles around what is just and unjust, for example, are involved in causing our behaviors. Collective principles and mutual agreements concerning justice shape to some extent our individual consciousnesses and enactments of what social environments demand. This notes a relationship between collegial orientations and individual orientations and introduces a communal involvement to our considerations in this chapter regarding what causes our behaviors. In order to explore this involvement while maintaining an interest in Zeno’s bodily causal model we will now have to ask whether these mutualized and collegial principles could also be embodied. To this end, we will engage the sociological perspectives of Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002). There is a particular reason that Bourdieu is relevant here. As examined in the chapters featuring Durkheim and Giddens, contemporary structuralist sociologies of which Bourdieu’s is a prominent example argue that there are collective causes to individual acts, decisions, memories, and knowledge. By integrating Bourdieu to this discussion, I am interested in whether the sociological inclination to posit collective causes to personal navigations intersects with Zeno’s conception of bodily action. Such an intersection will of course require a bodily characterization of the collective cause. As a discussion of the possibility of this unfolds through Bourdieu, it will in fact be in terms of the body that we will consider correlations of the socially symbolic body with the individual material body. This in turn will inform how we view from a sociological perspective Zeno’s argument that all acting and acting upon is bodily.

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

179

Collectively Causal Bodies Bourdieu is generally interested in the concealed structures of the social world that produce and are reproduced through an individual’s behaviors. This relates to what for Bourdieu is the universal imperative of sociological analysis. In The State Nobility he affirms that: The goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the “mechanisms” that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation. (Bourdieu 1996 [1989], 1)

Via this identification of what Bourdieu describes as a “structural reproduction,” populations normalize certain behaviors over successive generations. Individuals reiterate these behaviors that preceding populations have collectively sanctioned. There is a blurring as a result between an individual’s behavior and the social frame that coerces such behavior. Bourdieu’s work studies whether the distinction between the objectivity of a society’s structured influence on individuals, and the subjectivity of an individual’s agency, is actually ambiguous. He describes the social element as “objective” given that no individual in a social context transcends that context’s collectively structured jurisdiction. In The Logic of Practice Bourdieu opposes conceptions of the individual-­ social relation in which an individual is a passive entity that social structure completely or deterministically shapes (Bourdieu 1990a [1980], 52). Bourdieu instead wants to explore how individuals also constructively participate in social structure. In this sense, we see similarities between Bourdieu, and Giddens’ earlier-reviewed criteria for structuralism. This is remembering as we see in Chaps. 2 and 6 that structuralist perspectives generally do not satisfy these criteria in Giddens’ evaluation. Bourdieu is particularly careful not to simply invert the reductive assumption that social structure produces individuals. He also wants to avoid conversely arguing that human behaviors are the result of autonomous, individual causation. This latter interpretation would not in his view address the collective reproduction and normalization of behaviors. Bourdieu duly condemns subjectively oriented psychological studies which hierarchize notions of individual causation. The error here in Bourdieu’s estimation is that a “fall into subjectivism is incapable of giving an account of the necessity of the social world” (52).

180 

W. JOHNCOCK

Having established this precautionary methodology, Bourdieu then enquires into what causes us to act or behave in the way(s) we do. As he consequently traces socialized influences and causes within subjective actions there is the temptation to read Bourdieu as an example of a sociological structuralism that posits the determination of the individual by overwhelming social structures. I will remind us though of Chap. 6’s recognition that while Giddens criticizes many structuralist positions of this perspective, he does not deem that Bourdieu’s warrants such a portrayal. We must accordingly be careful in engaging this aspect of Bourdieu’s sociology. There is more occurring than the reductionist interpretation of a one-directional socially structural, conditioning of an individual’s behavioral production. Bourdieu instead appreciates a greater complexity to the individual-­ social relation through his focus on the role and status of the body. This attention to the body is a hallmark of Bourdieu’s The Logic of Practice, stating that an individual’s position within a social structure emerges through their bodily practice (9, 10, 57–58, 66–79). As we will soon unpack, the body in this method of analysis represents a site that is both symbolic and practical or actual. This dual mode is attributable to how the body captures the interaction between the individual’s practices and the social structure in which the individual exists.14 In returning to Stoicism we can observe that for Zeno the body is also always a “site” of causal interaction. This claim can be substantiated through Stobaeus’ presentation of Zeno’s explicit definition of a cause as “that because of which” (Stobaeus, SVF, 1.89, in L&S, 333). A body manifests for Zeno as a particular “that because of which” in any causal phenomenon. In this view, the body also represents the location or point of the event from which the “because” in the causal sense is possibilized. Causation occurs because of a precise body at a precise bodily location. The location is hence the site on which the “because” of any cause is dependent. That location/site as we have reviewed in Zeno’s thesis is bodily. Without bodies in Zeno’s Stoicism, there would be no causes or actions to which we could trace “becauses.” Predicates manifest from these bodily causal phenomena. Brad Inwood observes of Zeno’s cause-predicate relation that a “cause is something because of which something happens [or comes into being], for example ‘being prudent’ happens because of prudence” (Inwood 1985, 97). Our predicated status of “being prudent” thus manifests to varying degrees of prudence as “states or movements of a material soul” (97). Inwood

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

181

reminds us that for early Stoicism while prudence is a state of a material cause, it is still independent of a material cause. This reminder refers to the incorporeality of predicates that we have seen Zeno assert via Sextus Empiricus (Sextus Empiricus, SVF, 2.311, in L&S, 333). That the causes of prudence are materially bodied but prudence itself is not bodied,  prompts Inwood to ask whether it is an “embarrassment” that the Stoics were unable to accommodate “material accounts of psychological states” (Inwood 1985, 97). In casting his critique wider than the Stoics, he notes that this is a common conclusion of psychological materialists. As earlier flagged we will soon reconsider this distinction of the incorporeality of predicates, from the bodied constitution of the “because of which.” To do this we will have to open the possibility of a socially structured composition of predication. Bourdieu articulates how the body becomes this “because of which” point of intersection between the individual and the social structure through the term “habitus.” Evoking Zeno’s double status of the body as that which acts and is acted upon, correlatively for Bourdieu the body is described as what concurrently structures and is structured by. Specifically the body structures and is structured by socialized contexts of institutionalized and normalized behavioral practices. It is via this “double act” of acting/structuring and being-acted-upon/being-structured-by that the body reiterates and develops the bodily practices that its social environment has instilled. Crucially for Bourdieu the social environment is concurrently structuring and structured by these bodily sites of practice, defining habitus as: …systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices. (Bourdieu 1990a, 53)

Our ways of bodily positioning in a social field become the generative basis of structures that are structuring in terms of how they guide bodily practices. Simultaneously such structures are structured in that our acquisition of the power to affect what is collective about behavioral practice is bound up in the acquisition of the behavioral practices themselves. Hence,  we arrive at Bourdieu’s all-encompassing reference to the “structured structuring structures.” Just as to be bodied for Zeno is not simply to be able to act but also comprises the receptivity of being acted upon, similarly bodies for Bourdieu are mutually causal and caused entities. In being “organized” socially the body concurrently “organizes.”

182 

W. JOHNCOCK

Despite this similarity, I note a relatively important distinction between Zeno’s and Bourdieu’s conceptions of the body in terms of their respective scopes. Zeno’s concern is with the universalizing causal processes of all worldly bodies. Bourdieu’s focus is instead specifically with the socializing causal processes of human bodies. Regarding Zeno’s outlook, see for example where Diogenes Laërtius reports that Zeno’s references to the natural realm of bodies are “sometimes that which keeps the world together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.73). Comparably Sextus Empiricus has earlier in Against the Physicists brought us Zeno’s account of bodies as including both human and nonhuman entities (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 1.211). While Bourdieu might not entirely discount this characterization of bodies his specific attention is on socialized human bodies. This keeps with the sociological tradition of fulfilling the charter of any human science to focus on human phenomena. Such a mandate emerges in his description of how the durable and transposable dispositions of habitus comprise all ways of human bodily being such as walking, talking, sitting, moving, and so on. Such dispositions manifest within each individual human as symbolic templates for the behaviors and actions of all individuals-­ as-­humans populating a certain social structure (Bourdieu 1990a, 58). An emphasis on the distinction between certain localized social structures is pivotal to Bourdieu’s argument. Different classes and communities normalize different bodily acts. For Bourdieu this positions all such acts as symbolic templates which frame an individual’s commonality with a specific group of individuals who occupy similar social positions and share the same habitus (58–61). This brings to life his earlier portrayal of the goal of sociology that we have reviewed from The State Nobility. In Bourdieu’s application, sociology attends to the deep structures of different “social worlds” that together comprise a “social universe.” For Bourdieu the lens is on the entire social universe. For Zeno it is on the universe in its entirety. In being attentive to the terminology deployed by Bourdieu it is worth noting that in The Logic of Practice he describes each of these social worlds as a “field” (Bourdieu 1990a, 66–68). A field refers to the particularity of the social structure that perpetuates its population’s bodily practices. Given that an individual already belongs to a field in order to acquire its practices, the acquisition of these bodily practices takes on an objectively natural impression. If you have ever thought that individuals of a certain culture or social class share the same bodily traits, for Bourdieu the theory of localized fields explains why. The body enacts and is enacted by a

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

183

particular politic(s). From this insight, we can explore what it respectively means for Bourdieu and Zeno that as bodily causes we belong.

Bodies Which Belong Bourdieu demands not only that the generalized sense of the body within a field causes the bodily behaviors of individuals within that field. Also important in Bourdieu’s view is that through the body one is marked as belonging to a field. The body causes one to belong. It embodies belonging. This belonging is not only an emotional sense of collectiveness or togetherness engendered by common identifications. Belonging is also a practical action with corporeal causes and conditions. A bodily belonging as habitus for Bourdieu illustrates how the social body produces an individual body that was already involved in the causal production of the social body from which it manifested. In this regard, it could be that the body produces the belonging to which it belongs. We might see a certain parallel between this  sense  of bodily self-­ production and Galen’s earlier concern that Stoic bodies contain their own causes for existing. The current theme of belonging indeed also conditionally intersects with this feature of bodily causal interaction. We have seen that for Zeno only a body can act or be acted upon. Stobaeus brings an extension of this point of Zeno’s to our attention by illustrating how for Zeno causing and caused bodies share a mutual “belonging” as a result. In terms of causing and caused bodies Zeno is clear that “it is impossible that the cause be present yet that of which it is the cause not belong” (Stobaeus, SVF, 1.89, in L&S, 333; my emphasis). Galen’s issue about how Stoicism’s bodies feature their own “containing causes” is here most apparent. The active principle is perpetually present in both the acting and the acted bodies given that as Thomas Bénatouïl describes, “God, as self-moving cause, cannot stop moving and start again later” (Bénatouïl 2009, 30). This ever-present dynamic relation between bodies for Zeno evokes in my interpretation the shared presence of bodies which occupy and produce each other in Bourdieu’s definition of a field. Bodies that are seemingly not directly present to each other in Zeno’s argument still nevertheless must belong to each other through their shared causal relations and conditions. As we have reviewed in this and previous chapters, this shared condition is the pantheistic “active principle” which comprises each of their bodily constitutions. From this, I argue that the notion of a common belonging between bodies is a feature that Bourdieu has separately

184 

W. JOHNCOCK

employed at the level of social structure. Bourdieu’s sociology requires that all bodies are responsible for collective structuring. This is a responsibility that also acts as a dispersed framework by which such bodies are structured. Direct and indirect, present and absent, bodily relations condition how all such bodies belong to a field. Such bodies furthermore perpetually and actively self-structure (self-move) by structuring (moving) the social structure that structures them. This mimics what Bénatouïl and Sextus both describe as the omnipresent self-moving impetus of what we now characterize as bodily belonging. What though about the ongoing issue of predicates? Where do they belong if anywhere in all this? Zeno is not necessarily concerned with social structures of bodily causation but with a universe of causal belongings that comprises causal bodies. These bodies exist. The predicates that these bodies cause are incorporeal and do not strictly exist. Such predicates nevertheless are always caused by bodies which by the earlier definition always causally belong. If predicates are always with such causally belonging bodies then can we in some way argue that the entirety of bodily belonging extends beyond the existing bodies to the predicates of such bodies? The potential belonging of predicated incorporealities to bodily causation matters in terms of how we maintain a dialogue between Zeno and Bourdieu. The distinction between corporeal and incorporeal “caused phenomena” is one reason that I have described the intersection between Zeno’s and Bourdieu’s impressions of belonging as “conditional.” Even though causing and caused phenomena mutually “belong” in Zeno’s Stoicism, only actual bodies are capable of causal production. The non-­ bodily predicates of bodies manifest as incorporeal features of bodies, not as causal agents or participants with bodies. This is the conventional reading of the Stoic position. It almost certainly reflects Zeno’s intention as far as we know. Via Bourdieu though I wish to briefly explore how a more inclusive sense of bodily causation and predication might be identifiable through his sociology. The concurrently structuring and structured body is the condition of Bourdieu’s sense of social belonging. These conditions of belonging likewise condition this structuring and structured body. As Bourdieu reminds us during In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology “the body is in the social world but the social world is also in the body” (Bourdieu 1990b, 190). A counter-intuitive co-location of the body is apparent that will be important in my consideration of the structural bodily belonging of predicates.

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

185

A predicate refers to an aspect of what something or someone does. Bourdieu’s social structure involves what an individual body does as it helps define what a social body does. This mutually directed structural process not only causes individual bodily predicates but is likewise caused by these bodily predicates. We can say this because for Bourdieu the body is a structural consciousness of how each body “does being a body.” Each body’s doing of bodying is its doing of bodily predicates, all of which are co-constitutively feeding through individual and structural bodies. We can further reflect that this marks the fundamental logic of his theory of self-perpetuating fields. The body enacts the field that predicates bodies collectively. Each body perpetuates the predicates of all bodies of a similar habitus. It is through the visible durability of certain predicates that what comes to be the body is “presupposed by socially successful action” (190). Because these predicates are actions or doings that occur in social and individual bodies, I argue that in Bourdieu’s theory we must be receptive to the possibility that the predicate is likewise bodied and causal. This of course is not a reading that Zeno’s Stoicism would accommodate. Despite this differentiation, what we gain from comparing Zeno’s Stoicism and Bourdieu’s sociology is an insight regarding an ongoing human interest in the theme of bodily causes. According to Zeno’s school of thought, causal existence comprises bodily conditions and entities so unconditionally that bodies cause everything. There is no separate mental pilot or intangible director of bodily action. For Bourdieu’s structuralism, causal existence comprises humanly socialized bodily conditions and entities to the extent that the term “social body” is not an abstract term. A social body rather indicates a real or practical co-production of individual and collective corporealities. Notably regarding the histories of philosophical and sociological thought, both theses counter traditions in which the body is at the mercy of an unbodied cause (such as an immaterial mind). To be bodied for Zeno and for Bourdieu is to be a causal agent.

Notes 1. In exploring the mechanics of how we learn to act by causally linking mental decisions with prior experiences, we might turn to the influential constructivist thesis of Swiss clinical psychologist Jean Piaget (Piaget 1952). 2. In one sense this simply conjures the mindbody split as classically posited by René Descartes in the second volume of his Meditations (1968 (1641)). Also relevant here is the social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz. Schütz

186 

W. JOHNCOCK

installs transcendent conditions between conscious intentions and material bodies; “not only are intentional acts directed upon another person’s stream of consciousness transcendent, but my experiences of another person’s body, or of my own body … fall into the same class” (Schütz 1967 (1932), 100). 3. David Sedley’s chapter “The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus” informs us that the “founder of Stoicism, Zeno, came to Athens from the town of Citium (modern Larnaca) in Cyprus” (Sedley 2003, 8). 4. Anthony Long (2013) provides one of the more comprehensive comparisons between Zeno’s Republic and Plato’s Republic. In determining why it is appropriate to interpret that “we have such evidence concerning Zeno’s response to Plato’s Republic,” Long considers whether a “promising starting point is to assume that Zeno saw an anti-Platonic pose as an effective way of drawing attention to the distinctive merits of his, Zeno’s, own approach to political philosophy” (Long 2013, 118). Long evaluates that Zeno disagrees with Socrates’ conception of a just or good city as presented in Plato’s Republic (a point likewise argued by Andrew Erskine [Erskine 1990, 27–33]). Long also identifies that Zeno diverges from Plato on other themes such as the “mortality of the soul” and what is corporeal/bodied. 5. A reminder that this is a reference to a section number. 6. See Michael Frede (1999, 302–303) for a discussion of how this notion that “only bodies exist” relates for the Stoics to the truth status of propositions regarding “what is.” 7. This conception of material immanence and corporeality has a philosophical antecedence to the Stoics. The pre-Socratic Heraclitus extends a material state to God. Concerning the relation between the Absolute and the relative, or between God and the phenomenal world, Heraclitus describes a series of universal contraries which appear to coincide in and as God. In a fragment attributed to Heraclitus as read by Hippolytus, “God is day night, winter summer, war peace, plenty hunger—all the contraries, this is what is meant, and He undergoes changes … receives different names according to the scent of each single one” (Hippolytus in Fränkel 1938, 231). How the whole universe of various “scents” coincides with one God is explored by Hermann Fränkel. To determine the materially changing component of God’s presence, we must for Fränkel ask “how precisely, in what way and manner, does God unfold Himself in the universe?” (Fränkel 1938, 232). 8. While the Stoics define this world as the “whole” this does not mean that the world constitutes “everything” in the Stoic “universe.” The everything also comprises what Chrysippus and other Stoics call the “void.” The void is an “infinite” and “incorporeal” realm which encompasses the world

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

187

“outside” the world (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.503, in L&S, 294). The incorporeality of the void determines that it “neither is acted upon in any respect nor acts but is simply capable of receiving body” (Cleomedes, SVF, 2.541, in L&S, 294). A “place” within the spatial world is occupied by a body and is finite. The void conversely marks aspects of space which could be occupied by bodies but are not. For the Stoics this does not conflict with Aristotle’s insistence in Book IV of his Physics that there is no void within the world. It is however necessary in Stoicism, and contradictory to the Aristotelian position, for there to be unoccupied space outside the world. In the Stoic view, the theory of the void accommodates the conflagrative burningexpansion and cooling-­contraction processes comprising the continuum of universal change. Reports are that for Zeno “‘all’ will still be subject to this conflagration: Everything which burns and has something to burn will burn it completely” (Alexander Lycopolis, 19, 2–4, in L&S, 276). Philo in On the Indestructibility of the World states that alternatively for Chrysippus the conflagration involves the world changing into “light” (Philo, SVF, 1.511, in L&S, 277). 9. See Long and Sedley’s translation (Sextus Empiricus, SVF, 2.311, in L&S, 269) or R.G. Bury’s translation of Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Professors (1949) for similar readings. 10. See also Gill (2010, 51–55) for a discussion on Galen’s estimations of Stoic impressions of causation. 11. Elsewhere in On the Nature of the Gods Cicero also describes how “a ‘reason’ which pervades all nature is possessed of divine power” (Cicero 1967a, 1.14). 12. According to Diogenes Laërtius, there is a connection between Stoic physical theory and the Euclidian, geometrical, definition of objects. Diogenes notes of the natural philosophy that is developed by the Stoic Apollodorus that “a body … is extended in a threefold manner; in length, in breadth, in depth; and then it is called a solid body” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68). 13. See Plato’s Sophist, in particular the discussion on the possibly independent existence of these aspects of the self (Plato 1871, 246). 14. Quite topically in terms of our earlier considerations regarding Stoic and Platonic materialisms, it is this kind of attention that leads David Schwartz to describe Bourdieu as a materialist; “Bourdieu is a materialist in the sense that he roots human consciousness in practical social life” (Schwartz 1997, 39). Bourdieu never declares an ideological coherence with Stoicism. The everyday level at which he identifies the structural composition of our behavior is nevertheless consistent with the Stoic concern about philosophy having a practical relevance.

188 

W. JOHNCOCK

References Bénatouïl, Thomas. 2009. How Industrious Can Zeus Be? The Extent and Objects of Divine Activity in Stoicism. In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 23–45. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990a (1980). The Logic of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 1990b. In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology. Translated by Matthew Adamson. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1996 (1989). The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Translated by Lauretta Clough. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1967b. Academica (On Academic Skepticism). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Descartes, René. 1968 (1641). Meditations. Translated by F.  Sutcliffe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Erskine, Andrew. 1990. The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Fränkel, Hermann. 1938. Heraclitus on God and the Phenomenal World. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 69: 230–244. Frede, Michael. 1999. Stoic Epistemology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 295–322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gill, Christopher. 2010. Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hankinson, R.J. 1999. Explanation and Causation. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 479–512. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, Anthony. 2013. Plato and the Stoics on Limits, Parts and Wholes. In Plato and the Stoics, ed. Andrew Long, 80–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8  WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 

189

Piaget, Jean. 1952. The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International Universities Press Inc. Plato. 1871. Sophist. In The Dialogues of Plato: Volume IV, 281–408. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. London: Oxford University Press. Schütz, Alfred. 1967 (1932). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Translated by George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Schwartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Sedley, David. 2003. The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 7–32. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Sextus Empiricus. 1949. Sextus Empiricus IV: Against the Professors. Translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2012. Against the Physicists. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PART IV

Collective Ethics

CHAPTER 9

How Do We Regulate Our Affection for Others? Hierocles and Claude Lévi-­Strauss on Kinship Circles

Circles of Intimacy: Bringing People Closer When interacting with the various people in our lives, rules around degrees of familiarity seem to shape how such interactions occur. Our behaviors toward people that we consider to be “closer to us” are typically different to the less affectionate ways we give ourselves to people with whom we are not as familiar. Immediate family and old friends fall into the former category. New acquaintances and professional colleagues might conversely belong to the latter category. Differentiated behavioral expectations manifest through these classifications.1 One form of these behavioral expectations relates as indicated to the standardization of levels of affection. As the different types of interpersonal relationships we have during our lives  increases, decisions present regarding the various affections we need to offer each. This goes beyond the question of why we need friends or acquaintances.2 The focus here is instead on how we distinguish between the people with whom we are merely acquainted and the people that we believe we are “closer to.” In differentiating between such groupings, we can reflect on the kinds and levels of affections that we offer toward people depending on their relative status to us. From this consideration, a study opens in this chapter that is concerned with the source of the differentiation of our affections. What directs us to bring some people closer and to keep others at arm’s length? The site of the regulation of affection is here the interest. Do we individually determine how affectionate we should be to people in our lives © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_9

193

194 

W. JOHNCOCK

based on our own unique experiences? Alternatively do we enact socially conditioned regulations about how appropriate a certain level of affection is for a certain type of associate? Another possibility is that these affection-­ regulations are naturally biologically coded around interpreted probabilities that the person to whom we give the affection will provide us with something we require. This could be security, food, companionship, sex, and so on. The regulation of affection could of course involve subjective and social and natural/biological drivers all at once. The differing regulation of our affections is a topic on which the second-­century Stoic philosopher Hierocles expresses a firm position. We do not know much about Hierocles’ life. Ilaria Ramelli notes that such was the uncertainty surrounding his identity that before the nineteenth century he was indeed confused with the fifth-century Alexandrian Neoplatonist philosopher of the same name (Ramelli in Hierocles 2009, xix).3 Of his work though, we have recent English translations from David Konstan of Hierocles’ Elements of Ethics (Hierocles 2009), of Stobaeus’ extracts from Hierocles’ On Appropriate Acts (Hierocles 2009), not to mention assorted fragments.4 In the “Introductory Essay” to Hierocles’ works, Ramelli explains how he was writing not just for the Stoic school but toward a larger audience (Ramelli in Hierocles 2009, xxx). Within Hierocles’ broadened focus is a discussion of our relations with members of our family, compared to the relations we have with the rest of the population. Stobaeus reports from Hierocles’ treatise “How Should One Behave toward One’s Relatives?” (found in the aptly titled On Appropriate Acts) that for Hierocles our interpersonal relations are conceivable as sets of concentric rings which encompass us: …each of us, most generally, is circumscribed as though by many circles, some smaller, some larger, some surrounding others, some surrounded, according to their different and unequal relations to one another. (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91)

Each circle refers to the common degree of familiarity we share with the people in it. The closest relation however (the closest/inner circle) is for a person’s connection with his/her own mind. The next closest circle likewise maintains a focus on the self by including “the body and whatever is employed for the sake of the body” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). Following this, the third circle contains our immediate family, “parents,

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

195

siblings, wife, and children” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). The next circle features our extended family, itself surrounded by increasingly larger circles representing members of our “tribe” and then “fellow citizens” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). After this comes the circle that includes people from neighboring towns, then that of people from the same country. The outermost circle refers to the “entire race of human beings” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). Having established this graphical representation, Stobaeus informs us that Hierocles turns his attention to the relative responsibilities that we carry regarding the people in any circle. Hierocles here argues that a properly developed personality, what Long and Sedley translate as a “well tempered” individual (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673, 11, in L&S, 349), has the “task” to bring closer those individuals from the outer circles. The purpose of this is that our interactions with such individuals should reflect more closely the relations and interactions that we share with individuals from our inner circles. According to Long and Sedley’s translation, this means that we should “keep zealously transferring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones” (4.671, 7–673, 11, in L&S, 349). Konstan similarly translates the imperative from Hierocles to “draw the circles … together … with an effort to keep transferring items out of the containing circles into the contained” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). As we will now consider, Hierocles warns that this endeavor will not be easy. What manifests through this image of the concentric circles is for scholars such as Malin Grahn-Wilder the “most famous argument for Stoic cosmopolitan ethics” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 277). Grahn-Wilder appreciates a certain egalitarian imperative to Hierocles’ encouragement that we should reduce the differences in the way we treat our fellow humans, compelling an “equality between all humans, as both ethical agents and objects of moral action” (277).5 While Hierocles encourages this equalization of relations, he is well aware that it is not our normal outlook. He notes accordingly that our relations with family members are more instinctively affectionate and close than those we have with other people. In consequently “making an effort about assimilating” those people from our outer circles, Hierocles demands that we must remain conscious of overcoming the natural fact that “a greater distance in respect to blood will subtract something of goodwill” or affection (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93). A method proposed by Hierocles to conquer this inevitable distance concerns how we address those in our

196 

W. JOHNCOCK

outer circles. The ethos of this approach is undoubtedly well intentioned. Its application sounds rather odd though. This is because Hierocles suggests that we begin calling our “cousins, uncles, and aunts ‘brothers,’ ‘fathers,’ and ‘mothers’” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93).6 Hierocles acknowledges that this is a considerable change to our protocols regarding interactions. The point he is expressing is nevertheless clear; we should all work toward making anyone outside our most immediate circles feel as though they are a more intimate part of our lives. The consequent contraction of all our kinship circles will for Hierocles “cut down the distance in our relationship toward each person” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93). Hierocles broadcasts the moral obligation of such a pursuit in describing how it is something every well-developed individual should fulfill. He even defines any contraction of our kinship circles that eventuates as meaning that we will “arrive at fairness” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93). Given the Stoics’ prioritization of practical action, a “fair” direction should not simply be theorized or discussed but actually enacted. Despite this practical outlook, I have concerns as indicated about how executable such an endeavor might be. There is something counter-­ intuitive about how practical it would be to broadly deregulate affective boundaries. Julia Annas doubts such an approach would change anything anyway because “calling someone your mother does not produce the feelings you have for your mother” (Annas 1993, 268). There is after all something about the already existing regulations regarding differentiation of affection which reflects how we feel. Hierocles effectively calls for us to contradict these collectively instilled and felt standards. Given these collective elements, in determining the practicality of his call we will expand on our opening thoughts regarding whether our affective boundaries are subjectively, socially, or naturally biologically registered.

Socially Relative Kinship Rules We can open comprehensive considerations of the socially pragmatic possibilities of Hierocles’ imperative to draw those from our outer circles closer to us by integrating its central theses with the structural interpretation of kinship forwarded by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009). Lévi-Strauss investigates why humans actively seek to develop affectionate relations, both sexual and non-sexual, with people outside their immediate circles. This is a theory that Lévi-Strauss discusses most extensively in The Elementary Structures of Kinship.7 Consistent with

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

197

his generally structuralist readings of subjective phenomena, Lévi-Strauss is interested in exploring how kinship can be appreciated in a socially systemic way. This will complicate the traditionally held perspective that descent from a common ancestor exclusively defines kinship.8 Lévi-Strauss firstly wants to understand the individual’s drive for sexual affection that impels them to go beyond their most immediate familial and social circles of kin. Such a consideration requires in his view to attend to the rejected concept of a nature|culture split or what he describes as the “repudiated distinction between nature and Society” (Lévi-Strauss 1969 (1949), 3). Lévi-Strauss accordingly critiques positions which do not agree that “everything universal in man relates to the natural order, and is characterized by spontaneity” whereas “everything subject to a norm is cultural and is both relative and particular” (8). His intention is not to join the chorus which contests the reality of a nature|culture division. Lévi-­Strauss rather wants to endorse a specific aspect of this division. The specific perspective that Lévi-Strauss supports is that what is natural is uncontrollably instinctive and contrasted from a regulated social or cultural order.9 Lévi-Strauss observes that while many culturally derived rules are specific to particular contexts, there is the presumption that incest prohibition enjoys a universal standing. The impression of its universality reflects how humans almost take it for granted as “a rule, but a rule which, alone among all the social rules, possesses at the same time a universal character” (9). This is not to say that the definition of what defines a “relative” (those people with whom we must not sexually interact in order to avoid transgressing incest protocols) will not differ between societies. Indeed cultural differences around the issue of who constitutes family sometimes generate the misguided perception in Lévi-Strauss’ view that “every society is an exception to the incest prohibition when seen by another society with a stricter rule” (9). The assumption however of the universality of the incest prohibition generally  flourishes despite this variability. This is largely because, in almost all observable societies, there exists some form of this prohibition. Its perceived universality is conceptually linked to its ubiquitous demand to go beyond a certain circle of familial connections for sexual interaction and affection. Lévi-Strauss’ observation that different societies differently define what constitutes a “close relative” helps us to highlight the relative constitutions of Hierocles’ circles. For Hierocles our circles do in fact exhibit the signs of being relative constructions. This refers to how the circles and the

198 

W. JOHNCOCK

people within them are configured according to the “different and unequal relations to one another” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). Another of Annas’ concerns emerges here that usually our relation to our parents is a “paradigm of partial relation” in that “because of my commitment to particular people” we “favour and cherish them more than others” (Annas 1993, 268–269). By shifting our treatment of many people to bring them closer, an impartiality or egalitarianism across all circles does not eventuate. What instead manifests as Annas notes is more instances of “increased partiality” for people drawn into the closer circles (269). The Stoic imperative is that we should increase the size of our inner circles. We should be more affectionate to more and more of our fellow humans. From Annas’ evaluation though, this would increase rather than decrease instances of partial rather than impartial social relations. The arguments of Hierocles and Lévi-Strauss have different motivations. For the Stoic there is a concern with generally dispersing affection and respect among one’s fellow humans. We have indeed seen that this directive compares not simply our relations with other people but also involves the relation we have with ourselves. Mauro Bonazzi defines this as the command “to feel the same degree of appropriation towards all rational beings as one feels to oneself” (Bonazzi 2017, 146). Conversely for Lévi-Strauss, his anthropological focus is on protocols primarily concerning sexual affection. There is little attention from Lévi-Strauss on one’s self-orientation. He instead is concerned with the social codification of subjective sexual orientations. Despite this distinction, I wish to identify how both positions pivot on the conditional demand of what the preceding discussion identified as a behavioral “should.” For Hierocles, a well-developed Stoic individual should attempt to reduce the differences in relations between people from one’s outer and inner circles. Hierocles knows that this will not feel like a natural thing to do. His associated commentary nevertheless frames it as an act that would be entirely within our nature. Hierocles fundamentally believes in our communal instincts and that “our entire race is naturally disposed to community” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.67.21, in Hierocles 2009, 73; my emphasis). In explaining how our communities manifest he posits marriage and family as the underpinning elements. His sense of what is naturally communal about family becomes apparent when he describes of our family members how “nature” and the “nature of things” has “nicely brought each of us into the world with, in a way, an ally” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.20, in Hierocles 2009, 89–91). So deeply does

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

199

he value family that he says it would be “madness … to wish to be joined with those who bear no affection toward us” (4.84.20, in Hierocles 2009, 89–91). By encouraging us to bring more people into our closer kinship circles though, it appears that Hierocles does believe that it is in our nature to create more such allies. As we have reviewed repeatedly in this book, what for a Stoic is in our nature to do, is what we should do. Lévi-Strauss is also concerned with the “should” of our behaviors. He is of course concerned though with how our behaviors should keep people from certain kinship circles at an affectionate distance rather than bring them closer. Indeed contrary to general Stoic beliefs about nature directing our actions, for Lévi-Strauss nature is not the driver of our behavioral “should.” He posits rather that there are socially constructed prohibitions or protocols underpinning how we should or should not behave toward our various kinship circles. We will now consider how his impression of socialized or culturalized standards excludes rather than accommodates suppositions of nature’s impulses.

Incest Prohibition Is Cultural Not Natural Lévi-Strauss targets presumptions of a natural instinct against incest. The prohibition of incest is interesting for Lévi-Strauss because of its tandem composition. It comprises both the “universality of instinct” and the coercive reality of a social “law and institution” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 10). It is this latter element which inspires his inquiry into what he believes is the actual source of the prohibitive imperative. In returning to the question of natural or social derivation, he notes that human, sexual life is “external to the group.” This externality from any human population is attributable to sex being in his view an expression of nature that holds little regard for subsequent social conventions (12). Counter to this neat nature|culture division though, Lévi-Strauss also recognizes that being sexual often “requires the stimulation of another person” (12). This seemingly indicates for Lévi-Strauss that there is regularly something socially or interpersonally conditioned about forms of sex and sexuality. In LéviStrauss’ estimation therefore kinds of sex and sexuality gain their significance according to varying social configurations. In working through a series of preceding theories on incest, Lévi-­ Strauss confronts the interpretation that the prohibition of incest is exclusively instinctively natural. His confrontation with this position firstly requires observing that the “horror of incest” only manifests after a

200 

W. JOHNCOCK

“kinship relationship is known, or later established” (16). Incest prohibitions could thus not be entirely natural in his view as such kinship relationships are socially constructed. For Lévi-Strauss this seems to mean that prior to the “horror” and consequent prohibitive force that socially manifests in response to incest-sex-acts, there is something instinctive about human sexual desire which actually manifests incestuous behavior. The source of the incest prohibition “cannot be instinctive” because incest instinctively does occur before humans prohibit it (16). The incest prohibition thus emerges after the social conception and identification of kin, according to sets of rules and protocols that respond to an already naturally occurring act. What we might find concerning about Lévi-Strauss’ perspective is that the human tendency toward incestuous behavior is what is instinctive. We will see this point re-emerge later via a Stoic interlude with Chrysippean theory. That incest does exist, that it is apparent and occurs in the natural realm of which humans are a part, indicates for Lévi-Strauss that the source of its prohibition occurs at a stage beyond that of a primary or natural instinct. The collective impulse to prevent what is already naturally occurring is in his view a socially derived intervention into a natural phenomenon. This requires the construction of a contentious (in my view) nature| culture division. For Lévi-Strauss an impulse and resulting action is natural. The regulation to prevent that impulse is conversely not natural. I want to ask Lévi-Strauss why the regulatory impulse to prevent the impulse cannot also be natural? Why is the impulse to act incestuously natural but the impulse to prevent incestuous behavior not natural? Both impulses come from the same creature or species or environment. Part of Lévi-­Strauss’ response will be that the impulse to act incestuously is irrationally biological. The regulation to prevent the impulse however is a collectively rationalized rule constructed to protect the species from itself: The origin of the prohibition of incest must be sought in the existence … of this danger for the group, the individuals concerned, or their descendants. (18)

The polarization of natural and social stages seemingly dominates Lévi-­ Strauss’ anthropology. His perspective however does recognize a seamless quality shared between natural conditions and the socially derived incest prohibition. The relative universality of the incest prohibition, for instance, indicates for Lévi-Strauss a perpetuation of nature’s development. It is only because nature manifests with incestuous relations, yet leaves open

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

201

the possibility for cultural intervention against these relations, that the prohibition manifests whatsoever, “without any discontinuity” (31). This continuity is also apparent in his description of the imposition of rules of incest prohibition as both “pre-social and social” (12; my emphasis), or in other words as both naturally universal and culturally rationalized. Such a point is not incidental in the context of any consequent discussion with Stoicism. As we have seen in preceding chapters there is an ongoing Stoic position which holds that the natural realm is a rational realm. Not only is the world naturally rational for the Stoics, but indeed they also equate this rationality with civility (Becker 1998, 112; Stephens 2007, 85). Seemingly contrarily for Lévi-Strauss there is a developmental divide between the impulsively natural and the rationally socialized stages of the transition underpinning the incest prohibition. Could there nevertheless be in Lévi-Strauss’ sense of their mutual continuity the suggestion of a common trace to both stages that might evoke the Stoic characterization of a rational and rationalizing nature? The majority of Lévi-Strauss’ thesis might appear to refute such an interpretation. He states that the incest prohibition’s belonging to a world of rules and “hence to culture” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 24) means that it is exclusively a socialized phenomenon. The incest prohibition’s possibly ubiquitous presence within human cultures is retrospective as a “social reflection upon a natural phenomenon” (13). Never in fact are the prohibition’s social or cultural origins more apparent he claims than in how it “varies greatly from group to group” (29). Such variation is correlated with the perceived contingency or contextuality of social phenomena in contradistinction to the singularity of natural inevitability. The conceptual separation of what is naturally singular from that which is socially multiple is here integral to Lévi-Strauss’ anthropological perspective. Lévi-Strauss concludes from these considerations that the incest prohibition actually has a grander relevance in symbolizing an overall human transition. This transition ascribes to all humans the characteristic of being part of the species’ collective liberation from a pre-civilized, purely natural state. The rule prohibiting incest is for Lévi-Strauss an indication of a forward-moving development that unites much of humanity “in its universality and the type of relationship upon which it imposes its norm” (12). We can now compare Lévi-Strauss’ claim here that the human species collectively carries along each human’s personal developmental process, with the Stoic conception of individual developmental responsibility.

202 

W. JOHNCOCK

Hierocles charges the responsibility for drawing people from one’s outer circle more closely to one’s inner circle to the individual themselves. We have seen how David Konstan translates this adjustment to our social relations as where “we would arrive at fairness if, through our own initiative, we cut down the distance in our relationship toward each person” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93; my emphasis). The initiative is personally originated. I am also fond of Long and Sedley’s translation of this passage which describes what Konstan interprets as “arrive at fairness” instead as where “the right point will be reached … through our own initiative” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349). Either “fairness” or “the right point” captures the drive toward an egalitarian set of relations within the Stoic cosmopolitanism that we have reviewed. The phrase “our own initiative” used by both Long and Sedley and by Konstan is our current focus though. It implies a break with socialized expectations of us, or at least a break with how we are socially conditioned. Rather than automatically acting as expected when encountering people with whom we are not relatively close, Hierocles implores us to be personally proactive. By showing this initiative and breaking the normalizing chains by which we maintain interpersonal distances we will, for the Stoic, live as we “should.” The parallel directive Lévi-Strauss observes to venture outside our inner kinship circles for certain affective relations has social origins and is not personally activated. Such decisions do not represent our own initiative but a certain adherence to that which is socially normative. What is a hallmark of collective development for Lévi-Strauss is for Hierocles instead an individual developmental change, a personal “effort we must make” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93). Notions of collective development carry with them implications of chronologically linear transition. The human transition from a natural state to a cultural state for Lévi-Strauss represents a subsequent, social inscription on a natural phenomenon that is “historically anterior to culture” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 31). What Lévi-Strauss describes as the previous state of “nature’s indifference to the modalities of relations between the sexes” is characterized in his thesis as being reshaped via how culture subsequently “defines its modalities” (31). While nature supposedly leaves the alliance or union between sexually active individuals to chance, it is “impossible” Lévi-Strauss asserts for culture “not to introduce some sort of order” (32). The incest prohibition which orders only certain (sanctioned) sexual associations here expresses the “transition from the natural

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

203

fact of consanguinity to the cultural fact of Alliance” (30). Exogamy, which permits marriage only with people from outside an individual’s immediate social group, duly becomes socially normalized. For Hierocles, the demand to show affection (albeit of the non-­marital/ sexual kind) to people outside our inner circles is instead as we have reviewed a personally structured responsibility. It is for the Stoic “incumbent” on the individual to warm to “people from the third circle as if they were those from the second” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349). For Lévi-Strauss, conversely the normalization of exogamous relations or “alliances” is a socially structured development and imperative. This seems to be an essential difference between their respective calls to develop affections with people beyond our inner circles. We will now consider though whether a common intention for both these outlooks is the goal of social cohesion.

Expanding One’s Inner Kinship Circle Is Socially Beneficial Levi-Strauss substantializes his theory on the social structuration of such alliances via what he perceives in myriad cultures to be the circular exchange of women. These exchange relations are in his opinion pivotal to the normalization of exogamous relations. To this extent, he posits that exogamy’s “fundamental principle is a regular circulation of marriage prestations between groups” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 323). His consequent “alliance theory” is built on this insight of a reciprocal exchange or “circulation of women” between groups (323). This circulatory trade of women and other “valuables” or “objects” builds inter-group connections. These connections in turn create a more expansive and therefore more powerful combined social entity.10 As with Lévi-Strauss’ note on how the incest prohibition manifests differently across cultures, we can observe the different forms that these exchange relations take. In what Lévi-Strauss defines as the “elementary” structures of kinship, the exchange of women is directly determined by existing social institutions and even compensated by trade items (478). Where a possible sexual partner in another group is contrarily not straightforwardly assigned through trade, more “complex” structures of kinship emerge (478). Here I wonder if Hierocles would be willing to define the relationships between the people in one’s inner and outer circles according

204 

W. JOHNCOCK

to similar comparisons of directness and complexity? This kind of terminology could possibly be incorporated within his Stoic perspective where he reminds us how we “must make an effort” to bring closer those individuals who currently we hold afar (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93; my emphasis). A comparative reading of Hierocles would require that we characterize people already within our inner circles as in direct relation to us. Conversely, we could characterize as “complex” the development of closer relations with people from our outer circles. This would focus on the associated exertion that we see in his description of “making an effort” (or what for Long and Sedley’s translation means “trying hard” [Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349]). The differentiation between direct and complex kin constructions matters for Lévi-Strauss because as the protocols of such exchanges solidify over time, social structures and groups become reinforced. Exogamy’s demand that people go beyond their immediate kinship circle for intimate affection here preserves the overall intimacy and integrity of the group to which they originally belong. Avoiding such relations with a fellow member of one’s kin prevents the group from fragmenting disharmoniously for Lévi-Strauss. Exogamy maintains a group’s internal cohesion by soliciting external affection and “provides the only means of maintaining the group as a group, of avoiding the indefinite fission and segmentation which the practice of consanguineous marriages would bring about” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 479). The anthropologist believes that if a biological unit was to mate within its own kin circle there would be the risk of them becoming “established as a closed system” (479). By having no reason to venture outside the familial circles, that biological group would stand apart from the rest of society. As such a practice became increasingly widespread a society overall would comprise disconnected biological units. The imposition of a prohibition that forces individuals to extend their affection and sexual attention beyond their inner circles however induces a socially collective unity that evidences “the dominance of the social over the biological, and of the cultural over the natural” (479). With this commentary, it becomes apparent that for Lévi-Strauss the imperative to affectionately interact with those outside our immediate kinship circles is a socially productive mechanism. It is not simply a socially prohibitive regulation. As marriages occur between individuals from different groups so the associated members in each group become connected. Exogamy in this guise has the “means of binding together” otherwise

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

205

disconnected individuals (480). The prohibition of incest presents in this perspective not just a negative “rule prohibiting marriage with the mother, sister or daughter.” Instead, we conceive how according to Lévi-Strauss it is a socially productive “rule obliging the mother, sister or daughter to be given to others” (481). This identifies a positive social ontology in Lévi-Strauss’ impression of the incest “prohibition.” Similarly there are for Hierocles socially productive conditions in mandating that we more fondly interact with people outside our usual groups. For Hierocles the greater social intimacy that eventuates justifies the individual motivation to overcome the tendency of only circulating around one’s inner circles. This latter tendency refers to the general belief Hierocles recognizes that a “greater distance in respect to blood will subtract something of goodwill” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93), or in Long and Sedley’s translation will “remove some affection” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349). It is Hierocles’ opinion that if we reduce the “distance of the relationship with each person,” a society of more closely bonded individuals will manifest (4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349). Despite this comparative point, we must recognize an issue that emerges if we attempt to uncritically blend Lévi-Strauss’ and Hierocles’ respective conceptions of a socially connected world. For Hierocles, by “transferring” individuals from our outer to inner circles the intention is to reduce the distances between all such circles. Offering to those people who we currently treat almost as strangers “our affection for them all” would in Hierocles’ terms “stimulate and intensify the indicated contraction of the circles” (4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 350). What would the ramifications be though for the anthropological context we are observing if all circles become contracted? Would the effectiveness of the incest prohibition that Lévi-Strauss investigates be compromised in relatively small populations? I ask this given that by increasing an individual’s inner kinship circles the size of the population deemed to be outside their family unit and with whom they can mate would seemingly shrink. This could be a problem in smaller societies. We have seen that increasing the population of every person’s inner circle would increase social relations for Hierocles. This socializing element of Hierocles’ thesis of concentric circles is for Becker crucial to the motivation for the thesis (Becker 1998, 74–76). What I would like to consider in response however is whether this would actually compromise socialization by making

206 

W. JOHNCOCK

incestuous relations more difficult to avoid in certain populations. In addressing this question we will be working from within Lévi-Strauss’ earlier thought that exogamous relations maintain rather than damage an overall social cohesion. The just-mentioned concerning eventuation might not occur if the people invited to an individual’s inner circle were not actually viewed as family but rather just treated as well as family members. We have seen Julia Annas note that this is in fact  the problem with Hierocles’ argument because this is all that would ever occur anyway. Annas here draws inspiration from Aristotle’s insight in Politics II that spreading the sense of family only weakens the overall family feeling. In Politics II’s “Commentary” chapter Trevor Saunders portrays this point as Aristotle’s indication of a “thinness of ‘family’ relationships” (Saunders in Aristotle 1995, 114). Sex with people only “thinly” treated as family might not necessarily arouse accusations of incest. Then again, it very well could. I will note in passing here that for certain Stoics any actual incest that occurred might not be an issue. Chrysippus is in fact reported to endorse incest. The Stoic Plutarch recounts in his On Stoic Self-Contradictions how in Chrysippus’ Exhortations it is advised that “sexual intercourse with mothers or daughters or sisters have been discredited without reason” (Plutarch, SVF, 3.753, in L&S, 430). The basis for this argument is that incest occurs in the natural kingdom, the very point that Lévi-Strauss has in fact raised earlier. Apparently for Chrysippus, given that humans are part of this natural arena we “should look to the beasts and infer from their behaviour that nothing of this kind is out of place or unnatural” (3.753, in L&S, 430). We must be careful however with interpreting that this means Chrysippus is straightforwardly endorsing incestuous practices. Chrysippus instead uses incest in this manner to exemplify what is contingent about socialized customs. The point here is that what society says is bad (such as incest) is not essentially bad or a guide to what warrants a Stoic’s investment. For a Stoic only what is “bad by nature” is essentially bad. John Sellars takes my perspective here too, arguing that incest acts “would have been strictly speaking ‘indifferent’ according to the Stoic classification of things good, bad, and indifferent, and thus not positively recommended at all” (Sellars 2009, 100). In classifying incest prohibition as socially constructed rather than as naturally directed, Lévi-Strauss is not endorsing incest either. In his perspective, I indeed believe that we find an insight that rules out the concern

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

207

that from a bloated inner kinship circle a rampant incest might ensue in smaller populations. This solution is already operating within Lévi-Strauss’ presentation of the incest prohibition itself. Specifically this regards the earlier reviewed complexity of exogamous relations. Lévi-Strauss notes that as a result of elaborate orderings of exogamy which lack direct marital arrangements within one group, “more and more numerous local groups constitute indefinitely more complex systems” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 479). As such groups form more indirect and numerous alliances, their members are less likely to engage in inner-kinship-circle sexual relations even inadvertently. This is because of the reconstitution of such circles. “No sooner” is an alliance established between two groups than “it is disintegrated” (480). The groups are no longer separately closed off but merge into a greater population. Even within smaller populations therefore, as one’s inner kinship circles become larger, they are simultaneously opened to the novel connections and associations the newly drawn people bring. By increasing the external pool of mates for all members of the merging groups, collectively structured exogamous agreements emerge which address the potential issue. Increased incest would not manifest when the imperative is to draw in people for affection from beyond inner kinship circles. The crucial point here for Lévi-Strauss though is that it is a social group, not an individual, that has initiated the process of reaching out. This disintegration is a socially productive reintegration. It does not compromise existing social structures but breeds novel associations from within them. As more numerous relations connect social groups, exogamy comes to represent a “continuous pull towards a greater cohesion, a more efficacious solidarity” (480). What Hierocles describes as the intensified contraction of one’s inner circles also results in the expanded reproduction of those circles in terms of an increase in size and originality. As a result of this ongoing reconfiguration, it would never really be the same inner circles that are inviting contraction through newly dispersed affections. “Dispersed affection” indeed seems an appropriate term under which to collect the most consistent themes to have emerged in the respective theories of Hierocles and Lévi-Strauss. The drive to affect and to be affected by people who typically function beyond our immediate (kinship) circle is for both thinkers a collectively productive mechanism. This means that what is a socially enacted responsibility also manifests as a responsibility to the self. Perhaps it is in this sense that the personal initiative of which Hierocles speaks is also socially radiated. The regulation of affection is not an external social prohibition imposed on or by an individual but a universal and collective rationalization.

208 

W. JOHNCOCK

Notes 1. These classifications often distinguish between people who are family members and those who are friends. Such a distinction in turn fuels debates regarding what constitutes our “kin.” Lewis Morgan (1871) offers a traditional anthropological definition of kinship according to rules of biological descent. David Schneider alternatively expands kinship to a system of symbols and meanings that includes friends (Schneider 1984, 53–54). Ethan Leib counters Schneider’s type of perspective by arguing that “if a relationship is one of kinship, it cannot also be classified as a friendship” (Leib 2011, 15–16). This distinction is necessary for Leib to discriminate the social contributions that friendship and kinship relations respectively make. Paige Digeser responds that this sharp distinction between friendship and kinship is “less a matter of principle and more a matter of strategy” that reflects Leib’s investments in the relative legal recognitions afforded to different relationships (Digeser 2016, 202). 2. Seneca’s ninth letter “On Philosophy and Friendship” from Letters from a Stoic gives a utilitarian impression of friendship as servicing personal development. For Seneca the practicing Stoic and “wise man, self-sufficient as he is, still desires to have a friend if only for the purpose of practicing friendship and ensuring that those talents are not idle” (Seneca 1969, 9.9). Aristotle provides another interesting ancient perspective on friendship in two books of The Nicomachean Ethics. Here he explains that there is no doubt we need friends. More complex debates in his opinion concern “under what circumstances do we need them most? Is it in good fortune, or in bad fortune that we have the greater need of friends?” (Aristotle 2004, 9.11.1171a20–24). 3. Hermann Schibli explains in Hierocles of Alexandria that not only do we lack biographical information on Hierocles but that we are also without much information on Plutarch, with whom Hierocles appears to have studied. Despite this, we can establish a relationship between the two through the reports of other ancients. That Hierocles “pays express homage” to Plutarch is asserted by Schibli, for whom later “Platonic doctrines indicate that the influence of Plutarch on Hierocles’ philosophical formation was considerable” (Schibli 2002, 6). 4. As Ramelli notes in her Introduction to the original translation of Hierocles’ texts, there is enough distinction between the styles of the Elements and Stobaeus’ extracts that scholars are convinced they belong to two different works (Ramelli in Hierocles 2009, xxix–xxx). 5. Julia Annas describes this as where “the aim is to think of all humans impartially, giving them all equal concern” (Annas 1993, 268). See later in this chapter for Annas’ doubts regarding whether such egalitarianism would eventuate.

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

209

6. See Brennan (2005, 154–168) for a discussion of how this interpersonal feature of Hierocles’ theory speaks to broader Stoic considerations about oikeiôsis. Oikeiôsis involves one’s self-regarding or self-preserving inclinations. Brennan accordingly describes how oikeiôsis informs “my directing my impulse towards the preservation of that thing I recognize myself to be” (156). In commentating on Elements of Ethics Gretchen ReydamsSchils also describes this work as the “best evidence on the highly sophisticated Stoic notion of ‘appropriation’ (oikeiôsis), which stipulates that by nature and from birth, animals and human beings come equipped with a self-awareness and self-love that guides them toward self-preservation” (Reydams-Schils 2010, 566). Becker is conscious though, as are ReydamsSchils and Brennan, that there is more to this account of socialized oikeiôsis than “self-love alone” (Becker 1998, 74–76). 7. Readers familiar with either foundational sociology or the second chapter of this book would recognize this title’s similarity to Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]). Lévi-Strauss intends this play on words. In “History and Anthropology,” the introductory chapter of his Structural Anthropology, Lévi-Strauss approves as a “classic study” (Lévi-­Strauss 1963 [1958], 5) the anthropological investigation found in Durkheim and Marcel Mauss’ Primitive Classification (1967 [1903]). Despite this endorsement, in The Elementary Structures of Kinship Lévi-­Strauss commentates that Durkheim shares a “historicizing” fault of nineteenth-­century evolutionists such as Herbert Spencer. This fault of Durkheim’s is to “attempt to establish a universal phenomenon on, an historical sequence, which is by no means inconceivable in some particular case but whose episodes are so contingent that the possibility of this sequence being repeated unchanged in every human society must be wholly excluded” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 22). From this Lévi-Strauss criticizes Durkheim’s theory of incest prohibitions (19–23), presenting his contrary interpretation that we engage in this chapter. 8. For analyses about which “descent groups and categories” typically occupy kinship discourses concerned with the primacy of ancestral parameters, see Holy (1996, 71–123) and Ensor (2013, 109–198). 9. This coheres with Lévi-Strauss’ general belief in the division of nature and culture. In The Savage Mind when discussing the cultural exchange of women, he differentiates between the homogenous woman “as far as nature is concerned,” and the qualitatively pluralized woman that is “declared to be heterogeneous from the point of view of culture” (LéviStrauss 1966 [1962], 123). That culture structures the conceptual correlation of women with nature provides for Lévi-Strauss an insight into the “control” of nature by culture. This interpretation of a cultural domination of nature is evident in Lévi-Strauss’ Tristes Tropiques where he posits that

210 

W. JOHNCOCK

Jean-Jacques Rousseau “poses the central problem of anthropology, viz. the passage from an unbridled nature to an ordered society” (Lévi-Strauss 1992 [1955], 229). Lévi-­Strauss identifies this progression from nature to culture in the way that Western culture (himself as the anthropologist) imposes itself onto more “primitive cultures” (Brazil’s Nambikwara tribe that he researches). I comprehensively review this interpretation, via Derrida’s critique of it (Derrida 1976 [1967]), in my book Naturally Late (Johncock 2019). 10. In The Savage Mind Lévi-Strauss tempers this characterization of women as objects that hold a certain exchange value. There he observes that women are not exactly the same as socially manufactured goods. Rather, as natural creatures whose “exchange value” is subsequently culturally constructed, “the ‘system of women’ is, as it were, a middle term between the system of (natural) living creatures and the system of (manufactured) objects” (Lévi-­Strauss 1966, 128).

References Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. 1995. Politics. Books I and II. Translated by Trevor Saunders. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and New York: Penguin. Becker, Lawrence. 1998. A New Stoicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bonazzi, Mauro. 2017. The Platonist Appropriation of Stoic Epistemology. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 120–141. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Brennan, Tad. 2005. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1976 (1967). Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Spivak. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Digeser, Paige. 2016. Friendship Reconsidered: What It Means and How It Matters to Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Durkheim, Émile. 1995 (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: Simon and Schuster. Durkheim, Émile, and Marcel Mauss. 1967 (1903). Primitive Classification. Translated by Rodney Needham. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ensor, Bradley. 2013. The Archaeology of Kinship: Advancing Interpretation and Contributions to Theory. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Grahn-Wilder, Malin. 2018. Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

9  HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 

211

Hierocles. 2009. Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts. Edited by Ilaria Ramelli. Translated by Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Holy, Ladislav. 1996. Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press. Johncock, Will. 2019. Naturally Late: Synchronization in Socially Constructed Times. Lanham and London: Rowman and Littlefield International. Leib, Ethan. 2011. Friend v Friend. The Transformation of Friendship—And What the Law Has to Do with It. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963 (1958). Structural Anthropology. Translated by Claire Jacobson and Brooke Schoepf. New York: Basic Books. ———. 1966 (1962). The Savage Mind. Translated by George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. Letchworth: The Garden City Press Limited. ———. 1969 (1949). The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Translated by James Bell, John Richard von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham. Boston: Beacon Press. ———. 1992 (1955). Tristes Tropiques. Translated by John Weightman and Doreen Weightman. London and New York: Penguin Books. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, Lewis. 1871. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2010. Philosophy and Education in Stoicism of the Roman Imperial Era. Oxford Review of Education 36 (5): 561–574. Schibli, Hermann. 2002. Hierocles of Alexandria. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Schneider, David. 1984. A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Sellars, John. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (Second Edition). London; New Delhi; New  York; Sydney: Bloomsbury. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 1969. Letters from a Stoic. Edited and translated by Robin Campbell. London and New York: Penguin. Stephens, William. 2007. Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. London: Continuum.

CHAPTER 10

Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia Kristeva on Gendered Labor

All Genders Should Receive the Same Education A way that we might assess a society’s egalitarian qualities is through the dual parameters of education and gender. “Egalitarian” in this context refers to the identification of (1) who within society receives the opportunity to access education, as well as (2) the anticipated outcomes that are associated with any education received. This latter element concerns how someone can apply their education to gaining a role or employment based on that education. The degree therefore to which we might consider educational structures to be egalitarian is determined by who can be educated and how they can use their education. Notions of gendered egalitarianism in education do not cohere with the interpretation that men have dominated most institutions for generations. Two gender disparities condition this impression. Firstly, the number of important figures to have emerged from fields including science, politics, commerce, and philosophy, and whose work continually defines such fields, is heavily weighted in favor of men.1 Secondly, access to the kinds of formal studies that provide access to these fields has not always been available to women. This restricted access has inhibited educational and vocational opportunities for generations of women in fields that men unsurprisingly have monopolized by default.2 In considering a tradition of the exclusion of women from educational and vocational structures, you might not associate the ancient periods of Western civilization with conversely progressive positions. It is however © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_10

213

214 

W. JOHNCOCK

when exploring the middle to later eras of ancient Stoicism that we surprisingly encounter via Gaius Musonius Rufus (20–30—90–101 ACE) an apparently egalitarian perspective in terms of gender politics. This is specifically attributable to his position that women and men deserve to receive the same education.3 Musonius’ outspoken position on this topic can be contextualized by appreciating his propensity for reportedly holding relatively contrarian perspectives and priorities. As documented by historians of the era, Musonius was banished two or three times from Rome for teaching philosophy during a period that was not receptive to such inquiry.4 Following these periods in exile Musonius would teach philosophy to a slave, Epictetus. Epictetus as is well known refers to Musonius as his master in his own writings.5 From this relationship, certain parallels can be drawn between Musonius’ philosophy and that of his soon to be famous pupil. Such consistencies include Musonius’ “Epictetus-like” focus on the practical element that philosophy should offer. Stobaeus reports that for Musonius, in developing a frame of knowledge we should prioritize “practical and clear” proofs (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.125, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 23). It is within this practical outlook that Musonius becomes notable for attending to notions of gender equality in education. In presenting his philosophy on educational egalitarianism, we see that Musonius fields a question from his audience regarding whether daughters and sons should receive identical instruction. Musonius responds affirmatively that they should (2.31.123, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 31). The reasons for giving women the same education as men concern what Musonius identifies as being undeniably similar about both genders. Musonius makes no distinction between the genders in terms of the capacity to think rationally. This is an important point given the esteemed position that rationality holds in the Stoic hierarchy of states of the self. The Stoic belief in a pantheistic universe indeed should orient toward the impression that women are as capable as men of living rationally. If the universe is rational, and it is in human nature to be inclined toward this universal state, then it is as natural for women as it is for men to be rational. It is perhaps according to this kind of Stoic “fact” about human existence that for Musonius it is a logically rather than an empirically derived proof that women have “the same reasoning power as men” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). Not only do women have equal reasoning capacities as men, but furthermore Musonius believes that we must recognize that women have the same senses as men,

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

215

as well as many of the same body parts (2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). Gretchen Reydams-Schils notes in one regard that this equation comes from an ancient tradition that sees women’s and men’s bodies as structurally analogous (Reydams-Schils 2005, 154). In another regard however of which Reydams-Schils is keenly aware, certain ancient philosophical views such as those of Epictetus often differ markedly from this tradition with which such views were contemporaneous. The beard, for example, in Epictetus’ perspective either identifies a philosopher (Epictetus 2014, 1.2, 29) or is nature’s design whereby “we can distinguish the male from the female by this means” (1.16, 10). It is indeed also Musonius’ position that “the beard should not be shaved since it is a protection provided by nature” and an “emblem of manhood” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 3.6.24, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 81). This discussion evidences Musonius’ somewhat ambiguous interpretation of bodily similarity. Perhaps more momentous than themes regarding the body in Musonius’ perspective is that the similarities between women and men extend to them sharing a drive toward an important Stoic “end”—a “desire for virtue” (2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). I should qualify his use of the term “desire” here. In the “Emotions” section of this book, we explore how we become virtuous according to the Stoics by living virtuously, not by wanting/desiring to be virtuous.6 Despite this distinction, in Musonius’ above description of the relationship with virtue there does not appear to be the sense that women would be misguided by what he describes as “desiring” it. What Musonius acknowledges rather is that just like men, women naturally possess the capacity to recognize the importance of virtue. This for Martha Nussbaum is indicative of Musonius’ broader impression that between men and women “there are no significant innate differences with respect to the basic aptitude for learning morality” (Nussbaum 2002, 290). While developing these apparently progressive perspectives, Musonius questions the belief that it is more appropriate for men than women to study philosophy. Philosophy after all is concerned with the art of living honorably (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 2, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). Stobaeus here reports that Musonius offers a definition in which honor and virtue are synonyms and that their effects radiate beyond individual selves. Men and women in Musonius’ estimations are equally honorable, self-controlled, courageous, and just, and can inspire each other to be so. As a result, it is not only appropriate and beneficial to women that

216 

W. JOHNCOCK

they receive the same philosophical instruction at an early age as men do. This also suits a society concerned with the welfare of all its citizens. If every citizen regardless of gender can direct their life virtuously then society as a whole will tend toward a collective virtuousness. For modern readers concerned with ongoing gender inequalities these features of Musonius’ position are surprisingly refreshing. Classical historian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix (1981) presents Musonius’ concern about liberating women from class oppression as novel. Michel Foucault is equally interested in the originality of Musonius’ contribution to discussions about women’s equality, particularly in marriage settings (Foucault 1985 (1984)). These appreciations amplify when we consider how ancient the era is in which Musonius wrote. It is however the way that Musonius justifies these practical applications of women’s philosophical and educational opportunities that presents apparent issues with his egalitarian intentions. The reason for attending to such issues in this discussion concerns their comparative relevance to modern social theory’s interest in similar topics. Through this comparison, I will contribute a new angle to thought which attends to the compromised qualities of Musonius’ position on gender.

Not an Entirely Egalitarian Outlook on Education The first point in this discussion concerns how Musonius argues that women trained in philosophy would be more “just” than untrained or uneducated women. The contentious aspect of this portrayal is found in Musonius’ position on the application of a female’s education. For Musonius, an educated woman could apply their newly acquired “justness” to the service of the men and children in their immediate life. In this approach we might start to sense that unequal expectations emerge regarding how Musonius is framing the justification for men’s and women’s access to educational opportunities. As Stobaeus continues to recount, for Musonius the educated woman is “a careful guardian of husband and children, entirely free from the love of gain or grasping for too much” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 4, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). A first gendered distinction and perhaps consequent hierarchy thus becomes apparent. Women and men in the Stoic thought of Musonius are both capable of learning philosophy. They are also both receptive to philosophical training informing their virtuousness. For women however, we should measure such education in its benefit to women’s roles as a wife

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

217

and a mother (2.31.126, 4, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 294). Musonius appears to firmly hold this belief. In one regard Nussbaum is sympathetic to Musonius when she reviews this point. Nussbaum notes the probability that in this mode Musonius was responding to and “reassuring” husbands who were possibly concerned that their newly philosophizing wives would become “stubborn and bold” (Nussbaum 2002, 296). In another regard though, Nussbaum reminds us that Musonius’ affirmative response to the earlier question of whether sons and daughters should receive the same education, doctors a Platonic example that the training of male and female dogs should be the same because they have the same functions (Plato 2012, 451B). Nussbaum interjects that Musonius neglects to mention that the reason Plato does not assign differently sexed dogs different functions is that in Plato’s view the female’s temporary “pregnancy and lactation does not entail a lifelong division of functions” (Plato 2002, 286). For Nussbaum’s eventual critique of Musonius’ supposed commitment to women’s emancipation from lifelong gendered roles, this is no inadvertent oversight: The omission fits well with Musonius’ reluctance to challenge traditional spheres of activity and this interest in perpetuating a female form of life shaped around household management and child care. (Nussbaum 2002, 286)

We have reviewed Musonius’ view that philosophy is for women a tool to help them fulfill their traditional role of caring for their family. Stobaeus communicates that Musonius is emphatic about this value of the philosophically educated woman to a family structure. Musonius duly asks rhetorically; who aside from such women “would love her children more than life? What woman would be more just than such a woman as this?” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 4, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). Beyond her role as a mother, the woman who has received a philosophical education is indeed described as being more “self-motivated and persevering … to serve her husband with her own hands, and to do without hesitation tasks which some consider appropriate for slaves” (2.31.126, 5, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). The work of Musonius differs from that of his contemporaries in explicitly addressing the importance of access to a philosophical education for women. The effect though of this education in how it is subsequently deployed is not necessarily as socially egalitarian as we might have initially

218 

W. JOHNCOCK

anticipated. This is a point that scholarship on Musonius readily identifies.7 In stating this, it must be acknowledged that any kind of emancipation for women from the regularly socially structured role of “domestic pseudo-slave” was probably never Musonius’ intention in broaching such a subject. What is instead of primary importance in his philosophy is a greater recognition of the practical ends that a philosophical education should serve any individual. For women specifically, this would mean that studying philosophy would simply assist them in executing their traditional roles better or more virtuously. The benefits of the philosophically educated woman seem less to be about constructing more worthwhile subjectivities and lives for women and more about contributing to the servitude the male and children of each family unit will receive from a virtuously minded female. Musonius lists the domestic advantages that the philosophically astute woman would provide. Complementing this he anticipates the better social standing that such a woman’s new philosophical status would facilitate for her husband. Sending one’s wife to get educated would be wise it seems for Musonius as “a woman like this would be a great advantage for the man who has married her,” not to mention “a source of honor for those related to her” (2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). The socially structural benefits for a male in having a philosophically educated female partner become explicit. There is the possibility here as Nussbaum again briefly considers, that because Musonius’ audience comprises concerned males, his work is actually “urging a quite radical educational step and sugarcoating it with reassurances to the husband” (Nussbaum 2002, 297). This seems unlikely though, something we have seen Nussbaum also notes, given how convincing Musonius’ commitment is to the idea that a philosophical education should not disrupt instilled gender roles. The philosophically educated woman would not be able to deploy her “philosophical knowledge” to pursue a different kind of life or vocation. This would unsettle family stability for Musonius in that “there is no way I would expect women who pursue philosophy to cast aside their appropriate tasks” such as “sitting at home spinning wool” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). Philosophy will serve a man’s socially structured identity in terms of the associated capacity to “be a good citizen” in the public arena. For women though the benefits derived will be largely concerned with her performance in the domestic realm. A philosophical education will certainly help a woman to live in accordance with “justice.” Musonius underpins the correlation however between the just life and the female’s

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

219

life in terms of traditional restrictions. On this point, he clarifies rather grandly that “a woman would not manage her household well, if she does not do it with justice” (2.31.123, 2, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). We thus arrive at a point of considerable tension regarding how we read the philosophy of Musonius. He presents a clear belief in the egalitarian foundations of access to philosophical education. Within this belief however are overt double standards in how opportunities are to be practically enacted. Stobaeus reports Musonius proclaiming that “to honor equality” (2.31.123, 7, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29) is one of the primary virtues that philosophy and Stoicism instills. Equality seems quite conditional or qualified though in Musonius’ perspective given that men would still dominate a public arena from which women are relatively marginalized. This is ironic as Malin Grahn-Wilder notes, for in Musonius’ view women do not lack practical reason because “they lack any natural ability” but because they just “lack practice” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 192). Musonius’ very conditional intervention does not appear to offer women the opportunities to obtain such practice. By interrogating this tension in Musonius’ position the originality of my discussion will emerge in  my attention on a further gender-divisive inequality that I identify within his Stoic perspective. Raising this inequality will direct my engagement to a topic that has not been explicitly explored by existing literature on Musonius’ relevance to gender theory (Aikin and McGill-Rutherford 2014; Grahn-Wilder 2018; Nussbaum 1994, 2002; Reydams-Schils 2005). This inequality, which I call the “time inequality,” concerns the gendered politics of socialized time. I believe this issue deserves contemporary attention when appraising his approach to gender equality. This is because of the continuing effect of this time inequality in the modern era.

Equalized Time Is Not Egalitarian Time We can explore this time inequality in a current context through the philosopher and social theorist Julia Kristeva (1941–). Kristeva’s insights are important not simply in terms of what her own writings offer directly but also more broadly because of the influence she has had on subsequent thinkers. This dispersed influence is perhaps reflective of the prolific and varied character of Kristeva’s output. Her perspectives populate an array of fields including art history, linguistics, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and social theory.8

220 

W. JOHNCOCK

My development of a dialogue between the works of Musonius and Kristeva will indeed sit alongside her own passing engagements with Stoicism in exploring the roots of the “semiological sciences.” In “Psychoanalysis and the Polis” Kristeva posits that we can trace the birth of interpretation and semiology to Epictetus’ claims that humans are destined not only to contemplate God and his works but to interpret them (Kristeva 1982, 79). Reflecting on how “to interpret” means “to make a connection,” Kristeva links the interpretative capacity to the relational outlook of structuralist linguistics. Because structuralist theorizers of discourse are in this sense for Kristeva “rationalizers of the social contract in its most solid substratum (discourse), linguists carry the Stoic tradition to its conclusion” (Kristeva 1980 [1977], 24).9 It is however in her poststructuralist conceptions of women’s relationships with time that I believe her capacity to be a discussant with the themes present in Musonius’ positions about gender become apparent. Kristeva argues that feminist inquiries into the topic of time must address how women are restrictively conceptually aligned with the temporality of natural, biological, and cyclical repetition. Particularly because of assumptions about a female subservience to biological function, Kristeva demands in her famous essay “Women’s Time” that: Female subjectivity would seem to provide a specific measure of … the cycles, gestation, the eternal recurrence of a biological rhythm which conforms to that of nature. (Kristeva 1981, 16)

The correlation of women with “circular” maternal and physiological temporalities arguably has its roots in impressions of childbearing and the menstrual cycle. Kristeva highlights conceptual juxtapositions of this supposedly circular tempo from the linear and progressive temporality of commercial and political institutions, “in other words, the time of history” (17). All such technological and social institutions in Kristeva’s argument have been so dominated by men that the temporalities of progress and the temporality of masculinity are conventionally equated. The interpretation is that such rhythm occurs separately to the limited repetitive temporality of women. Feminism’s first wave fought for the inclusion of women into these institutionalized rhythms. The focus here was on women’s participation in linear temporalities of progress and equality. Kristeva introduces her discussion of this strategy by arguing that “the women’s movement, as the

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

221

struggle of suffragists and of existential feminists, aspired to gain a place in linear time as the time of project and history” (18). She laments though that these linearly social, political, and historical projects institutionally represented civilizing breaks from humanity’s prior, natural state. Because this was a natural state conceptually aligned with the ahistorical female-as-­ reproducer, any inclusion for women in projects deemed to be subsequently and developmentally civilizing remained conditional.10 We might draw a comparison here with Musonius’ conditional integration of the educated female in the sphere of male-dominated structures. This integration is “conditional” given that for Musonius there was never the expectation that opening educational opportunities for women would see them break from their traditional, naturally assigned roles (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 3–6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28–30). We have seen him state that he would not expect women to relinquish the practical utility of their domestic services, even upon becoming philosophically educated. This focus on the practical arrangements of everyday undertakings means for William Irvine that Musonius provides “us with a window into daily life in first-century Rome” (Irvine 2011, 11).11 The ongoing cultured demand for women to retain their domestic roles likewise indicates in Kristeva’s account their quite conditional integration into established social structures. An acceptance of women into public and professional life during first-wave feminism was tempered with the ongoing alignment of women with a state of nature that such structures were symbolized to be superseding. Women could now receive education and professional responsibilities but not at the expense of their “naturally assigned” roles as caregivers (Kristeva 1981, 30). As we shall soon consider in terms of time, this effectively restricts women’s existence in the public realm in a way that mirrors Musonius’ expectations that educated women would still remain at home. The distinction between expectations of the social  and developmental involvements of men versus women is apparent in both Musonius’ thesis and Kristeva’s commentary. Given the futility of fostering women’s inclusion within existing societal structures, Kristeva notes that rather than attempting to function within a temporality that had continued to exclude women, the second wave of feminism shifted focus. This new direction demanded recognition of the qualitatively different forms of time for each gender. This did not deny or suppress what according to Kristeva women uniquely embody regarding time. Such an approach instead highlights the economic and social values

222 

W. JOHNCOCK

of these female temporalities, giving a voice “to the intrasubjective and corporeal experiences left mute by male-dominated culture in the past” (Kristeva 1981, 19). The egalitarian drive of feminism here thus changes. From first wave’s call that the time of all citizens is equal and should be treated accordingly, the second wave argues that the time of the genders is different and that an appreciation of such differences would actually be socially and economically beneficial for all. It is from these kinds of considerations that what I identify as the “time inequality” emerges.

Specifying Women’s Time This call to recognize what is irreducibly female about time is how second wave feminism situates itself outside historical time structures without acceding to the threat of marginalization from current social or political strata (Kristeva 1981, 19). Such a development should ideally lead for Kristeva to a third stage in which women’s time inserts more prominently into society’s institutionalized consciousness. This insertion would not be the result of an acknowledgment of previously hidden similarities between male and female temporalities. Neither would it be because of the capacity of females to fulfill what were the established, male-inclined temporalities. What is at stake rather is a recognition of the collective benefits that are already occurring and would continue to occur from the structural integration of male and female temporal specificities (20). By instead ignoring the differences in the ways that male and female temporalities manifest, it is my argument that a “time inequality” lurks in Musonius’ work. I can begin to explain what this time inequality is via Kristeva’s insights on women’s time. Musonius’ proposal to insert women into existing institutionalized structures of the ancient era is conditioned by his affirmation that “there is not one type of virtue for a man and another for a woman” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.123, 2, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 31). Rudimentarily we should celebrate this egalitarian outlook. The issue with it though is that its indication of equality does not reflect the associated lived experiences of time for men and women in which there are, conversely, differently gendered virtues imposed. While Kristeva is not discussing Musonius’ philosophy, it is my interpretation that this kind of homogenization of value or quality between genders is what Kristeva interprets as preventing women from receiving the social freedom and status that men receive. We have seen her argue that if the only goal of feminist interventions is the

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

223

insertion of women into existing linear time then this actually exacerbates the marginalization of women from aspects of social and political time. This is largely due to the institutionalized devaluation of what is specific about the lived time of women (Kristeva 1981, 18–20). Musonius actually provides an example of what Kristeva would argue is adversely specific about women’s time when detailing how ancient women’s newly found education does not translate to a liberation from traditionally assigned domestic roles. This relates to the time that we have noted women must spend laboring at home (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29–30). Grahn-Wilder reviews that this requirement coheres with Musonius’ endorsement of how the “traditional division of labor between ‘outdoor’ and ‘indoor’ duties corresponds with the physical capacities of men and women” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 270). If the perception is that women are not suited to outdoor labor then this diminishes expectations that they will spend time in pursuits beyond the private domestic realm. Intertwined with this differentiation between indoor and outdoor roles is the earlier reviewed, specific obligation that Musonius ascribes to educated women to continue to spin wool at home. By appreciating the relevance of the wool spinning example to the indoor|outdoor distinction, David Engel identifies a key example “where Musonius’ stance is not utterly egalitarian on the subject of daily activity” (Engel 2000, 380). There are indeed contradictory indications underpinning Musonius’ position on the indoor|outdoor distinction in Engel’s estimation. Musonius observes that the generally different physical strengths of women and men means that women are more suited to indoor tasks. Musonius nevertheless also recognizes that there exist physically weaker men and stronger women and that “all human affairs have a common basis and are therefore common to both men and women, and nothing has been exclusively reserved for either” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.123, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 32). While this sounds unconditionally egalitarian, Engel responds that given the rigid division of indoor and outdoor roles that Musonius assigns even to educated women and men, “it must be asked just how deeply attached he was to such a bold pronouncement” (Engel 2000, 381). Beyond notions of pure physicality, this should remind us of Kristeva’s demand that the specificity of women’s time is that which has traditionally been correlated with a nature excluded from the collective outdoor space of public and cultural developments.

224 

W. JOHNCOCK

This exclusion in Kristeva’s opinion has in the modern era evolved into conditionally inserting specifically female temporal experiences into public structures. Expanding on the similar point from the previous section, I can now say that this insertion is conditional in terms of time. Women’s time is itself conditional time because it is never women’s own. The time of women is given either to professional labor structures that men still dominate and possess or to a domestic realm in which they subserviently continue to bear the burden of labor. What results is a collision of temporalities for professional women who work while bearing this domestic labor, not to mention the specifically female rhythms of maternity and childbirth: An increasing number of women not only consider their maternity compatible with their professional life … but also find it indispensable to their discovery … of the complexity of the female experience. (Kristeva 1981, 30)

In this mode women fulfill the requirements for inclusion within male-­ dominated social and political linear time while concurrently managing their uniquely female temporal assignments. These temporal assignments go beyond the relatively brief maternal responsibilities to perpetually include domestic care and laboring responsibilities. It is in being sensitive to the consequent juggling act between these dual and very different temporalities that Kristeva conceives of “women’s time.” We must be careful to not assume that “women’s time” is a reference to one universal, natural rhythm, to which all women are deterministically and biologically bound. Kristeva rather conceives of women’s time to help identify how women are uniquely, almost suffocatingly, implicated in the production of modern socialized rhythms. This “suffocation” is partly attributable to the multiple roles granted to women by first-wave feminism. Women’s relatively recently acquired professional commitments that occur within historical linear time must be made to fit the numerous domestic demands on their time for which they are still responsible in home units.12 Such roles must additionally be integrated with the time burdens of maternity, for example, that only women bear. The time involved in maternal processes is a responsibility that will always exist given that as Kristeva notes, even for feminist groups “the refusal of maternity cannot be a mass policy” (30). The correlations that can be drawn with Musonius’ description of the roles and responsibilities of philosophically educated women duly become apparent. As reviewed we might initially be tempted to commend

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

225

Musonius for acknowledging that women share the same capacity for learning as men (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). There is an egalitarian impetus to this call for the same access to education for women and men. It is only when the practical application of this education unravels that we see in the ancient Stoic context how the hierarchical division of male time from women’s unpaid labor time remains. For both Kristeva’s critique and Musonius’ own position, the opening of institutionalized structures to women does not change the existing demands on women’s domestic labor-time. We can recall that for Musonius the woman studying philosophy should not expect as a result of her newfound knowledge or study demands to stop spinning wool or completing other services for her husband (2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29–30). It is worth noting that Musonius also asserts that men studying philosophy should not abandon their other responsibilities. The imperative for Musonius regarding philosophically active students is that “there is no way that I would expect women who pursue philosophy—or even men, for that matter—to cast aside their appropriate tasks and concern themselves with words only” (2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011,  29–30; my emphasis). It is however in the details of these “appropriate tasks” that we see the specifically restrictive conditions that are placed on women in terms of the subsequent social activation of their education. Women’s participation in the social fabric primarily involves the “appropriate tasks” of attending to domestic/home affairs rather than contributing to public philosophical debate. Never is this more evident than when Musonius cautions that women studying philosophy is not tolerable if “they abandon their house-keeping and go around in public with men and practice arguments, act like sophists, and analyze syllogisms” (2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). A woman who has the chance for education in the ancient Stoic era would, as with Kristeva’s observations of the modern woman, be busy enough in any case juggling the time demands of study labor and domestic labor. The equally educated man might not experience clashes of different time responsibilities to the same extent if he is responsible for fewer of those domestic responsibilities. Philosophically educated men are for Musonius instead encouraged to “practice their arguments in public.” This is a requirement of the practical orientations and applications of Stoic philosophy’s core principles that we have seen Musonius mandate for men not women. Indeed it complements earlier insights about the impression that indoor rather than outdoor pursuits are

226 

W. JOHNCOCK

suitable for women. Philosophy in the practical contexts of the ancient Stoics is very much outdoors and publicly inclined. While for Musonius the philosophically educated woman would be more “just” than her uneducated female counterpart, there is seemingly little that is “just” about the demands on time that the educated women would consequently experience. In fact if the educated woman applied her developing Stoic outlook to her lack of time, such Stoicism might only further normalize or sediment her subjugation. I state this because now that such a woman would have trained in a Stoic consciousness, if she was to complain about any consequent lack of time this could appear to contradict the indifference to unfavourable circumstances her training instilled. Furthermore, it might contribute to any ancient societal doubts regarding the suitability of women to philosophical endeavor. This is potentially an inflammatory concluding point. It does not favorably portray the Stoics’ capacity to fulfill their mandate of practically applying philosophical study. I must nevertheless make this point. Not only would the philosophically educated, Stoic woman feel like she had less time than she ever had, but she might also be less likely to complain about it or even feel wrongly treated by it. This is because any adverse response to her situation could as noted appear to compromise her now instilled Stoic virtuousness. Through the interchange between Musonius and Kristeva, we get a vivid sense of how women of all eras must enact the Stoic persona even if they have not received its formal philosophical training. A time-poor woman would according to the notions of Stoic virtue that we encounter more comprehensively in other chapters need to remain indifferent to what is beyond her control. In this case the phenomenon beyond her control would be time, her own time.

Notes 1. Linda Brodkey and Michelle Fine interpret that this gender disparity means that science affords males the belief that they alone legislate the human knowledge of reality (Brodkey and Fine 1992, 80). Janet Kourany reframes the debate by attending to the differences in gender disparities between various academic fields (Kourany 2012, 251). In Reflections on Gender and Science Evelyn Keller considers whether modern gender disparities simply continue the composition of Plato’s Academy (Keller 1985, 25). See Yeandle (2017) for a more recent discussion of the perpetuation of philosophy’s male domination.

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

227

2. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) informs that “millions of girls around the world are still being denied an education” (UNESCO 2013). Its report identifies a global trend in which “two thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are female” (2013). This prevention of access to basic education also occurs at a tertiary level, particularly in fields that lead to “skilled” vocations. D. Kelly Weisberg argues that historically “one of the paramount concerns of any skilled profession is the regulation of access to the profession” (Weisberg 1977, 485). Weisberg complementarily highlights the struggle women have had “to gain entrance to the legal profession” (485). Madeleine Arnot, Miriam David, and Gaby Weiner also recognize the structural exclusion of women from secondary and tertiary education programs. Their focus furthermore comprises which state policies have been implemented to address these inequalities (Arnot et al. 1999, ix). 3. There are brief examples of other Stoic philosophers also arguing for equal appreciations of men and women. Diogenes Laërtius reports that in his Republic Zeno makes the demand that we perceive men and women as equal given that they are “in common among the wise” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.66). Epictetus in Discourses posits that of a wise man he sees “no reason why he should not marry and have children” and that “his wife will be wise, like him” (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 68). Diogenes additionally advises of Antisthenes’ tendency to assert that “virtue is the same in a man as in a woman” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 6.5). Given that Antisthenes was a student of Socrates, and taught Zeno’s teacher Crates of Thebes, this provides a possible link between Socrates’ views on women and the perspectives of the earliest Stoics. Plato’s Republic indeed details how Socrates proposes that women are as “philosophic” as men (Plato 2012, 6.1.456a) and as capable of fulfilling the city’s most prominent roles such as “guard and other duties” (6.1.451d). Donald Dudley doubts such a link between Socrates and Zeno however. Dudley claims that the Stoics fabricated accounts connecting Antisthenes to Zeno to create the impression of an unbroken sequence between Socrates and Zeno (Dudley 1937, 2–4). Of relevance to all the above is Malin Grahn-Wilder’s chapter “The Stoics on Equal Educability of Girls and Boys, and the Origin of Gendered Characteristics” taken from her Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. Musonius’ assertion in Grahn-Wilder’s view regarding the equal treatment of women and men “follows naturally from premises commonly accepted by Stoic thinkers from Zeno to the Romans” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 10). 4. James Dillon provides a comprehensive account of Musonius’ “three rounds of exile, two under Nero and one under Vespasian” (Dillon 2004, 6). The way that Musonius responds to each of these periods of banishment motivates Dillon to describe such experiences as revealing “of the

228 

W. JOHNCOCK

congruence of his teaching and living” (6). One such banishment sends Musonius to the notoriously desolate island of Gyara or Gyaros. Despite this “Musonius lived cheerfully” (6) whereas other exiles had to be condemned to less brutal locations. 5. Cynthia King records in the “Translator’s Introduction” to her presentation of Musonius’ thought that he taught Epictetus after having been exiled by Vespasian and then returning under the rule of Titus (King in Musonius Rufus 2011, 13). Epictetus describes on multiple occasions the relationship with his Stoic master Musonius. One such example in Discourses is where Epictetus recalls how “Musonius used to test me by saying, ‘your master is going to afflict you with some hardship or other’” (1.9, 29). See also Reydams-Schils (2017, 157) and Long (2002, 13–17) for further explanations of the Musonius-Epictetus connection. 6. Diogenes Laërtius’ commentary on Chrysippus exemplifies this point. Chrysippus clarifies that a life in accordance with nature will be virtuous and happy; “the chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to nature” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). This counters the interpretation that posits virtue or happiness as ends to target. Happiness is “supervened” through being virtuous, which itself is supervened through a life “corresponding to one’s own nature and to the universal nature” (7.53). 7. I am not the first commentator to offer this reading of Musonius’ thought. Scott Aikin and Emily McGill-Rutherford’s article “Stoicism, Feminism and Autonomy” (2014) addresses aspects of Musonius’ theory in ways that are not dissimilar to the discussion I have presented. Edward Arnold’s Roman Stoicism (1911) also reveals these issues, as does Elizabeth Asmis’ chapter “The Stoics on Women” (1996). For a broader discussion of the complications of applying Musonius’ philosophy to modern feminist theory, see Martha Nussbaum’s chapter that we have already encountered— “The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman” (Nussbaum 2002). 8. Fletcher and Benjamin (1990) provide one of the more useful collections of commentaries on Kristeva’s many foci. 9. Kurt Lampe gives a comprehensive account of Kristeva’s interest in Stoicism from a semiological perspective. Not incidentally given our choice of Stoic protagonist in this chapter, Lampe here integrates other features of Musonius’ philosophy such as his positions on eating meat (Lampe 2016, 34–35). 10. Marlene LeGates’ In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society illuminates the reasons for this problematically conditional success of firstwave feminism. Legates’ chapter “Issues in First-Wave Feminism” (LeGates 2001, 237–280) particularly helps us to understand how the first wave’s inadequacies bred the differently oriented, second wave.

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

229

11. More adventurously, Brad Inwood asserts that because of these publicly practical orientations Musonius was likely not a Stoic philosopher whatsoever. Inwood characterizes him instead as a “generic philosopher” and “public intellectual” (Inwood 2017, 257). 12. For Rita Felski this means that women are now included in, rather than marginalized from, linear time. This in her estimation is no advantage as women now have to be more concerned with linear time and “more preoccupied with time measurement, than men” (Felski 2000, 20). The reason for this greater time-preoccupation is that the modern era has seen women relinquish few of their time-demanding domestic responsibilities while now also working full-time professional hours.

References Aikin, Scott, and Emily McGill-Rutherford. 2014. Stoicism, Feminism and Autonomy. Symposium 1 (1): 9–22. Arnold, Edward. 1911. Roman Stoicism: Being Lectures on the History of the Stoic Philosophy with Special Reference to Its Development Within the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arnot, Madeleine, Miriam David, and Gaby Weiner. 1999. Closing the Gender Gap: Postwar Education and Social Change. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Asmis, Elizabeth. 1996. The Stoics on Women. In Feminism and Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julie Ward, 68–92. New York: Routledge. Brodkey, Linda, and Michelle Fine. 1992. Presence of Mind in the Absence of Body. In What Schools Can Do: Critical Pedagogy and Practice, ed. Kathleen Weiler and Candace Mitchell, 75–94. New  York: State University of New York Press. De Ste. Croix, G.E.M. 1981. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. London: Duckworth. Dillon, James. 2004. Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life: A Model of Teaching and Living Virtue. Dallas; Lanham; Boulder; New  York; Oxford: University Press of America. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Dudley, Donald. 1937. A History of Cynicism: From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. Engel, David. 2000. The Gender Egalitarianism of Musonius Rufus. Ancient Philosophy 20: 377–391. Epictetus. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics.

230 

W. JOHNCOCK

———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Felski, Rita. 2000. Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture. New York: New York University Press. Fletcher, John, and Andrew Benjamin (ed.). 1990. Abjection, Melancholia, and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva: Volume 4. London and New York: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 1985 (1984). The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality Volume 3. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin. Grahn-Wilder, Malin. 2018. Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Inwood, Brad. 2017. The Legacy of Musonius Rufus. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 254–276. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Irvine, William. 2011. Editor’s Preface. In Musonius Rufus: Lectures & Sayings, ed. William Irvine, 9–12. Translated by Cynthia King. CreateSpace. Keller, Evelyn. 1985. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kourany, Janet. 2012. Feminist Critiques: Harding and Longino. In Philosophy of Science, ed. James Brown, 236–254. London and New York: Continuum. Kristeva, Julia. 1980 (1977). Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Edited by Leon Roudiez. Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1981. Women’s Time. Translated by Alice Jardine and Harry Blake. Signs 7 (1): 13–35. ———. 1982. Psychoanalysis and the Polis. Translated by Margaret Waller. Critical Inquiry 9 (1): 77–92. Lampe, Kurt. 2016. Kristeva, Stoicism, and the “True Life of Interpretations”. SubStance 45 (1): 22–43. LeGates, Marlene. 2001. In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society. London and New York: Routledge. Long, Anthony. 2002. Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Musonius Rufus. 2011. Musonius Rufus: Lectures & Sayings. Edited by William Irvine. Translated by Cynthia King. CreateSpace. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2002. The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman. In The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, 283–326. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

10  CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 

231

Plato. 2002. Apology. In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Translated by George M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2005. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 2017. “Becoming like God” in Platonism and Stoicism. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 142–158. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. UNESCO. 2013. Education for All Global Monitoring Reporting: Girls’ Education—The Facts. http://en.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/gem-report/ files/girls-factsheet-en.pdf. Weisberg, D. Kelly. 1977. Barred from the Bar: Women and Legal Education in the United States 1870–1890. Journal of Legal Education 28 (4): 485–507. Yeandle, Heidi. 2017. Angela Carter and Western Philosophy. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 11

Is It Natural to Be Social? Marcus Aurelius and George Herbert Mead on Socialization

An Organic Unity At what point in your life can you say that you become social? Is it when you first go to school of some kind and begin spending time with other humans of a similar age and at the same life-stage? Alternatively is it before that, such as when you learn to communicate by recognizing interactions between others and taking part as well? Or is socialization more fundamentally simply something that begins with your family unit when you are born? Perhaps even more adventurously could we say that socialization commences before you leave the womb, in terms of the environmental and interpersonal sounds and phenomena to which you are unwittingly exposed?1 This immediately preceding position seemingly interprets that humans are naturally and unavoidably socially immersed. Such an interpretation might be correlated with how features of our parents’ environment condition us even while our embryonic and fetal development is ongoing. Another reading of it though could be that environmental influences imposed during the prenatal stage might be unavoidable but they are not natural. This relates to the belief that such influences include culturally contingent sounds such as your parents’ car. From this perspective, our unwitting socialization or enculturation would diverge us at different times from natural conditions. The variability of this contingency would make it difficult to define universally natural points of the origin of socialization. Different thinkers have explored and endorsed various arguments © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_11

233

234 

W. JOHNCOCK

related to the positions above. Deliberations even point to the direct role of the parents in influencing at which age or stage of a child’s life socialization commences.2 For a prominent voice from later Stoic philosophy, we should differently consider the point of origination of our socialized existence. By focusing on the preconditions of our lives, Marcus Aurelius directs the question of the beginning of socialization to what is collegial or shared between humans and the universe. Raising these universal relations involves a perspective that continues with themes that we have already encountered from Marcus. I refer to the dialogue developed between Marcus and Barbara Adam in Chap. 7’s concern with a worldly ecology and climate. The consideration there is of our relationship with what universally encompasses and manifests us. Anthony Long has recently reminded the contemporary Stoic community that ancient Stoicism is by design a philosophy of action oriented toward collegial benefits. This collegial imperative manifests for Long in the Stoic mandate that we will later encounter from Marcus of being “born for community” (Long 2018). Epictetus also provides much inspiration for this sense of our rationalized communal orientation from birth. God for Epictetus has “constituted the rational animal to have such a nature” whereby each human neither receives nor develops anything personally (“cannot attain any of his own particular goods”) without “contributing to the common benefit” (Epictetus 2014, 1.19, 13). From this impetus, Marcus will develop his own thesis of the inescapable universal conditions via which socialized orientations manifest for us all. An engagement with Marcus on the topic of community requires that we firstly appreciate his conception of a world in which all things are unified or interrelated. Marcus describes this unified state with various, interchangeable terms. These terms include God, Law, Zeus, the Whole, the Universe, Fate, Providence, and most interestingly for this inquiry; nature. He duly encourages us to appreciate “the unity of nature” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 8.34). Nature is a unity that extends to all aspects of the universe, including those things that are “even at a distance, as with the stars” (9.9, 2).3 By presenting the natural unity of humans with the universe, Marcus describes the entire world as “one living creature” (4.40). This is an argument of composition and substance. As the aforementioned chapter featuring Marcus’ perspective on a changing worldly environment extensively explores, for Marcus every feature of the world including humans

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

235

represents a particular manifestation of a single substance. It is from within and as the universal substance of nature (or the “Whole”) that humans emerge as parts of it. Nature’s nature as Marcus explains is to produce itself in various forms or “parts” of itself. There are two ramifications that I see from a worldly ontology in which all parts of this variously formed universe are composed of “one substance” (4.40). Firstly, we are each a distinguishable creature with our own physicality and rationality. Christopher Gill describes this as how we are each individually whole, whereby “Marcus recognizes that we constitute a psychophysical whole” (Gill 2006, 99). In another regard though, what is distinguishably whole about each of us is not composed separately to the rest of the universe. For Marcus rather, the internality or specificity of each individual human nature is also locatable in the substance of an entire nature, where “the nature of the Whole is what my own nature is” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 2.9). If we think about how to locate this understanding of “substance” in a modern regard we might turn to the kind of phrase which discusses or evaluates “what someone is made of.” The “made of” involved in this proposition does not restrict us to the separately touchable or tangible about the person in question. It instead indicates how we define that person in relation to the world in which they exist. It refers to what kind of person they are among a sea of personalities. Marcus’ sense of substance nevertheless does incorporate the material aspect of our being. This refers to the pantheistic elements within his worldview that we have encountered in which a divine rational principle activates the passivity of matter. A rationally activated matter comprises our whole substance. Indeed Gill has just defined this whole substance as our psychophysical constitution. It is via physical processes that the common substance through which the universe is ordered becomes apparent. According to Marcus’ physics the relative ordering of physical things in the universe—the fact that flowers bloom according to regular patterns or that fruits ripen at a predictable pace—exhibits the singular order of a universal substance. The pantheistic rationality of the universe orders all things together. This singular constitution means for Marcus that “all things, distinct as they are, nevertheless permeate and respond to each other” (4.27).4 Where there is an apparent “response” between things what is actually occurring is not previously separate things reacting to each other to establish new common conditions. All things rather are already commonly composed through their universal substantiality:

236 

W. JOHNCOCK

All things are meshed together, and a sacred bond unites them … ordered together in their places they together make up one order of the universe. There is one universe out of all things … one substance, one law, one common reason. (7.9)

This does not yet directly refer to the socialization of humans. We are beginning though to get a sense of how for Marcus a universal collegiality exists between all things that a common substantiality conditions. This common substance is pantheistic-activated matter. The respective constitutions of all things are enmeshed and the universe is “immanent in them” (6.40). These shared constitutions are pertinent when William Stephens notes that even though Marcus is keenly aware of cosmic cycles of generation and destruction (a topic that we have reviewed in Chap. 7), it still matters that we fulfill “our roles well as parts of the cosmic whole” (Stephens 2012, 104–106). The inevitability of our localized demise does not contradict our global relationship with an entire universe. Marcus duly encourages the individual to constantly recognize their place in a unified whole, stating that “you should meditate often on the connection of all things in the universe and their relationship to each other” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 6.38). The more recent translations of Gregory Hays (Marcus Aurelius 2002) and Robin Hard (Marcus Aurelius 2011) describe this as reminding ourselves of the “sympathy” we inherently have with all things in the universe. This is for Marcus the rational outlook for each human. By again observing the intentional “order” of the world as evidenced in the “interwoven” relationship of things, Marcus argues that all beings have the “same relation as the various limbs of an organic unity—they were created for a single cooperative purpose” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.13; my emphasis).5 With this tone of a universally ordered cooperation we might get an increased sense of what could be socially ordered or constituted about Marcus’ universe. The question of when our sociality begins is now steering toward a more “organically” primary point of origination than we considered in this chapter’s introduction.

An Organism and Its Environment On this theme of organic interrelatedness as Marcus describes it, we can pause momentarily to reflect upon Émile Durkheim’s impressions of community and social structure. I encourage this reflection given that as we have seen for Durkheim, a collective consciousness coerces individual

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

237

orientations like a singular “organism” (Durkheim 1938 (1895), 95). Evoking Marcus’ just observed portrayal of the organic unity of us all, Durkheim embraces the comparison of a social system with an organism’s physical composition. Here Durkheim argues that what is social cannot “be separated into discrete parts” but instead encompasses “the living substance in its totality and not the element parts of which it is composed” (xlviii). In exploring a bodily theme Marcus similarly encourages individuals to not characterize themselves merely as separate parts of a unified whole. We should instead in his perspective be receptive to how each of us constitutes something like the aforementioned limb in relation to an overall bodily integrity. Marcus demands accordingly that you not “call yourself simply a part rather than a limb” given that “part” does not reflect the mutually common nature of your constitution, as a “limb of the composite body of rational beings” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.13). While Marcus’ point is comprehendible, the difference between terms such as part and limb feels somewhat forced. Samuel Sambursky indeed engenders the sense of Marcus’ organic collegiality while using the forbidden term “part”; “the endeavors of the individual as an organic part of the endeavors of society as a whole” (Sambursky 1959, 115). Durkheim as noted equates a social body with the imagery of an organically physical body. This seems to fit quite well with this chapter’s discussion about the nature of our socialization. It is however best to look beyond Durkheim on these matters. This is due to how Durkheim generally overlooks the organo-physiological conditions of socially structured individuals.6 Marcus and Durkheim employ the idea of the organic body to describe common interrelations between individuals. Out of the two, it is only Marcus, however, who takes the organic component of this discussion to a literal level of substance. Marcus refers as we have seen to the common “substance” via which all “limbs” of the organic Whole are unified. In fact, for Marcus our rationalized material bodies are the evidence of our presence in a universally enmeshed state. Here he wants to bring to our attention how “all our bodies (being of one nature with the Whole and cooperating with it as our limbs do with each other) pass through the universal substance as through a swirling stream” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.19). It is in the context of these organismic indicators of the point at which we become communally oriented that the social theory of George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) presents as a more useful discussant than Durkheim. This is particularly apparent in Mead’s unique example of an individual

238 

W. JOHNCOCK

organism’s physiological relation to its environment or surrounding structure when eating. Mead like Durkheim is interested in how one’s mind or self emerges from a social communication model that is composed of particular beings. Unlike Durkheim though, one way in which Mead discusses such communication is via fleshed bodies and organs. This illustration of social interaction for Mead directly refers to how the physical effects of gestures and actions radiate environmentally and constitute a sociality.7 In The Philosophy of the Present when exploring the physical component of this collective animation, Mead indeed details eating not simply as an internalization of otherwise external food objects. Mead directs us to how food objects already constitute to a certain extent an individual organism’s structural physiology. This is because the individual organism’s physiology constitutes a part (one object) of an environment of objects in which food objects also reside. As organism-object and world-of-food-objects interact so they mutually reproduce. From this Mead asserts that the organism and the world of objects each become different together (Mead 2002, 93). The environment, a world of objects, and the individual organism for Mead reproduce each other. This singular co-constitutive dependency or relation between an organism and the world/environment marks: …both the difference which arises in the environment because of its relation to the organism … and also the difference in the organism because of the change in the environment. (37)

Given this singular co-relation between the individual organism and its environment, Mead describes the consequent whole that manifests as “an ongoing living process that tends to maintain itself” (37; my emphasis). This element of self-production is crucial in comparing Mead with Marcus’ Stoicism. Implicit within the Meadian characterization of a self- or internal connection between the organism and the environment is Marcus’ description that the interaction between humans and the world indicates “one living creature” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 4.40). What I am even further suggesting is that underpinning both the portrayals of Marcus and Mead is the belief in a singular nature or life that interacts with itself via plural forms or organs/organisms of itself.8 It is important to raise this notion of plurality because in this chapter the primary concern is with the theme of sociality. We are attending to the question of the commencement of our socialization and are not simply puzzling over notions of a counter-intuitive singularity. I am anticipating

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

239

that the advent of this singularity’s plurality will provide considerable insights regarding appraisals of when sociality originates. This is because when he describes an organically singular or self-“life” function, Mead goes to great lengths to detail the systemic links between its pluralities and its singularity. To do this he uses the example of an animal in a jungle. We must appreciate an animal organism according to Mead as a particular entity and an individual “system of distribution of energies which makes its locomotion possible” (Mead 2002, 75). The animal’s organismic element, its physiological composition, conducts its own material and physical movement. There are many (perhaps infinite) such individualized systems in any given environment. In this regard, there is also an acknowledgment from Mead of how the animal fits into the overall ecological or environmental structure as one of its many integrated components. The animal organism and its physical transitions comprise “part of the jungle system which is part of the life system on the surface of the inanimate globe” (75). Correlatively we have seen that in Marcus’ terms this singular life system is “one living creature.” The impression of a singular  site of life informs a question about whether Mead is inconsistent in describing the globe (meaning the planet Earth) as “inanimate.” Indeed this term sits awkwardly with the earlier established aspect of Meadian theory which posits a co-constitution and shared co-becoming between organism and overall environment. I raise this contention given how the description “inanimate” positions the globe/Earth as a passive platform on which organismically expressive pluralized life occurs. Rather than such passiveness being a feature of Mead’s thesis, there is more generally apparent in his wording a “whole” which actively co-implicates an “organism and its surroundings” (88). From this we can view the globe/Earth as one such surrounding entity that is both differentiated from but also co-implicated with a universally organismic life. The globe/Earth is concurrently singular and plural, as a living creature/entity that is differentially composed by and  with other living ­creatures/entities.

A Universal Community Beyond Humanity The “living creature” of Marcus’ Stoic perspective that has been incorporated in this discussion provides a critically comparative lens for Mead’s impression of an inanimate Earth. This concerns what I identify to be the communally animating roles of all entities in what for Stoicism is a universal social environment.

240 

W. JOHNCOCK

Marcus follows the Stoic impression of a “great ladder” between different forms of life. This ladder hierarchically installs animate beings (most primarily humans) as “superior to inanimate” aspects of the world (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.16). We have in Chap. 7 reviewed how this connects to the anthropocentric and logocentric features of Stoicism. For Marcus anything that is “inferior” is “made in the interest of the superior” in terms of the overall good of each to an entire, worldly “community” (5.16). Humans as rational creatures are superior to other less rational creatures. A hierarchy of superior and inferior elements within the overall living creature that is a universal community is therefore undeniably evident in Marcus’ Stoicism. The complementary impression however is that all such components are beneficially implicated or “enmeshed” within this liveliness to some extent. Every “thing” participates in the “good” that Marcus describes of a universal community in which “all things collaborate in all that happens” (4.40). I am taken by the monistic appreciation that Gregory Hays’ translation of this passage exhibits, where the singularity of the universe manifests via “how everything helps produce everything else. Spun and woven together” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 4.40). From this unrestricted collaboration we have to ask whether any thing can really be characterized as entirely inanimate. We can address this topic through unpacking what constitutes a social participant for both thinkers. Mead acknowledges that the ecological arena via its organisms and objects simultaneously comprises systemically plural constituents as well as a singular organism or system. The importance of this insight for Mead and for our inquiry into when socialization begins is that it defines the conditions for what is social. Systemic plurality here refers to sociality for Mead. Sociality is the concurrent (plural) presence of an entity in more than one system; it involves the “capacity of being several things at once” (Mead 2002, 49). An example of this is where, as we have reviewed, an animal organism presents as a life system of its own energies. Simultaneously though it is present in a larger environmental (social) system. This dual systemic presence is for Mead its sociality. Furthermore as the animal becomes a new individual system (such as when ingesting food from its environment) its presence in that environmental system also recomposes that system. This mutual reproduction is a social reproduction. This is as much a question of temporality as it is of systematicity. Emergent phenomena such as an animal organism and its environment concurrently inhabit and co-produce both the new and the old systems. This systemic and temporal plurality abides by the just discussed definition

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

241

of socialization to which Mead subscribes. Sociality becomes via the co-­ producing and co-temporalizing relations of the individual animal and the overall environment. What occurs as animal and environment each become newly different to what they were before, while maintaining their old individual distinguishabilities, is that “in the passage from the past into the future the present object is both the old and the new” (76–77). My reading here is that Mead is invoking the understanding of sociality that we normally hold in terms of human intersubjectivity. Human subjects are in this regard involved in each other’s new subjectivities emerging while remaining distinguishably individual themselves. Such subjects for Mead though are not just human. They instead comprise all ecological entities such as non-human animal organisms and environmental entities. An individual animal which belongs to more than one system (itself as a system and environment as a system) does not transcend one system to be in the other. It only becomes the system that it is because of its relational particularity within other systems from which it is pluralistically differentiated. This (re-)produces both systems immanently and co-constitutively. In fact, for Mead an individual entity must be “contemporaneously in different systems to be what it is in either” (86). Regarding applying this interpretation to human social arrangements specifically we can recognize that each of us is an individual organic system comprising a certain set of physiological processes. We also however constitute something communal as parts of a different kind of bodily system; a collective body. This latter body refers to a singular grouping from which pluralities continually manifest. A corresponding expansion of Marcus’ conception of the “universe as one living creature” is now possible via this feature of Meadian theory. This expansion will occur by identifying specifically socialized terms for the Stoic. Marcus posits a common substance and function between “all” that exists. This communal function extends beyond what is exclusively human. Think here of the connected orderings that he has described of flowers blooming and fruits ripening. The regularity and order of all such things in the world is crucial to this exhibition of a common nature. For Marcus this commonality between things conditions what he describes as a universal family of things. In Meditations he attributes this familial community to how “all things are interwoven and therefore have a family feeling for each other” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.38). What defines this interwoven constitution of things is not simply the common substance however. That substance is the condition. A community of

242 

W. JOHNCOCK

things instead manifests through the ordering of things via regular and mutually cooperative patterns. As Marcus rhetorically asks of the individual who doubts that their work participates in a universal community of life; “can you not see plants, birds, ants, spiders, bees all doing their own work, each helping in their own way to order the world?” (5.1, 1). When implicating human endeavor within a universal community Marcus accordingly and persistently argues that our labor or “work” serves and belongs to that Whole (5.1, 6.42). Indeed in Robin Hard’s translation these respective labors underpin the “proper running” of the world (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.1). The “world” is here Marcus’ reference not just to the domain of such animals and insects but also to the realm of humans. This communal ordering is indeed a default way of being for all life. We must be careful to not interpret that this communal order is simply the result of proactive behaviors and recognitions by humans and nonhumans. It is not something that has to be subsequently constructed or enacted in the world in order to prevent an otherwise inevitable chaos and disharmony. Order instead for Marcus is an indication of the pantheistic universal nature from which we are born, a timeless “unity, order, and providence” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 6.10). We and the rest of the universe are born communal. Mead’s social ontology also defines a global singularity that is not bound by a politics of human exceptionalism. By not restricting the definition of socialization to humans his explicit call is that the worldly environment’s systemic pluralization “belongs not only to human organisms” (Mead 2002, 46). This is a relatively consistent position with the bases of his argument that we have addressed. If sociality is a systemic plurality, and human entities systemically inhabit the environmental system along with other entities, then all such entities must in some way constitute a collectively organic sociality. Sociality in this Meadian sense is hence unrestricted. This is a reading of his theory that he apparently supports in explicitly stating that “every thing” is a social constituent (177). By acknowledging an unrestricted social emergence that constitutes and is constituted by all entities and organisms in an environment, for Mead “social beings are things as definitely as physical things are social” (177). Marcus’ perspective equally endorses the all-encompassing communal unity of things. In discussing the “very web and mesh of it all” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 4.40) the impression is of a collectivity that disperses in an

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

243

unrestricted worldly rather than in an exclusively human direction. Marcus accompanies this sense of universal enmeshment with a declaration of the explicitly collegial conditions for this “all,” in that Marcus defines how the “universe is a kind of community” (4.3, 2; my emphasis). As we are about to affirm, if the universe is a family or a community, it must be in our universal nature that we have communal impulses. This characterization of sociality or community as a state in accordance with our nature is important in reflecting upon what might appear to be contradicting elements in Stoic theory regarding social phenomena. In earlier chapters we have reviewed how for Epictetus we should not be concerned with social phenomena such as “reputation” and social standing given that they are “things not in our control” (Epictetus 2004, 1). Marcus agrees with this sentiment that we should not be overly concerned with such aspects of communal life, including what others think of us. He duly encourages us to “be deaf to malicious gossip” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 1.5). Both Marcus and Epictetus position these kinds of socialized phenomena as distinct from the true self or nature. What we encounter in Marcus’ thesis now though is a reading of a sociality from which our nature is not distinct. The Stoic imperative advises us not to be improperly dependent on external social phenomena over which we have no control. This does not discount for Marcus an uncontrollably universal, socialized aspect to our being. This universal social world is not something of which we desire to be a part. Our communal status instead equates with our primordial interrelationship with and responsibility to the world around us. The point at which we become social would accordingly for Marcus and indeed for Mead simply be the point at which we be. Marcus demands that being a social agent is a primary reason for which we exist, where supposedly in his era “it has long been shown that we are born for community” (5.16). In manifesting as an individual part or limb of an entire nature or universal life, our sociality automatically manifests. There is however a tension between the two thinkers that is embedded within this apparent agreement on originary and monistic social conditions. This tension concerns the differentiated hierarchies of social status that Mead and Marcus respectively propose. Unpacking this differentiation will extend earlier insights regarding just how unrestricted the social structure is for both.

244 

W. JOHNCOCK

Hierarchies of Sociality? Our rational awareness for Marcus of our status as an interconnected limb of universal life traces to the fact that “the intelligence of the Whole is a social intelligence” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.30).9 This is Marcus’ qualification in social terms of the universal or pantheistic reason that he generally observes. The whole universe as we have already reviewed for Marcus is rational. The individual’s nature in deriving from this universal nature is thus also rational. What Marcus is now adding to this definition of a part-­ Whole shared nature is his belief that its shared rationality is a collegiality. A social rationalization indicates that we all orient our natures and actions toward a collective benefit. There are however degrees of this shared rationality. While we are dealing with a universally enmeshed collective state of subjectivity and rationality for Marcus there are hierarchies of rational existence that qualify the extent to which “all things” might socially cohere. It appears indeed that some entities and creatures, if they are not as rational as others, will correlatively not be as social as those human creatures who are rational. As he states regarding this characteristic of the earlier-discussed existential ladder, the Whole has “subordinated some creatures … and brought together the superior beings in unity of mind” (5.30). This subordination refers to certain species which operate at a different “level” to humans. Marcus reminds us that being rational invests the associated creature (typically human) with specific social responsibilities and capacities. In addressing the reader as one such rational creature he directs that “when you are reluctant to get up from your sleep, remind yourself that it is your constitution and man’s nature to perform social acts, whereas sleep is something you share with dumb animals” (8.12). “Dumb” is more precisely expressed for our understanding here by Robin Hard’s translation of “animals devoid of reason” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 8.12). While we are citizens of the universe therefore we also bear hierarchized responsibilities as rational human citizens. This duality again reminds us of the tandem logocentric and anthropocentric features of the Stoic worldview first raised in an earlier chapter. From this Marcus refers to a human communal citizenship in a “universal city.” To comprehend this city we must trace the concept’s origins to the earliest Greek Stoicism of Cleanthes. Diogenes Laërtius reports that a Stoic interest in the city is initially represented by Zeno’s Republic as well as by a text from Chrysippus of the same name (Diogenes Laërtius 1853,

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

245

7.28–7.33). In the fragments that have survived from Cleanthes though we can identify a position that directly correlates the city with what is rationally just and civil. As Stobaeus reports, for Cleanthes: If a city is a habitable structure, in which people who take refuge have access to the dispensation of justice, a city is surely something civilized. (Stobaeus, SVF, 1.587, in L&S, 431)

Anthony Long and David Sedley commentate that in one regard this position is indicative of the Stoics’ attachment to legal and judicial order and their attempt to promote “a very powerful conception of law as the basis of civic life” (Long and Sedley 1987, 435). Dio Chrysostom also emphasizes this Stoic characterization of the city as the seat of ordered justice, in that they “say that a city is a group of people living in the same place and administered by law” (Dio Chrysostom, SVF, 3.329, in L&S, 431). This “administrative” order is not simply of a human legal origin though. As I discuss in Chap. 14, Plutarch informs us of Chrysippus’ assertion that goods such as virtue and justice manifest from God’s “universal nature” and His “administration of the world” (Plutarch, SVF, 3.68, in L&S, 368–369). This coheres with the position of Chrysippus’ fellow early Greek Stoic, Cleanthes. In Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus we are reminded that God “orders things” that would be otherwise “disorderly” (Cleanthes and Thom 2005, 18, 19, 99, 112). Cleanthes attributes this divine administration, which by definition must be just, to the pantheistic universal reason that permeates the cosmos and keeps it “unified” (19). This cosmic unification comprises the universal city in which people take refuge (as Cleanthes puts it) by living according to nature. The Stoic city is hence more than a particular metropolis in a specific geographic location. This city that Cleanthes recognizes rather has a universal jurisdiction. Julia Annas also notes this universally expansive mode of the Stoic city when reviewing via Clement how “the Stoics say that the universe is a city in the proper sense … a city and a people are morally good … a kind of refined organization and body of people governed by law” (Annas 1993, 304). The Stoic city is the entire rational universe. It also however comprises all localized human living structures that we conventionally call cities (and that we have seen Cleanthes possibly refer to as a “habitable structure).”10 Marcus perpetuates this double definition of the city when he describes how each human is by nature’s default an “inhabitant of this highest City,

246 

W. JOHNCOCK

of which all other cities are mere households” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 3.11, 2). In arguing that all humans are included with a universally cooperative and rationalized community his consequent demand is that we refer to our home as the “Dear city of Zeus” (4.23). Given that citizenship of this city requires rationalized natures there is no reference of it including “inferior” nonhuman creatures. There is no such socializing and rationalizing hierarchy for Mead. His thesis instead recognizes an unrestricted sociality that constitutes and is constituted by all entities. Mead’s position is that all physical things are social, whether human or otherwise. This specifically emphasizes that a hierarchy does not exist between human and nonhuman physicality. In confronting the typical reading of human|nonhuman differentiation Mead is consistent in his position that “we become physical things” and therefore social things “no sooner than do the objects that surround us” (Mead 2002, 48). If one such object is his aforementioned “inanimate globe,” then it too would be a social constituent in this perspective. This means that implements/objects exhibit a mutually systemic sociality as do humans. As we use implements which are seemingly inanimate, the implements and the act of using the implements participate in our becoming different implementally to an overall system/structure. Humans are thus simultaneously subjects and implemental objects to a whole socializing environment. This remember refers to a co-dependent production between all systemic entities, whereby “the bodily selves of members of the social groups are as clearly implemental as the implements are social” (177). A co-production between humans and implements/objects seems to dramatically differ from Marcus’ earlier reliance on the ancient rational hierarchy. Yet there is in Marcus’ sense of a shared substance something collegial about all things. Our rationally activated human matter  in fact could easily have been, or could soon be, for Marcus a less rational implement or object. In a previous incarnation at another point in time indeed it probably was: Universal nature uses the substance of the universe like wax, making now the model of a horse, then melting it down and using its material for a tree; next for a man; next for something else. (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.23)

In terms of how Marcus explains the monistic aspects of being throughout Meditations the description in this sentence is the one of which I am most fond. Stoic universal nature features hierarchization based on perceived

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

247

degrees of rationality and consequent sociality. There is nevertheless an internally common collegiality to everything which radiates through the substantial composition of everything. From an attention on the primordial orientations of our socialization, I argue that for Marcus as for Mead our social status originates concurrently with our existential origination. We are born, we are social. What is interesting about such a perspective is that it contradicts any supposition of a distinction between natural and socialized states of life. A conceptual distinction between nature and society/culture is what might demand that through culturally and temporally contingent ways of being we discover how humans have become distanced from their natural condition. Conversely to this perspective, it is in being social that we exhibit for Marcus our natural tendency. This natural and collegial tendency exemplifies rationality. Given that this rationality is universal among our fellow humans, what is naturally “rational directly implies social” (10.2). It is equally for Mead that sociality is a marker of our inescapably systemic and plurally common constitutions. The novelty of inquiring into when we become social via these two contexts is that they request us to consider the mutual and collegial manifestation of human life with universal life.

Notes 1. The insight that babies in the womb can hear, and discern differences between, sounds originating from outside the womb has been explored extensively in prenatal psychology and health scholarship. Ruth Fridman gives an account of such studies of hers since 1971  in “The Maternal Womb: The First Musical School for the Baby” (Fridman 2000). Likewise, in determining how babies in the womb shape the information that they receive from outside it, for Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin language development could commence before birth. In redefining at which stage a baby is a “language novice,” they argue that “the intertwining of language, society, and culture may begin in the womb” (Ochs and Schieffelin 2014, 8). 2. Eleanor Maccoby (1992) provides a “historical overview” of interpretations of the role of parents in the socialization of children. In this research, Maccoby traces most early positions to two major schools; behaviorism, and psychoanalytic theory. Her work also recognizes the transition in more recent literature to “microanalytic” analyses of parent-child interaction.

248 

W. JOHNCOCK

3. This reading of a universal sense of singularity and unification is not exclusive to the work of Marcus among Stoic thinkers. Plutarch reports in On Stoic Self-Contradictions that Chrysippus’ perspective involves “references to Zeus, fate [and] providence and stating that the cosmos is one and finite, being held together by a single power” (Plutarch, 1035b, in I&G, 9). Chrysippus attributes the capacity to appreciate this unity to scientific studies and one’s consequent acquisition of knowledge, holding that “none of this can be believed except by someone who is thoroughly immersed in physics” (1035b–c, in I&G, 9). The mechanics of this physics is too complex for the requirements of this chapter. It nevertheless relates to an impression of the continuity and unity of nature as Inwood explains, via the Stoic “claim that the forces which give each kind of entity its characteristic powers are all modifications of the same material principle, pneuma” (Inwood 1985, 21). 4. Robin Hard’s translation describes this as how all “things are distinct and yet interfused and bound together by a common sympathy” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 4.27). 5. Numerous works (Robertson 2018; Stephens 2012, 89–91; Ussher 2014) explore Marcus’ imagery of the human body when he discusses a cooperative cosmopolitanism. 6. It is not that Durkheim refuses the role of the body/corporeality in his sociology. In The Rules of Sociological Method he states that individual manifestations of collective conditions “depend to a large extent on the organopsychological constitution of the individual” (Durkheim 1938, 8; my emphasis). Further evidence of his awareness of this “organic dependence” is in Durkheim’s claim (albeit isolated) that there is no need to separate an ideal milieu from the body (Durkheim 1974 (1898), 28). These points possibly motivate commentaries such as Nick Crossley’s (2005) that there is not a mind|body dualism implicit to Durkheim’s sociology. Despite these qualifications, the organic bodily element of the individual is nevertheless largely absent from Durkheim’s structural sense of socialization. 7. Mead’s Mind, Self and Society (1934) most extensively details his social behaviorist theory. 8. The interpretation of “monistic” characteristics in this aspect of Mead’s work is not rare. One of the more interesting and recent examples of such a reading is Hans Johnsen’s assertion that in Mead we encounter a “particular blend of monism and social constructivism” (Johnsen 2014, 37). In ­exploring the notion of knowledge as a “natural resource,” Johnsen affirms that for Mead the social mind is not simply an aggregation of individual minds that a culture manufactures in subsequent ways. Mead’s sense of the social mind is rather of singular relation with individual minds.

11  IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 

249

9. Robin Hard translates this as where “the mind of the whole is concerned for the good of the whole” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.30). For Gregory Hays’ translation of the same sentiment, this means that “the world’s intelligence is not selfish” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.30). 10. Obbink (1999) also unpacks the two definitions of the Stoic city; one as a place of localized habitation, the other as the entire universe.

References Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press. Cleanthes, and Johan Thom. 2005. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Crossley, Nick. 2005. Sociology and the Body. In The Handbook of Sociology, ed. Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, and Bryan Turner, 442–456. London; New Delhi; Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Durkheim, Émile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by George Catlin. Translated by Sarah Solovay & John Mueller. New York: The Free Press. ———. 1974 (1898). Individual and Collective Representations. In Sociology and Philosophy, 1–34. Translated by D. Pocock. New York: The Free Press. Epictetus. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New  York: Dover Publications. ———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Fridman, Ruth. 2000. The Maternal Womb: The First Musical School for the Baby. Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health 15 (1): 23–30. Gill, Christopher. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson (ed. and trans.). 2008. The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Johnsen, Hans. 2014. The New Natural Resource: Knowledge Development, Society and Economics. London and New York: Routledge. Long, Anthony. 2018. Stoicisms Ancient and Modern by Tony (A.A.) Long. Modern Stoicism, October 6. https://modernstoicism.com/stoicisms-ancientand-modern-by-tony-a-a-long/.

250 

W. JOHNCOCK

Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maccoby, Eleanor. 1992. The Role of Parents in the Socialization of Children: An Historical Overview. Development Psychology 28 (6): 1006–1017. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2002. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New  York: The Modern Library. ———. 2011. Meditations (with Selected Correspondence). Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. New  York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mead, George. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2002 (1932). The Philosophy of the Present. New York: Prometheus Books. Obbink, Dirk. 1999. The Stoic Sage in the Cosmic City. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 178–195. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. 2014. The Theory of Language Socialization. In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ed. Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi Schieffelin. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Robertson, Donald. 2018. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Sambursky, Samuel. 1959. Physics of the Stoics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Stephens, William. 2012. Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. Ussher, Patrick (ed.). 2014. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I. CreateSpace.

PART V

Emotions

CHAPTER 12

Is Reason External to Passion? Posidonius, Ann Game, and Andrew Metcalfe on Self-Division

Our Natural State Is Rational, It Is Not Superseded by a Rational State We have regularly in the preceding chapters considered what being civil or civilized means. A repeated interpretation that we have encountered (such as in the debate between Hierocles and Lévi-Strauss) is that a civil individual is in control of themselves if they regulate their naturally and biologically occurring emotions.1 The view has also been observed that a civilized individual treats other people in a controlled way even if such treatment does not reflect how that individual feels. Impressions of civility and hence of controlled dispositions duly invoke rational and reasonable deliberations rather than impulsive and emotional compulsions. The belief has similarly emerged that a civilized society reliably regulates or controls the behaviors of its citizens. If a citizen transgresses the laws or agreements of a civilized society any consequent punishment is not unleashed spontaneously by an angry mob seeking instant “justice.”2 The civilized state rather approaches punishment methodically and progressively. This requires appraising different voices and facts through juridical structures that we collectively authorize as objective and rational. The legal hallmark of the civilized state is that reason trumps emotion.3 This mirrors the everyday advice that to make the best decisions for ourselves when aggravated we should wait until we have “calmed down.” Such a perspective positions emotion and passion as threats to our rational or sensible capacities. The suggestion is that it is only once emotional © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_12

253

254 

W. JOHNCOCK

states have been arrested that rational states can attend to the matter at hand. As we personally enact the emotion-neutralizing expectations of our socialized environments so we automatically regulate our behaviors. From this has surfaced the widespread belief that the becoming-rational or becoming-civilized human does transcend their previously naturally instinctive “impulsive tendencies.” It has been determined though that we cannot straightforwardly agree to this linear interpretation. Our inquiries have developed an alternative appraisal that the rationalized human does not transcend an impulsively natural condition. This is largely thanks to how Stoic philosophy conceives of a potentially more singular relation between reason and our natural state. Across many eras, the Stoics hold that our natural condition always already is rational. Our nature is not superseded by a newly found rational civility.4 While this perspective co-accommodates rational and natural impulses, tensions are still apparent in how the Stoics view relations between rational and emotional impulses. Rationality supersedes and masters “unhealthy” emotional phenomena, as we have reviewed. This rationalizing domination of our subjectively emotional states has emerged as a necessary Stoic requirement if we are to live in accordance with our nature.5 We can summarize from this that contrary to the introductory thoughts, for the Stoics our nature is not an instinctively untamed emotionality to which a rational state of control is subsequent. Stoic nature is rational. There is nevertheless also a prominent aspect of being rationally Stoic that requires a purposeful indifference toward, and transcendence of, emotional impulses. The question that emerges from these dual directionalities is to what extent Stoicism affirms aspects of the reason|emotion binarized division? Does a Stoic lens deem an emotionally or passionately invested individual or population to be acting externally to rationality? We will explore the Stoic separation of controlled reason, from uncontrolled states of emotion/passion, through the Greek astronomer, politician, scientist, and Stoic philosopher, Posidonius of Rhodes (135 BCE–51 BCE). This builds on preliminary considerations on this topic made in Chap. 2 regarding Posidonius’ impression of the daimon’s relation to one’s reason. It is perhaps not a surprise that Posidonius would be interested in attending to emotion’s distinction from reason. This refers to how Galen of Pergamon involves the correlation of reason with a scientific order when characterizing Posidonius as “the most scientific of the Stoics because of his mathematical training” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 32).6 We will engage much of the thought of Posidonius through Galen in this chapter.

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

255

Chrysippus: Reason and Emotion Derive from the Same Faculty In contextualizing the position of Posidonius we can firstly compare it to Epictetus’ view presented in Discourses. For Epictetus states of reason and passion are not in total opposition. This characterization must be qualified with the condition though that a hierarchy of control is still apparent between reason and passion for Epictetus. Each of us in Epictetus’ interpretation lives both reason and passion in a manner that is “in accordance with our nature” if we use reason to “tend to our passions” (Epictetus 2008, 1.17, 4). Our commanding faculty of reason “regulates” passion for Epictetus (1.1, 4). Where a “healthy” regulation of passion by reason exists, both states can occur without conflict. Often though there is a “disturbance” in how our reason governs emotional or passionate states. In this sense, we become for Epictetus adversely affected by an emotion that we cannot control and will act irrationally accordingly (1.15, 19). It is not that passion originates from an irrational aspect or “faculty” of the self. Epictetus’ position rather is that we behave irrationally when we are not acting entirely in accordance with the overriding regulation of our rational, natural faculty.7 If we are to revert to a rational mode of being the faculty of reason alone must take responsibility for this, “since reason is what analyses and coordinates everything” (1.17, 1). Epictetus’ perspective here is relevant given that as we will now see Galen advise, Posidonius does not agree that this coheres with what is actually known about human behavior. Rather than the exercise of reason singularly being the master of an individual’s subjectivity, Posidonius holds that we gradually resolve inner conflicts via the tandem action of rational and irrational faculties. The foundation for Posidonius’ position is for Galen identifiable in Posidonius’ rejection of Chrysippus’ theory of the pathê. In ordinary Greek terminology pathê refers to the bodily conditions that we experience or even suffer. In its philosophical application, however, the term takes on a different meaning, to become more closely aligned with states that we would generally describe as emotional and/or desirous impulses. These states could include anger, grief, elation, excitement, or agitation, as well as the wanting of food, sex, or water.8 Chrysippus reportedly uses the term pathê in a manner relatively consistent with this philosophical relevance. This notably coheres with the equation of hormé by many other Stoic philosophers and commentators with a grouping of “impulses”9 (as we have seen in Chap. 4).

256 

W. JOHNCOCK

These impulses for Chrysippus are functions of our reasoning or rationalizing capacity. Or in other words, reason is what Christopher Gill describes as the “central or coordinating agency” for a range of aspects of the self, including the “source of motivation (‘impulse,’ hormé)” (Gill 2010, 97). As Galen reports in On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, for Chrysippus humans generally believe that we think from the same site from which we feel. This informs: …the view that our commanding-faculty is in the heart through their awareness, as it were, of the passions that affect the mind happening to them in the chest and especially in the region where the heart is placed. This is so particularly in the case of distress, fear, anger and above all, excitement. (Galen, SVF, 2.886, in L&S, 413)

It is because of this perspective that for Galen, Chrysippus posits a rational but not an irrational faculty of the self and does not believe that the soul’s passionate part is different from the rational (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 166). Chrysippus’ position as Galen reports it is that throughout your life there will simply be tussles occurring in your rational commanding faculty. These tussles are not attributable to you also having a separately irrational aspect to the soul. In On Passions Chrysippus duly argues that “passions … as ‘irrational’ and as ‘excessive impulses’” derive from the same source as our rational tendencies (Galen, SVF, 3.462, in L&S, 413). Posidonius seems to have responded critically to the Chrysippean position. It is indisputable that Posidonius interprets the relation between emotion and reason differently to Chrysippus. We will review how in this chapter. A certain caution is necessary though about subscribing entirely to the assertion that Posidonius abandons Chrysippean conceptions of subjectivity and psychology. This is because our source for this feature of Posidonian theory is primarily Galen, and Galen generally broadcasts an investment in criticizing Chrysippean positions in favor of those offered in Platonic thought. Christopher Gill notes on this theme that when Galen reviews the early Stoic psychological model he “accentuates” the “relative independence of all three parts” of the Platonic tripartite psyche (Gill 2007b, 111–114). Galen’s Platonic allegiances are readily apparent in his appraisal of the Chrysippean-Posidonian. He states, for example, in relation to a theory of “moulding a human being” (reportedly taken from Galen’s On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines):

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

257

That is the way one ought to mould a human being from the start in relation to what is best … all of which Plato has gone through with the utmost precision. Chrysippus, on the other hand, left no adequate account of his own, and did not even leave his successors a starting point for investigation, as his argument rested on an unsound foundation. (Galen in Posidonius, 1999, Fragment 31)

And then specifically on the topic of emotions… Chrysippus wrote four tomes [On Emotions] of such a length that each of them is double one of mine; and yet it has taken me less even than two full books to examine directly his view on emotions, even with the inclusion of comments written by Posidonius on that same treatise. (Testimonia 63)

According to Galen, the presiding Stoic position on emotion of his era has unfortunately become Chrysippus’. This contradicts the preceding Platonic conception with which Galen is in greater agreement. Galen laments on this topic that apart from Posidonius “all the other Stoics somehow or another put up with following the errors of Chrysippus, rather than choosing the truth” (Testimonia 59). This Platonic “truth” contrasts with Chrysippus’ sourcing of reason and emotion to a singular faculty. Plato’s argument is in Book IV of his Republic. Here Plato asks whether the soul is constituted of many parts, in that do “we learn with one part of us, feel angry with another, and desire the pleasures of eating and sex and the like with another” (Plato 2012, 4.436a–b)? Plato complements this consideration with the opposite possibility that it is simply that “we employ the mind” for all such functions (4.436b). Ultimately Plato becomes suspicious of the validity of this latter Chrysippean-like interpretation. His doubt is due to the requirement that one singular faculty would need to be able to act, feel, and think in opposite or contradicting ways simultaneously. Instead for Plato, if a “contradiction” in simultaneous functions is found, then actually “we shall know that we are dealing with more than one faculty” (4.436c). Plato recognizes that these contradictions do exist. An example is when you have the desire to act in a particular way but also think simultaneously that such an act would be incorrect. The existence of contradictions convinces Plato that there must be at least two parts to the soul. Plato eventually forwards not merely a dual but a “tripartite” psychology of the soul comprising the components of reason/logic, spirit, and appetite. Within

258 

W. JOHNCOCK

this structure Plato still proposes that reason has reign or “rule … having the wisdom and foresight to act for the whole” (4.441e). Emotion is here however not a function of reason but instead composed of and by the other two aspects of the soul (spirit and appetite). While these aspects of the soul are separate from reason, they do obey and support reason (4.441e–442b).10 It is through this Platonic rather than  Chrysippean model that Posidonius views the structure of the psychology of emotions.

Posidonius: Reason and Emotion Derive from Different Faculties Of his own accord Galen endorses this breakdown of the “soul” into separate parts, noting that “we have these three natural affinities related to each form of the soul’s parts, to pleasure through the desiring faculty, to victory through the passionate factor, and to the morally good through the rational factor” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 160). Galen’s narrative furthermore aligns this position with originary Stoic principles. Posidonius claims in Galen’s recounting that Chrysippus is “in disagreement not only with observed fact” by singularizing the source of reason and emotion, but also contradicts the other earliest Stoic theses on this matter forwarded by Zeno and Cleanthes (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 166). Arthur Nock sums up how Posidonius’ defense of what he believed to be the correct Stoic interpretation of the psychological structure means for Galen that Posidonius is heroically “prepared to betray the [current] Stoic school rather than the truth” (Nock 1959, 2). Galen reports that a source of inspiration for Posidonius is the affirmation from Cleanthes of the distinction of the sources of emotion and reason: What is it. Passion, that you want? Tell me this. I want. Reason? To do everything I want. (Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s doctrines, 5.6.34–7, in L&S, 413).

Or as Kidd translates: What do you want, Anger? Tell me that. Me, Reason? To do anything I want. (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 166).

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

259

Galen advises that these seemingly meager offerings help shape Posidonius’ twin assertions. For Posidonius not only does Cleanthes indicate a belief in an “emotional element of the soul” (Fragment 166) but more importantly Cleanthes “has made reason argue with anger.” This illustrates for Posidonius that Cleanthes believes reason and passion are “two different things” (Fragment 166). I.G. Kidd posits in his translation of the Posidonian fragments how this “led to a fundamental difference from Chrysippean Stoicism in the cause of evil or morality” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 21; my emphasis). Because Chrysippean psychology in Kidd’s words is “solely rational” (21), he notes that it is “difficult to see where the corruption of reason had come from” (21). Teun Tieleman elsewhere also describes this outlook of Chrysippus and “the majority of Stoics” as of a soul that is “unitarian … one homogenously rational mind, located in the heart” (Tieleman 1996, xxiv). If all that is internal to the soul is rational this means that for Chrysippus the source of the corruption of this soul has to be external. As Kidd has indicated though, how do we identify the source of this irrationality, particularly if the external world is rational for the Stoics? Conversely Posidonius can attribute the root of such irrationality to an already internal faculty that does not rationally misjudge according to varying degrees of coherence with a natural order.11 Chrysippus’ characterization of the passions as “some kind of judgement” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34) is for Posidonius the most important feature of the Chrysippean singularization of the source of reason and passion. This aspect of the Chrysippean position particularly concerns Posidonius. If for Chrysippus judgments are of and from the same source as passions, what emerges according to Posidonius is the contradictory ramification that brute creatures which the ancients do not believe possess rationality must now also not be able to possess passion. Bizarrely a theory of a singular faculty “deprives irrational animals of emotions” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 33). Or put more simply, if we determine that an animal is without reason, and passion and reason are posited as having the same source, then the conclusion must be that such a creature has neither reason nor passion. Posidonius believes we find here a significant error in the Chrysippean outlook. It is clear contrarily for Posidonius that “non-rational animals are governed by desire and anger” (Fragment 33).

260 

W. JOHNCOCK

Galen earlier asserted that the Posidonian position accords with early Stoic beliefs besides those of Chrysippus. On this topic of judgments, however, it is noteworthy that for the earliest of the Stoics, Zeno, the passions are the results of judgments (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34). This presents another early Stoic position which conflicts rather than entirely accords with the view of Posidonius. Of relevance here is Galen’s Posidonian impression that passions, if they are the results of judgments, manifest as “irrational contractions, lowering abasements and pangs, the rising elations and relaxed diffusions which come after the judgements that are mental emotions” (Fragment 34). In conjuring the conceptual division of body and mind, this portrayal equates what is emotional (irrational) with the physical effects exhibited by an individual’s physiology. These pulsating and inflamed responses are in such accounts separated from the judgment-making reliabilities and regularities of the mind. Within this context and consistent with his contestation to Chrysippus, Posidonius will agree with Zeno that passions are not the same as judgments. In contradistinction to Zeno, however, Posidonius posits that passions are not the results that “follow judgement” because “that is just what is judgement” (Fragment 34). By instead distinguishing his position from Zeno as emphatically as he has from Chrysippus, Galen informs us that passions in Posidonian philosophy separately represent a “competitive and appetitive faculty” of the self (Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, 4.3.2–5, in L&S, 414). Not all scholars view the differences between Posidonius and Chrysippus as absolute.12 Richard Sorabji in fact raises a point of contention with the characterization that the passions for Posidonius are entirely outside sources of judgment. The conflict arises through Plutarch’s comment that for Posidonius there are “mental afflictions” which are “based on … judging and apprehending” such as “appetites, fears, anger” (Galen in Sorabji 2000, 104). For Sorabji this means that while Posidonius “denied judgement in some cases of emotion” he apparently “saw judgement as being present in standard cases” of emotion (Sorabji 2000, 105). If this is correct Sorabji notes, then perhaps an alternative way we could interpret emotions in the Posidonian view is that they are simply not absolutely identical with judgments (105). I believe it is possible to accommodate this belief that judgments emerge in both reason and passion, while sustaining the conventional reading that for Posidonius reason and passion have distinct sources. Furthermore, we can use considerations such as Sorabji’s to

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

261

open our own reflections regarding just how distinct reason and passion actually are for Posidonius. As Long and Sedley affirm in their translation, this distinction of the sources of the faculties is of course how Galen places Posidonius firmly in Plato’s camp “in full accordance with the ancient doctrine” (Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, 4.3.2–5, in L&S, 414). In observing this Platonic inspiration for Posidonius though I encourage us to reflect on the “competitive and appetitive” source of the passions for Posidonian philosophy. This is a repeated point by Galen in that he records a directly instrumental link posited by Posidonius in which the passions are “caused by competition and appetite” (4.7.24–41, in L&S, 416). This seems like a straightforward assertion given its consistency with the Platonic position already encountered. Passions or emotions are in this understanding equated with a desiring impulse. Posidonius in fact uses this very terminology when describing how it is in the nature of passions to seek objects that they “desire” (4.7.24–41, in L&S, 416). In another sense, however, we see this conception of desire nuanced with notions of its self-regulation. For Posidonius, once the appetitive aspect to the passionate faculty has acquired what it desired it puts “a stop to its own movement” (4.7.24–41, 416). Passion that derives from our competitive and appetitive faculty seemingly learns or determines when it has “had enough.” It is for this reason that the cessation of the passions is for Posidonius “not beyond reason” (4.7.24–41, in L&S, 414). This is a crucial insight for our appreciation of Posidonius’ possible receptivity to commonalities between reason and passion.

Passion’s Self-Regulation and the Hierarchy of Rationality While being distinct from reason the irrational and passionate aspect of the soul can nevertheless for Posidonius develop the capacity of avoiding an overindulgence of impulse and irrational “excess” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 165). This faculty, which is not of reason, is still in the Posidonian perspective self-reflexive. Our irrational faculty is in this regard rather ironically helped by irrational activity. This improvement is attributable to the future benefits for the self that manifest through the self-­ regulation of this faculty. It explains for Posidonius moreover how the irrational faculties develop in an analogous manner to the rational faculty.

262 

W. JOHNCOCK

The irrational faculties exhibit the relative developments of “knowledge and ignorance” through which Posidonius identifies the source of the “benefits we receive from the recognition of the cause of the emotions” (Fragment 162). Even though this recognizes a self-regulating capacity of the passionate faculty, its irrational impulse can still produce degrees of excess. The acknowledgment of these dual characteristics contributes according to Galen to the distinction of the Posidonian perspective from the views of many prominent Stoics. To clarify, Posidonius argues that overly passionate or desirous behavior represents an inherently appetitive and competitive aspect to the individual that is separate from the faculty of rational judgment. This is distinct from Chrysippean impressions that conceive of our appetitive and competitive tendencies as an overflow of faulty judgments within the rational faculty. It is because of this distinction that Posidonius in Galen’s eyes stands alone among Stoic thinkers of his time.13 Galen is also adamant that there is a departure here from previous Stoic positions on the passions given that Posidonius “believes that emotions were neither judgements nor what supervened on judgements, but were caused by the spirited and desiring powers or faculties” (Fragment 34). In his On Passions Posidonius is apparently explicit about the notion of passion’s “excess.” This involves, as Galen cites, Posidonius challenging the Chrysippean school on the matter by rhetorically asking: …what is the cause of the excessive impulse. For reason, whatever else, could not exceed its own business and measures. So it is obvious that there is some other distinct irrational faculty as cause of the impulse’s exceeding the measures of reason. (Fragment 34; emphasis in original)

It is logically impossible that the faculty of reason exceeds itself. This would take reason into the territory of unreason. Posidonius by default therefore affirms the differentiated existence of an irrational faculty of the self. The evidence of this is the actuality of our excessive or irrational behaviors, even if they are self-regulating. As we have conversely seen for Chrysippus, these passions are just some of the various manifestations of our rational faculty. Irrational behaviors according to Chrysippus exhibit an unregulated impulse of a singular source which has strayed from a path that otherwise accords with our rational nature.14 Posidonius’ differentiation of the sources of reason and passion informs what he sees as the most effective form of education for children. In order

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

263

that the emotional and irrational faculty avoids excess and obeys the command of reason,15 education must include “a preparation of the emotional faculty of the soul so that it be most conformable to the rule of the rational faculty” (Fragment 31). Kidd qualifies that in this education for Posidonius the individual can be “trained” to conform to their rational faculty but only if they are “sane” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 23). With sanity therefore comes an opposition between reason and passion. Posidonius believes that children should receive instruction about this (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 31) in order that the authority of reason over an impulsive faculty becomes widely appreciated. Despite this impression of a hierarchical division between reason and passion I nonetheless remain curious about the self-regulating capacities of passion. Could this be an insight into how the respective constitutions of reason and passion are not as mutually exclusive as Posidonius posits via Galen? We can appreciate that in his model, reason and passion have separate faculties of origin. In terms of the ongoing activity of each though, is there not something rational or self-reasoning about the regulatory function that he ascribes to passion? Does this suggest a certain common ground between it and reason? In considering this question of respective jurisdictions, we can incorporate a quite different conception of the relation between reason and passion from sociologists Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe. A sociological perspective could be somewhat of an ironic direction to take given the modern sociological trend to separate rather than to co-accommodate notions of rationality and passion. Game and Metcalfe directly flag this tendency in observing that “sociology never discusses passion” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 4). Game and Metcalfe might not mean that passion is absolutely never apparent in sociological discourse. It is however the propensity of sociologists to marginalize themes of passion and to try to negate their own passion in their writings that Game and Metcalfe intend to query.

A Rationed Not an Impassioned Social Science In Passionate Sociology16 a self-reflection builds that is not only oriented toward the practices of sociology but also concerns the nature of theorizing across the social sciences generally. For Game and Metcalfe most modern social science and social theory gains its credibility according to how adequately it situates its results within a neutralized realm of objectivity.17

264 

W. JOHNCOCK

Despite this inclination being trans-disciplinary, it is in sociology that they identify the most explicit examples of it. Game and Metcalfe in fact define it as sociology’s default mode. Sociology in their view obsesses with presenting and explaining externally coerced, collectively rationalized, statistical patterns behind subjective phenomena. If a sociologist is to produce “acceptable” sociological output, the pressure is that such work must cohere with this mode. Such participation requires a “rational sociologist” who tempers or excludes any elements of their particularly felt experiences that emerge during such work. The consequent effect for Game and Metcalfe is a self-imposed rationalization and systematization of one’s involvements as a sociologist. This is in order that the self and the work sync with an already disciplinary determined “voice of Modernity, Reason, Progress, Objectivity or the Universal” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 66). From this we can imagine a sociologist’s perspective is that any written material which does not take a structurally rationalized form will have no audience. If we return to a Stoic context, anything non-rationalized could even appear to manifest from what Posidonian and Platonic terms refer to as one’s “appetitive faculty.” The fear from the sociologist here is that if this faculty is visible in sociological work it will jeopardize the perceived objectivity and verifiability of the argument that carries it. The sociologist anticipates that it is only by filtering the subjective signature of their experience through a controlling rationality that what is personal about their perspective is authorized according to its revised impersonality. If this trend is in fact occurring to the extent that Game and Metcalfe identify, then what motivates it to be so pervasive in sociology is an open question. I contribute that such a mentality could partly be a continuation of the legacy of Émile Durkheim’s early mandate for sociology. Here I refer to Durkheim’s belief that to invest the relatively fledgling discipline of sociology with an institutional validity, the objects of its inquiries (e.g. social facts) must be recognized as “objective.”18 It does not seem too adventurous to assume that the practitioners of sociology would want to perpetuate a focus on the objectivity of sociological work in relation to an established scientific landscape. The same practitioners would also be keen to legitimize their own work by doing so within a field of expected objectivity. It is indeed this complete focus on the “objectivity” of results that reduces the social milieu in the eyes of most sociologists to what Game and Metcalfe describe as “a world comprised of a few general patterns, or

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

265

even a single dynamic, of, say, rationalisation” (94). They further portray this illumination of social patterning as the grand “sociological achievement” (94). This is because it allows sociology to measure otherwise abstract concepts such as “capitalism, patriarchy, modernity, rationalisation and so on” (29). All such measurements contribute to a scientific character that sociology and sociologists either desire or believe that they should desire. I use this word “desire” deliberately here. This is because a sociologist in this guise probably embodies the associated belief, which is also a fear, that they must not be ambivalent to the objective outcomes that are possible. Otherwise, their work and their entire field could be susceptible to criticism for not maintaining the rigorous protocols of other established sciences. The sociologist wants to be rational. They care deeply about being rational. By desiring to produce work of the rationalist kind that Game and Metcalfe identify (and lament), and therefore by wanting to be rational themselves, the sociologist at once embodies and attempts to quell an apprehension that pervades the discipline generally. This desiring of rationalized output legitimizes the sociologist. Despite its orientation toward rationalization, it is ironically this kind of desire of the sociologist that Posidonius might distinguish from their faculty of reason. This concerns whether a sociologist’s ambition to position their work on the same objective level perceived in other scientific fields or sociologists originates from a subjectively “competitive or appetitive passion” (Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, 4.3.2–5, in L&S, 414). If that is the interpretation, then the modern sociologist’s work could be compromised in terms of the Stoic sense of what constitutes rational inquiry. This of course would potentially contradict the ambition to have such inquiries invested with the purely “objective” qualities that Game and Metcalfe identify in sociology’s outlook. An overly ambitious or impassioned impulse to match the “objectivity” of others would for Posidonius be irrationally misguided whether the sociological practitioner was aware of such impulses or not. For Chrysippus this desire would be what Kidd neatly calls “mistaken judgement” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 21). Conversely for Posidonius, it would manifest from a faculty separate to rationality’s judgment. The irony therefore is that a zealous drive toward portrayals of rationality would for the Stoic only eventuate in compounding one’s underpinning irrationality. We have already encountered other Stoic characterizations of the link between irrationality and an investment in what is supposedly external to

266 

W. JOHNCOCK

subjectivity. The slightly different reading of Posidonius’ position as presented by Kidd is that aspects of our irrationality manifest from an internally irrational source (20–22). On this theme in fact, when Galen endorses the associated Platonic impression of the tripartite soul, he traces our appetitive sources to the liver and other internal processes. Tieleman comprehensively discusses how this means that irrationality is an embodied faculty for Posidonius (Tieleman 1996, xxx–xxxvi). These internal conditions do not mean that such irrationality is without links to worldly externals for Posidonius. Here I identify how Posidonius might evaluate as irrational the sociologist who overly desires to match the presumed objectivity of other sciences. Posidonius believes that different disciplines have different conditions and outcomes. Seneca reports that the Posidonian position on this matter is that in one regard, because “mathematics provides a certain service” to a philosopher “it is necessary to philosophy” (Seneca in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 90). For Posidonius though, practitioners in each field must remember that just as food “helps the body but it is not a bodily part,” equally mathematics contributes to philosophy but is not “a part of philosophy” (Fragment 90). This projects a belief in disciplinary specificity where “each has its own field” (Fragment 90). From this I read that Posidonius would be suspicious about modern sociology’s desire to emulate the neutralized and rationalist objectives identified by Game and Metcalfe as taken from other fields. The sociologist’s imperative in this regard would be compromised by what Posidonius perceives to be the essentially differentiated ends of the various disciplines. Desiring rationality would discount rationality and indicate the alternative activity of the appetitive faculty. While working in a sociological rather than a Stoic context, Game and Metcalfe conversely argue that within any desire for rationality and objectivity are indications that reason and passion are not separately derived. As we will study now, their consequent analysis intends to destabilize suppositions of a division between rational sociological mandates and passionate personal investments (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 1).

Facilitating, Versus Guarding Against, Passion’s Excess Game and Metcalfe begin by arguing that passion constitutes something more than strong emotion, love, or sexual desire. Their somewhat surprising position is rather that passion navigates toward a “veiled association

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

267

with death” (Game and Metcalfe 1996 3; my emphasis). Game and Metcalfe portray passion in this possibly unexpectedly mortal manner to highlight the reminders that passions offer us regarding the finitude of our corporeal existence (2). The passionate encounter in their view is one in which we not only care but also feel how we care. In such an encounter we have a heightened engagement with another individual or ourselves or something. This engagement requires that we push and even breach our usual experiential boundaries. As we exceed such boundaries so the pre-­ programmed safety of our daily existence disintegrates. Perhaps you can think here of the increasingly rapid beating of your heart that you might experience when feeling anxious. This could occur before or when speaking to a large group of people. In caring about what people think of your speaking you would for Game and Metcalfe be passionate about your reception. During such a state you would possibly also experience a more intense awareness of how the people to whom you are talking are behaving. It could be an audience member’s yawn or another’s seemingly disinterested gaze out a window that further accelerates your heartbeat. As the experience takes you beyond what you normally feel, for Game and Metcalfe the passionate state becomes one in which you “look more sharply, smell more deeply, touch more sensitively, hear more profoundly” (3). Your passion, your care, duly breaches what you thought were the tolerable extremes of your habitually controlled, rationalized investments, in day-to-day life. The overabundance of sensory and emotional stimuli experienced during passionate experiences means for Game and Metcalfe that we often cannot sense or remember everything about them that we might expect we should. What eventuates is a consequent futility in attempting to control passion. We cannot rationalize passion or expect it to be self-­regulating. Passion in this form, Game and Metcalfe affirm, represents a negotiation with “unreasonable, unmanageable and final things” (3). In describing passion as a realm of “unreasonable extremes,” could it be said that we are reminded of the argument from Posidonius of emotional impulse taking an individual into “irrational” territory? Passion is unreasonable and beyond rationalization in the account offered by Game and Metcalfe. This presents passion as an excessive impulse of the kind that is explicitly defined as “irrational” according to Posidonius’ philosophy. As we have observed in Posidonius’ impression of passion it is the irrational faculty of passion that is the “cause of the impulse’s exceeding the measures of reason” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34). Seemingly Game

268 

W. JOHNCOCK

and Metcalfe, and Posidonius, reach a point of theoretical coherence on the irrational or unreasonable exceeding of reasonable limits by passion. If there is a commonality between both theses on this theme, however, it is largely conditional. This is because passion for Posidonius in its mode of excess is something the Stoic individual should guard against constantly. Posidonius goes as far as describing passion and the “emotional condition” in general as “a form of mental illness” (Fragment 164). This is why we see Kidd earlier note that the training of the rational faculty for Posidonius can only work on a sane adult. For Game and Metcalfe conversely, we should celebrate and explore the passionate state due to it being an inherent part of social life and our implication in that life. In observing that “our culture is not passionless” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 4) Game and Metcalfe outline why we cannot expect our culturally informed theories about the social arena to exclude passion. The social or cultural arena itself does not feature this kind of separation after all. The supposition that theory could be objectively rational and devoid of passion is further discounted by reflecting on the point that if emotions could indeed be banished, such a process would already have occurred and “we wouldn’t constantly need to reassure ourselves of our control over them” (4). Game and Metcalfe’s assertion of the perpetual presence of emotional conditions in both human existence and social/cultural production is actually something with which general Stoic perspectives would agree. The Stoic argument is never that life is emotionless (a matter that Donald Robertson is quite passionate about making clear in “Stoics Are Not Unemotional!” [Robertson 2014]). Life for the Stoics exhibits passion’s tendencies, as does the human manifestation and representation of passion. Posidonius even confirms this by identifying the inherent presence within our constitutions of the emotional faculty, whereby we each house in-built “motions of distinct irrational powers” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 152). That passionate “irrationality” will always lurk in human directions and endeavors means that it will also potentially be present in philosophical contexts for Posidonius. The difference between Posidonius, and Game and Metcalfe, is that in acknowledging the inevitability of passion’s impulses Posidonius urges that we must continually work to arrest them in philosophical undertaking. We earlier saw this in his motivation to attend to the irrationality that he identifies in the work of Chrysippus. It is according to such intentions that Posidonius broadcasts his admiration of Plato, Galen stating that Posidonius “calls him divine, and respects his philosophy on the emotions

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

269

and mental faculties, and all he has written on preventing emotions rising in the first place, and once they had occurred, their quickest means of stopping” (Fragment 150a). I will leave it to the reader to decide whether Posidonius’ enthusiastic reception of “Plato’s rationality” features the impassioned components against which he warns (a reception that Posidonius nonetheless describes as rationally and philosophically constituted). Conversely for Game and Metcalfe, we should facilitate and make more prominent the presence of emotions in scholarship. The method of a “passionate sociology” that they propose is in this sense an ode to the porosity between our subjectively invested impulses and the broader rationalized framework in which we operate. Such an approach must be positioned as counter to the “arresting” of the passionate impulse that Posidonius requires and as contrary to more “traditional sociologies that present knowledge as something dispassionate and disembodied, a product of the mind rather than the heart, body or soul” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 4). Our interpretation could hence be that “rationalist” sociologists attempt to perpetuate the Posidonian interpretation of a divided reason and emotion. For Game and Metcalfe conversely, we should not conceptually divorce such faculties. Passion is “unreasonable” as Game and Metcalfe have declared. This does not imply that passion is “unknowing” however. I make this claim given their noteworthy earlier reference to the impassioned soul as a knower and a theorizer. In this regard, Game and Metcalfe’s contestation to the perspective that reason and emotion are divorced is perhaps more consistent with the interpretation that we have encountered from Chrysippus. I refer here to his argument against the idea that the passionate or “emotional aspect of the soul is distinct from the rational” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 33). Chrysippus appreciates passion and reason as deriving from the same faculty of the self. This appears to cohere with how for Game and Metcalfe we should not assume the existence of a rationalized outlook from which passion is entirely absent. While this raises somewhat of a consistency between Chrysippus and Game and Metcalfe in terms of their mutual divergence from the Posidonian position, we must approach such a comparison with caution. For Game and Metcalfe reason should not simply dominate passion as per the Chrysippean understanding that we have reviewed of a commanding faculty. Instead, they argue that we benefit from the co-productive intersections of passion and reason, particularly in scholarly endeavors. A

270 

W. JOHNCOCK

commitment to a “passionate sociology” contests the dominance of sociological theses which rationalize all personal investments according to suffocatingly pre-established and collectively impersonal conditions or causes. We have already seen Game and Metcalfe critique the default attribution of social phenomena to these dogmatic “patterns” that are separate from the individual, and the associated reduction of all inquiry to a “single dynamic, of say, rationalisation” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 94).

The Passion in Reason? Game and Metcalfe encourage contrarily that we scratch the surface of overly rationalist sociologies. Then we will find a co-implicated relation between the rational abstraction of social phenomena, and an inquirer’s investments in this abstracting process and associated results. This is not a relation in which rationalization excludes or negates the care and passion implicit to those investments. Game and Metcalfe bring this nuance to our attention by recognizing that they “can feel quite passionate about abstractions, and take a great pleasure in them” just as they “imagine some mathematicians do” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 167). As I have hinted earlier, would it likewise be too adventurous to claim that Posidonius is passionately invested in the rationalities exhibited by Platonic philosophy? Based on what we have encountered in other chapters I can imagine that a Stoic response could be that if there is passion about a Platonic position, what appears to be passion is in fact reason. This would be the result if the passion possessed philosophical inclinations that were in accordance with one’s nature. This again reminds us that the Stoic perspective appraised in this chapter is not of the impossibility of emotion. The question instead is whether emotion’s source is separate from that of reason. We have reviewed the difference between the outlooks of Chrysippus and of Game and Metcalfe. The latter’s sense nevertheless of the implication of subjective investments with seemingly non-subjective and abstracted phenomena might still evoke for some readers aspects of Chrysippus’ position concerning the colocation of the heart and the commanding faculty (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragments 33, 166). Game and Metcalfe do not though reduce reason and passion to the same faculty in the Chrysippean regard. What they instead contest is the notion that abstracted knowledge is devoid of passion and is something in which a worthy scholar should “take refuge” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 168).

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

271

Their converse point is that abstracted, rational knowledge arises from passionate experiences and encounters with data, theories, and selves. Passionate undertakings manifest in rationalized forms that are nevertheless sometimes comprised by joyous or torturous labor. We should discuss rationalized judgments accordingly in terms of their passionate components. This imperative evokes the earlier notion of our potential awareness of breaching our experiential and sensory limits. The writing of sociology for Game and Metcalfe requires “an acknowledgement of the complex, and sometimes painful, emotions involved” (32). What eventuates is a destabilization of the distinction between how one lives rationally, versus passionately, in which neither mode is ever outside the other. These felt experiences when undertaking scholarly labor are justifications for Game and Metcalfe that we should embrace passionate states of being rather than seek a rationalized sanctuary from them. Posidonius conversely posits that our developing awareness about how we feel during any experience is an insight into the capacity the emotional faculty has for its self-regulation. In arguing that emotions or passions about an experience gradually become less intense, Posidonius believes that he can identify the “cause of why emotions through time become calmer and weaker” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 166). This cause concerns the developmental capacity of the impassioned appetitive or spirited faculty. Passion for Posidonius becomes “satiated with its proper desires” and as a result it “grows weary through its lengthy movements” (Fragment 166). Rather than rationality needing to intervene into the irrational faculty of passion, passion itself “calms down.” This self-tempering allows the separate, Platonically reigning, rational faculty to “now gain control” (Fragment 166).19 While Stoic philosophy is not their working context, it is this kind of dominance of the rationalizing tendency that hampers much work in sociology for Game and Metcalfe. This orientation indeed typically neglects in their estimation the passionate conditions within rationalist perspectives. This is not to forget those passions that are also present in the inaugurating desire for rationality. Game and Metcalfe expand on this point in considering that not only is work always written with a certain investment and passion but also that readers receive it in a similarly invested or passionate state. Such an insight is illustrated via their discussion with Roland Barthes’ call that when reading with pleasure, the emotional features of the work manifest because complementarily “they were written in pleasure” (Barthes in Game and Metcalfe 1996, 26).20 This investment

272 

W. JOHNCOCK

indicates for Game and Metcalfe that social or sociological theory likewise cannot position itself as the provider of a neutral, intellectual mastery. Such theorizing instead always “carries with it something of that which is being written about” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 94). The implication here is not that theory “carries” a subjectively emotional misrepresentation of sociality that the author unavoidably brings with them, potentially steering readers away from the objective truth of the matter being engaged. The carrying rather is of an emotional order that is always (objectively) underpinning expression and reception. This notion of an emotional order deserves a brief clarification. Game and Metcalfe recognize how entrenched civilizing, rationalizing, ordering processes are in sociological perspectives (and indeed in most philosophically inquisitive work). They furthermore concede that this protocol will not entirely change and that “sociology will always be ordered” (25). By admitting its own pleasures, investments, and vulnerabilities however, they propose that sociology can also “be ordered differently” (25). The sociologically theoretical order, and emotional or passionate orderings, are not mutually exclusive, nor is either a path to “accessing” the other. What instead is the case according to my reading is that reason and passion are internal to each other’s “order” without being entirely reducible to or “ordered by” each other. With this impossibility of a total reduction or dominating negation of passion by reason I therefore argue that in Stoic terms we arrive at the excess of the irrational. This is what Posidonius has described as that which exceeds the limits of reason (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34). The suggestion of an emotional or passionate “order,” particularly which functions in “excessive” states, could present as potentially fraught to conventional perspectives. We might interpret that if as Game and Metcalfe and Posidonius indicate, the passion-impulse is that which exceeds its accountable or reasonable limits, then contrarily its order is a disorder. A correlation of emotion/passion with disorder would appear to cohere with Game and Metcalfe’s recognition that in such a state an individual cannot control or “capture enough” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 3). Where control is not abundant, we might not expect order. What the preceding discussion asserts however is that order is never reducible to a rationalized resolution of disordered passion. Reason’s rationalizing order is always already invested in and passionate about ordering or rationalizing processes and ordered or rationalized results. The Posidonian perspective on what is “captured” by this impassioned

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

273

impulse would likely diverge from Game and Metcalfe’s. Posidonius could agree with them that passion lacks the capacity to appreciate or “capture” phenomena entirely and rationally. What however Posidonius would seemingly also wish to emphasize is that passion, the irrational faculty, does actually “capture” something quite comprehensively. That which passion captures in my reading of the Posidonian position would be the irrationally inclined individual. In Stoic terms, passion captures (as in, “takes prisoner”) subjectivity. For Posidonius as for other Stoic thinkers that we have engaged the irrational impulse manifests in a way that we become self-captured. This prevents our access to a life lived in accordance with nature. Conversely for Game and Metcalfe we are captured, or held hostage away from our nature/self, when trying to overwhelm passion with reason. Despite this divergence, by concurrently reviewing these two perspectives we can appreciate the longevity of the human investment in the question of whether the source of reason is external to that of passion. Given what being “invested” in anything involves, this question seemingly also continues to ask of itself; is this inquiry an exercise of reason, of passion, or of both? That humans continue to care about this question is perhaps itself the answer to this question.

Notes 1. James Davis’ In Defense of Civility exemplifies the argument that there is a modern perpetuation of “certain dualisms inherited from Greco-Roman culture” (Davis 2010, 133). One such dualism is the nature-culture divide that opposes a culture of “civility” from an otherwise natural human condition. This is consistent with the interpretation offered in Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents in which civilizing processes break from an unordered natural origin. Civilization for Freud protects humans accordingly from what is dangerous about nature, whereby civilizing “activities and resources are useful to men for making the earth serviceable to them, [and] for protecting them against the violence of the forces of nature” (Freud 1989 [1930], 42). 2. Michel Foucault (1977 (1975)) offers one of the more historically prominent discussions of this modern transition in how a state punishes its citizens. Punishment’s pre-modern forms involve highly visible public spectacles that declare a state’s power via the destruction of the perpetrator’s body. Modern punishment shifts to a more controlled and concealed regulation that works through offenders’ bodies in a productive manner.

274 

W. JOHNCOCK

3. For Jeremy Blumenthal the “appropriateness of various emotions for the substantive law” (Blumenthal 2005, 1) is a continually negotiated question. The supposition of a distinction between the rational objectivity of law and the subjectivity of emotion also emerges in Hans Kelsen’s legal theory. The belief emerges that contrary to law, something like “political ideology has its root in volition, not in cognition; in the emotional, not in the rational … it arises … from interests other than the interest in truth” (Kelsen 1945, xvi). Not all scholars share the opinion that law is rationally objective, polarized from the emotional and ideological drivers of other aspects of society. Katherine O’Donovan commentates on feminist theory’s critique of the failure of law to provide objective “equality,” serving to “demystify law and to show its rule as a legitimating ideology” (O’Donovan 1989, 127). 4. Marcus Aurelius regularly argues that along with the nature of all other humans his “nature is both rational and social” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 6.44, 2). To complement this translation from Maxwell Staniforth, see also Gregory Hays’ translation of this phrase as where our nature is “rational and civic” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 6.44). 5. For a proof of this, see Epictetus’ Discourses. Epictetus posits that a liberation from one’s emotions is a liberation from the external things in the world with which such emotions are associated and that might master us. By instead demanding our indifference toward such emotions, he proclaims that if “I liberate myself from my master—which is to say, from the emotions that make my master frightening—what troubles can I have? No man is my master any longer” (Epictetus 2008, 1.29, 63). 6. Posidonius completed his education in Athens under the Stoic philosopher Panaetius, whose influence reportedly attracted Posidonius to Rhodes. In the Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers Ian Durham informs us that as Posidonius developed his scientific interests from such education he became “responsible for an early measurement of the circumference of the Earth” (Durham 2007, 927). 7. Norman Pratt agrees this is the typical reading of Epictetus’ argument that rational and emotional states in the healthily directed individual arise from a singular faculty. Pratt states that for Epictetus emotional disturbance occurs when the rational individual is unable to “fend off irrational external influences” (Pratt 1983, 59). The consequent “irrational behavior” is internally motivated though and is “not to be attributed to a non-rational component of the soul” (59). 8. For a more comprehensive breakdown of this definition of pathê, see John Cooper’s chapter “Posidonius on Emotions” (1998, 71–72). 9. Cicero provides an example of this definition in The Nature of the Gods when he writes that for the Stoic Balbus, just “as other natural substances

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

275

are each generated, made to grow and sustained by their own seeds, so the nature of the world has all the movements of volition, impulses and desires which the Greeks call hormai, and exhibits the actions in agreement with these in the way that we ourselves do who are moved by emotions and sensations” (Cicero 1997, 2.58). 10. Plato similarly proposes in Timaeus that the “appetitive” part of the soul does not fully understand reason but instead is attracted to “images and phantasms” (Plato 2008a, 71a). The appetitive faculty is accordingly where an idea is transported via one’s reason/intellect. This makes the appetitive faculty an image of reason that can “act as a mirror for thoughts stemming from intellect, just as a mirror receives impressions and gives back images to look at” (71b). 11. Situating this source of evil or corruption internally does not in Kidd’s commentary (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 687) mean for Posidonius that we have an evil daimon in the irrational part of our soul. Gretchen Reydams-­ Schils notes that such a thesis would “turn Posidonius into more of a dualist” (Reydams-Schils 1997, 474). For a discussion on the daimon’s role as our rational guide see Chap. 2’s discussion with Epictetus. 12. John Cooper (1998) and Christopher Gill (1998) express concerns regarding the value orientations of Galen’s commentary on Posidonius. The intricacies of each argument go beyond the requirements of our concerns here. It is nevertheless worth recognizing that in Gill’s estimation there might be greater similarities between Platonic psychology and Stoic thinking, “both Chrysippean and Posidonian, than Galen allows” (Gill 1998, 1). Similarly for Cooper, in one regard it is “clear that Posidonius did indeed disagree openly, seriously, and explicitly, with Chrysippus” on the status of emotions in relation to reason. It is also evident that Posidonius “cited and praised Plato precisely for having recognized that human nature encompasses two other psychic powers besides that of reasoning and decision” (Cooper 1998, 71). In another regard however, Cooper is suspicious about the extreme position that Galen affords to Posidonius and explores whether it is “right to say simply that Posidonius abandoned the standard Stoic view (Chrysippus’) about the psychic source and nature of the emotions” (71–72). Gill also explores in “Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers” (Gill 2007b) whether there are contradictions in accounts of an ideological opposition between Galen and Chrysippean Stoicism. Consistent with this concern, Gill elsewhere describes the “shift back to Plato … in later Hellenistic thinkers such as … Posidonius … as a change in the explicitness with which the relationship between Platonic and Stoic thought is discussed [rather] than as a move towards an eclectic combination of the two approaches” (Gill 2007a, 192).

276 

W. JOHNCOCK

13. Galen states strongly: “I can find no answer to Posidonius on these points, nor do I think anyone else will be able to either, to judge from the evidence of the facts and from contemporary Stoics. My generation has not lacked Stoics either in number or distinction, but I have heard no convincing statement from any one of them to answer these difficulties put forward by Posidonius” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 164). 14. In Stobaeus’ Anthology an early Stoic voice is described as stating that “‘irrational’ means the same as ‘disobedient to reason’” (Stobaeus, 10a, Text 102, in I&G, 138). Various scholars, including Malcolm Schofield (Schofield 2003, 236–238), attribute this voice to Chrysippus. 15. Posidonius’ reading of the hierarchized relation between the rational and irrational faculties is consistent with the Platonic conception of the rule of reason. This is a relation found in Plato’s Republic that we earlier discussed (Plato 2012, 4.441e). 16. The only Australian-authored book to ever receive a nomination for the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences. 17. For the reader who has worked through the chapters of this book sequentially, Game and Metcalfe’s concern here will evoke our earlier engagement with Max Weber. In The Vocation Lectures (2004) Weber critiques the increasingly rationalist foci of the sciences of his era. 18. Durkheim’s consistent characterization of social facts is that they are external to each human and “independent of individual will” (Durkheim 1938 (1895), 2). Because an individual’s behaviors are driven by this externally collective regularity and not by subjective contingencies, the social sciences can study such behaviors as objective phenomena. This direction mirrors for Durkheim the objectivity of the “natural sciences” (xxxix). 19. A basis for this position possibly presents in The Symposium where Plato details how the “happy being, the god” that is “Love possesses self-control in very large measure. For all agree that self-control means overcoming pleasures and desires” (Plato 2008b, 196c). 20. As found in Barthes’ The Responsibility of Forms (1985).

References Barthes, Roland. 1985. The Responsibility of Forms. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill & Wang. Blumenthal, Jeremy. 2005. Law and the Emotions. Indiana Law Journal 80 (20): 159–238. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

12  IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 

277

Cooper, John. 1998. Posidonius on Emotions. In The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 71–112. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. Davis, James. 2010. In Defense of Civility: How Religion Can Unite America on Seven Moral Issues. Louisville and Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. Durham, Ian. 2007. Posidonius. In Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey, 927–928. New York: Springer-Verlag. Durkheim, Émile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by George Catlin. Translated by Sarah Solovay & John Mueller. New York: The Free Press. Epictetus. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. Foucault, Michel. 1977 (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House. Freud, Sigmund. 1989 (1930). Civilization and Its Discontents. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London and New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc. Game, Ann, and Andrew Metcalfe. 1996. Passionate Sociology. London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage Publications. Gill, Christopher. 1998. Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions? In The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 113–148. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. ———. 2007a. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: How Stoic and How Platonic? In Platonic Stoicism—Stoic Platonism: The Dialogue between Platonism and Stoicism in Antiquity, ed. Mauro Bonazzi and Christoph Helmig, 189–208. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ———. 2007b. Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers. Phronesis 52 (1): 88–120. ———. 2010. Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson (ed. and trans.). 2008. The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Kelsen, Hans. 1945. General Theory of Law and State. Translated by Anders Wedberg. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2002. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New  York: The Modern Library.

278 

W. JOHNCOCK

Nock, Arthur. 1959. Posidonius. The Journal of Roman Studies 49 (1–2): 1–15. O’Donovan, Katherine. 1989. Engendering Justice: Women’s Perspectives and the Rule of Law. The University of Toronto Law Journal 29 (2): 127–148. Plato. 2008a. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2008b. The Symposium. Edited by M.C. Howatson and Frisbee Sheffield. Translated by M.C.  Howatson. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Posidonius of Rhodes. 1999. Posidonius: Volume III: The Translation of the Fragments. Edited by J. Diggle, N. Hopkinson, J. Powell, M. Reeve, D. Sedley, and R. Tarrant. Translated by I.G. Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pratt, Norman. 1983. Seneca’s Drama. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 1997. Posidonius and the Timaeus: Off to Rhodes and Back to Plato? The Classical Quarterly 47 (2): 455–476. Robertson, Donald. 2014. Stoics Are Not Unemotional! In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 33–36. CreateSpace. Schofield, Malcolm. 2003. Stoic Ethics. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 233–256. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Sorabji, Richard. 2000. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Tieleman, Teun. 1996. Galen and Chrysippus on the Soul: Argument and Refutation in the De Placitis Books II-III. Leiden; New York; Koln: Brill. Weber, Max. 2004. The Vocation Lectures. Edited by David Owen and Tracy Strong. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

CHAPTER 13

Who Benefits from the Management of Feelings? Epictetus and Arlie Hochschild on Emotional Labor

Indifference to Externals The prospect of being able to manage the feelings we experience is appealing. Modern self-help industries seemingly survive on the allure of such self-management. With the possibility of emotion management comes the interpretation that daily life would be easier if we could control our emotional hardships. A discussion on the potential regulation of our feelings consequently presents as having considerable practical relevance. Considerations in this chapter of the maintenance of our feelings, particularly adverse feelings, will build on earlier insights from Epictetus. This especially refers to our preceding studies featuring Epictetus in which he reduces issues related to the mind to parameters of control. An individual’s mental experience of the world should only in this sense be concerned with what is within their power (Epictetus 2004, 1). If we can appreciate that a faculty that is internal to our control governs what we think and decide, so Epictetus posits that our life will develop a more virtuous direction.1 We have considered in earlier chapters (particularly Chap. 4) how such virtuousness involves the Stoic end of happiness.2 On this topic, we will recall that happiness is not a state of “feeling good” that we target. Stoic happiness instead more grandly refers to living virtuously every day in accordance with our internal rational nature. Stoic happiness therefore is not an emotion exactly but rather is part of a rationalized way of living that involves the regulation of emotion. From this kind of perspective the © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_13

279

280 

W. JOHNCOCK

practical benefits of Stoic philosophy in Epictetus’ estimation are evident (Epictetus 2008, 2.16, 1–47). In categorizing this practical focus, Malcolm Schofield defines that the Stoics “wrote a great deal in ‘therapeutic mode’” (Schofield 2003, 253). I note that Epictetus exemplifies this emphatically when in Discourses he describes the philosopher’s lecture room as akin to a hospital (Epictetus 2008, 3.24, 30). It is in regard to this therapeutic element of Stoicism that in this chapter we will undertake a different kind of inquiry concerning the theme of control for Epictetus to that which we undertook in Chap. 2. In this chapter we will instead direct our attention beyond the strict realm of the mind and its thoughts, to the associated domain of our feelings about these thoughts. The conventional interpretation (Long 2006, 106; Sellars 2006, 17; Seddon 2005, 10–11) is that for Epictetus if we are to live according to a state of happiness it is necessary “to be indifferent to events beyond the will’s control” (Epictetus 2008, 1.29, 24). He concludes this in response to the damaging relationships that he observes in which we so value things or events in the world that they come to significantly define our sense of self. This is especially damaging given that such things or events are regularly outside our control. The more that what is outside our control affects us for Epictetus, the more out of control we are actually likely to feel (2.13, 1). In the Enchiridion Epictetus specifies exactly what is in our control versus what is not. As we have reviewed, what is in our control includes our judgments, values, and mental processes. Conversely, the physical and social worlds contain objects and experiences that occur materially and discursively beyond our power (Epictetus 2004, 1). Epictetus interrogates complementarily in Discourses how money, important job positions, and the opinions of friends and associates are improperly valued. When we valorize the external and come to “love, hate or fear such things” (Epictetus 2008, 4.1, 60), not only do the objects themselves constitute “our masters” but also “the people who administer them are bound to become our masters” (4.1, 60). By not being indifferent to what is beyond our control, those who have jurisdiction over such externalities inevitably hold a power over our emotional welfare. It is this repercussion of the management of the feelings related to the aspects of life that we value which is the focus of this chapter. Via this pivot toward emotion we can distinguish this chapter’s theme from the mind-­ centric considerations of our previous engagement with Epictetus. The question on this occasion does not ask if our mind or subjectivity is in our

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

281

control. We will instead be concerned with who controls, and benefits from controlling, the associated feelings or emotions. Emotional phenomena often manifest through interpersonal settings. Epictetus has already brought this to our attention in this chapter in noting that if someone circumstantially controls how you feel they become your master. For the Stoic, the concern is how the  other person often controls your emotional state and therefore your underpinning satisfaction with life. In appreciating these interpersonal conditions, a complementary question emerges which asks whether it is the individual themselves or other parties who benefit from the control of one’s emotions. We might typically think it is mainly the individual experiencing the emotional state who will directly benefit from the management of it. In this discussion, however, we will maintain a receptivity to the interactive elements of emotion management that involve subjective and collective “stakeholders.” Emotional reactions to external conditions and actors represent a situational mastery the world can dangerously have over us. Epictetus rejects however the assumption that such emotional reactions are imposed on us by these circumstances. Circumstances instead merely provide the conditions to which our own internalized judgments and consequent feelings react. These reactions occur for Epictetus according to what we value or think is right or just and so on (1.2, 5–11). Protecting ourselves from this “circumstantial master” therefore requires not an outward but an inward perspective. We do not move toward a satisfactory emotional state for Epictetus through an attention on the environmental situation that might adversely affect us. The incorrect mentality is one which continues “griping and protesting against circumstance” that displeases us (1.12, 17). What is instead important to Epictetus’ Stoic sense of subjectivity is how we manage our inevitable and internal emotional reactions to adverse circumstances.

Training or Working on Being Indifferent Epictetus uses the extreme demand to be indifferent to death and pain to illustrate this point. This might remind us of Seneca’s argument in Chap. 6. What hurts us in Epictetus’ view is not death nor pain itself but the anticipation or fear of such experiences, declaring that “death and pain are not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear” (Epictetus 2008, 2.1, 13).3 A personal destabilization of the taken-for-granted status of experiences such as dying and death is why Donald Robertson describes

282 

W. JOHNCOCK

Epictetus’ assertions as relating to “value judgements, that express our own attitudes rather than objective features about the external world” (Robertson 2010, 12). For Epictetus our emotional welfare is dependent upon diverting our attention away from what we conceive to be the external causes of its fluctuations, to instead attending to the inner conditions of our emotional states. Liberation from fear thus does not require directing strategies toward the situations or the people that have generated a fear-inducing mastery of us. The point is that we require the capacity to be indifferent to “the emotions that make my master frightening” (Epictetus 2008, 1.29, 63). It is this shift where one has “transferred their attention from things outside control of the will to things within” (3.5, 4) that is the hallmark of Epictetus’ mandate regarding self-control and emotion management. This transfer does not come easily according to Epictetus. Our subjectivity is always a work in progress in which we work on and “train” ourselves to manage our feelings (3.4, 26). This management occurs by attending to the feelings about the circumstances directly rather than by distracting ourselves with the circumstances from which the feelings seemingly arose. “Renouncing” circumstantial externals and instead working on controlling our emotional character by “cultivating and perfecting it so that it agrees with nature” (1.4, 18) is accordingly central to goodness and virtuousness. Epictetus’ Roman Stoic focus on self-control here mirrors an early Greek Stoic principle from Cleanthes. Clement states in his Protrepticus that when asked “what the good is like” Cleanthes responds that it is to be “well-ordered, just, holy, pious, self-controlled, useful, honourable” (Clement, SVF, 1.557, in L&S, 373; my emphasis). The well-­ ordered, self-controlled, civilized individual is for Cleanthes the epitome of the Stoic individual. Likewise for Epictetus the virtuous individual who trains themselves to be able to manage their feelings is a happier individual (remembering the specific definition the Stoics have of happiness in terms of virtue and rationality). This “training” of our emotional states is a regular theme in Discourses. An attention on this term—“training”—will be pivotal to developing a dialogue between Epictetus’ philosophy and modern social theory on emotion management. To consider what we are training toward or working on about ourselves we must firstly discuss the relation of such training to Stoic “virtue.” Epictetus frames this consideration by straightforwardly asking “what is the work of virtue?” In his view the work of virtue refers to its own

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

283

manifestation, or what William Oldfather refers to as “the result at which virtue aims” (Oldfather in Epictetus 1961, 29). While this does not explain much, we learn more from Epictetus’ estimation that the result at which virtue aims is “serenity” (Epictetus 1961, 1.4, 6). Robin Hard’s recent translation equally interprets that for Epictetus what “virtue achieves for us” is “serenity” (Epictetus 2014, 1.4, 5). The notion of serenity might again remind us of Seneca, particularly his reflections on internal tranquility when recovering in Nomentum. By considering which individuals in society are “making progress” (Epictetus 1961, 1.4, 6) in directing their lives toward serenity, Epictetus excludes people whose “work” is dictated by external phenomena. Such individuals are for Epictetus not virtuously living their emotional states, given the perpetual state of “fear and grief” (1.4, 12) in which any of us exist if we allow externals to steer us. This affirms his earlier position regarding the circumstantial mastery the world can have over us. The focus now though is on the susceptibility of the “untrained” individual to externally coercive forces. Each of us has an internal control over this susceptibility. We can work on ourselves to develop the habit of “withdrawing from external things” (1.4, 17–18). Attending to the “art” of withdrawing is hence a form of “training” for the Stoically inclined individual. This training is somewhat of an individual intervention in that while it is in accordance with our nature to resist external mastery of our emotions, no individual will always live Stoically without such labor. In the “Introduction” to his translation of Discourses Oldfather reflects on this duality. There Oldfather describes “the elaborate preparations that one must make to withstand” the evil that Epictetus both denies in a rational universe and yet also believes does exist in it, to the extent that we are required to continually train against it (Oldfather in Epictetus 1961, xxv). The Stoic nature is one of rational indifference. For Epictetus nevertheless we must work hard to be rationally indifferent. This self-training never ends. As Charles Brittain and Tad Brennan note, even despite this training for Epictetus we remain perpetually vice-oriented, where students will be “equally vicious throughout their training. Even in the ideal case” (Brittain and Brennan in Simplicius 2014, 23). Through the training of and working on the self, an ongoing benefit is experienced. Our indifference to external phenomena reflects a self-­ appreciation, not a self-restriction. In considering this production of the self though I cannot help but wonder who else might benefit from such self-development. As noted in this chapter’s opening thoughts our

284 

W. JOHNCOCK

emotional states are regularly interpersonally conditioned. A less agitated and more controlled individual is often a more pleasant and socially conducive individual for others to be around. As made apparent throughout this book moreover, the Stoics are prominently concerned with the communal well-being that can be engendered by individual lives that are executed in accordance with nature. Here I therefore wish to ask which actors and structural phenomena beyond the exclusive realm of the individual might prosper as a result of the instilled instruction that individuals should control or manage their emotions. Asking such a question allows us to target any socially embedded motivations within imperatives regarding emotion management.

Emotional Labor: Training Appropriate Presentations We can explore this question via one of modern social theory’s most influential studies on emotion. In The Managed Heart American sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1940–) considers the individual’s management of feelings in a socially commercial context. A primary question that drives Hochschild’s study asks “what happens when the managing of emotion comes to be sold as labor?” (Hochschild 1983, 19). This question does not merely explore the various types of emotional interactions which occur between individuals in capitalist markets of exchange. The greater relevance for our work is its interest in how an individual invests labor into managing their emotions during such experiences.4 When studying workers in service and caregiving industries Hochschild attends to a kind of labor that she interprets is apparent in all such roles. This labor, “emotional labor,” concerns how such employees present themselves via “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (7).5 The roles primarily capturing Hochschild’s research attention are those that incorporate a large degree of customer interaction. One example that Hochschild integrates is the flight industry’s requirement for its onboard attendants to present an outwardly cheerful disposition. Hochschild reports that this disposition is necessary even when customers treat staff improperly or outright abuse them. Her study duly reveals the quantity (in terms of time) and the quality (in terms of perceived effort) of labor that goes into the presentation of unbothered or pleasant dispositions. From this Hochschild reports that for the average (often female6) “flight attendant the smiles are a part of their work, a part that requires them to coordinate self and feeling so that the work seems to be effortless” (8).

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

285

The scope of this study attends to consistent dispositions offered by employees of the same company. It also compares how those same dispositions manifest in employees of different companies across entire industries. From this dual analysis, Hochschild reports how an industry’s businesses standardize the training of service role workers in the “art” of emotion management (20–21). This method reveals that a central emphasis in such training is that an employee should not focus on the interpersonal cause of any anger or frustration that they feel from their interactions with customers. An employee should rather concern themselves with their internal responses to these external causes. The training’s ethos is to help an employee work on what is in their own or their employer’s control. The imperative for companies is that service role workers embody such control in a way that their reactions are consistently pleasant and never make the customer feel in the wrong. Hochschild targets this feature of the training regarding how during most preparation sessions “the instructor did not focus on what might have caused the workers’ anger” (25). We might recognize Epictetus’ call here to avoid focusing on adverse circumstances and instead to take control of our internal experience of and emotional responses to such circumstances. Epictetus gives the instruction that you should “talk to yourself, train your thoughts” (Epictetus 2008, 4.4, 26), so that you do not try to control what is external and uncontrollable. The training for modern service industry roles that Hochschild researches uses exactly this kind of terminology in approaches to emotion management. Flight attendant training reveals this vividly. Employees learn how “to deal with an angry passenger” by employing tactics such as “deep breathing, talking to yourself, and reminding yourself that you don’t have to go home with the passenger” (Hochschild 1983, 25). For both Epictetus and the modern aviation industry, conversations with oneself are integral to emotional indifference. Over time this indifference should become individually automated in either the Stoic or the service industry contexts. A possible difference emerges between the two positions in terms of this theme of automatization. For Epictetus the individual must not merely perform indifference outwardly in a way that appears to be devoid of adverse emotion. The Stoic subjectivity rather should feel devoid of the emotional state (Epictetus 2008, 4.4, 26). The individual’s training needs to have conditioned the self to be genuinely indifferent to the apparent causes of any such state. This accords with the logic we have reviewed that for the Stoically trained subject there is an awareness that such externalities are not actually the

286 

W. JOHNCOCK

causes of one’s discontent. The Stoic knows that the true causes of our emotions are instead our internally engineered responses. We might be upset by a certain external action, for example, because we already hold the belief that such an action indicates disrespect. A new sense of control comes with the realization that we can work on our internal orientations to develop a genuine and automatic emotional indifference to what we experience as externally generated disrespect. Hochschild’s thesis shows that employers direct employees to maintain an emotionally pleasant presentation to facilitate ongoing customer relations. A performance rather than a genuine resilience to adverse circumstances therefore drives the associated emotional indifference. Despite this seemingly performative element in Hochschild’s inquiry though, there is a form of emotional labor within it that shares intersections with the automated features of Epictetus’ Stoicism. Exploring these similarities will further develop our appreciation of who benefits from emotion management beyond the individual directly concerned.

Emotional Labor: From Performance to Naturally Felt Indifference The pivotal factor here concerns the difference between what Hochschild describes as “surface acting” and “deep acting.” Surface acting is somewhat of an out of body experience. When surface acting we have a perspective on ourselves from outside ourselves. Here for Hochschild we are fully aware of the performance we are delivering as well as of the fact that it is a performance. Surface acting hence manifests as those moments where “we deceive others about what we really feel, but we do not deceive ourselves” (Hochschild 1983, 33). This does nothing to discount the just raised distinction between Hochschild’s and Epictetus’ respective impressions of indifference. The surface actor does not feel indifferent like the Stoic does. The surface actor just externally pretends that they feel that way. When we turn however to Hochschild’s notion of deep acting the difference between the service worker and the Stoic becomes less straightforward. Hochschild explains that in deep acting there is no need to convince others that we are serene in a moment of apparent hostility. So emphatic is the service worker’s automated capacity to embody their training that they actually feel the serene state. The deep acting service worker is not intentionally acting. They are indeed unbothered by what is occurring

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

287

circumstantially (33). In this form we thus encounter an individual who is not consciously performing the “serenity” that they project in response to external stimuli. Key elements of Stoic indifference are satisfied in this mode. A problem with this comparison with Stoic indifference however emerges in terms of the deep acting, serene individual’s self-relation. While this individual might not be aware that they are acting as if they are serene, it is nevertheless still an act. They are mechanically embodying the instructions of their training which are concerned with customer-focused rather than self-oriented goals. Hochschild interprets this process accordingly as where the individual “deceives oneself as much as deceiving others” (33). So automated is the service worker’s act that their lack of self-awareness about it probably contributes to it being a more convincing act. Such states of self-deception would be fatally misguided for any Stoic outlook. This concerns the inverted direction of indifference in Stoicism. In deep acting for Hochschild there is an outward projection by the individual of their lack of emotional destabilization as a result of adverse interpersonal stimuli. The deep acting individual automatically deceives themselves about how they feel in order to present themselves a certain way externally. Because of this external orientation, what is uncontrollably outside the individual therefore “masters,” to borrow Epictetus’ terminology, one’s sense of self (Epictetus 2008, 4.1, 60). This occurs to the extent that external uncontrollables in this form entirely inhibit an individual’s self-awareness. The individual is not even aware of what they are doing! Conversely, Epictetus is concerned with inwardly directed responses. His perspective is that the indifferent self becomes more internally self-­ aware than self-deceived or alienated (1.4, 27). For the Stoic it is our self-­ awareness that conditions indifference to external stimuli by revealing that such stimuli are beyond our control. Stoic indifference in this regard is a purely internalized experience. This is partly why Christopher Gill states that Epictetus “goes the furthest” of the Stoic thinkers to assert that it is “‘up to us’ whether or not we respond to the therapeutic discourse of philosophy” (Gill 1996, 451). As our previous studies have revealed when considering features such as the daimon though, the belief in an internal subjectivity that is entirely separate from the rest of the world can be destabilized. Taken on these terms a Stoic individual’s self-awareness rather than a service worker’s self-deceit underpins a focus on the internal conditions of emotional responses. A question I would nevertheless like to pose

288 

W. JOHNCOCK

concerns how we could ever actually differentiate either state from the other? In instances of self-deceit or self-awareness, the individual would still sincerely feel a control of their emotional reactions. For Hochschild, this invests the self-deceit of deep acting with a powerful, practical legitimacy, whereby “in deep acting we make feigning easy by making it unnecessary” (Hochschild 1983, 33). This feign is not a feign in the conventional sense. It most definitely is not a performance either but in actuality occurs as a Stoic-like immersion in one’s apparent internal condition. We have covered that for Epictetus (and indeed for Hochschild) when we are immersed in what is internal to us we will still recognize or be able to discern what is happening externally. A self-deceiving individual in Hochschild’s thesis is not deceived or ignorant that a world occurs around them. As for the Stoic, it is incumbent upon a trained individual’s self-­ conditioning to have developed the capability to acknowledge a physical or worldly reality while simultaneously “suspending” their own desire toward it (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 13).7 Epictetus describes the consequent “emotional reality” as indicative of an individual’s natural self-control and reflective of “their honour” (4.3, 9). To “scream … be rude” or to get upset as these events/phenomena unfold around them would be contrary to their natural disposition (4.3, 9). Continuing the theme from the previous paragraph, the underpinning point is that it is not a feign that constitutes this mode of Stoic indifference. The Stoic individual instead sincerely normalizes and feels their emotional consistency as strength. While in terms of external appearances the Stoic and the deep actor might therefore present identically, for the Stoics it is the self-aware not the self-deceiving individual who lives in accordance with a rationalized nature. The Stoic who internally feels rather than externally feigns indifference enacts a rationalization which derives from beyond their isolated nature. The source of one’s rationally self-aware nature is a universally rational nature. Interestingly we have also encountered how Hochschild’s self-­ deceiving deep actor’s “non-feigning” serenity manifests a rationalization that has a source beyond an autonomous self. There is in Hochschild’s observations something collectively and environmentally originated about the serene indifference to external phenomena that service workers embody. In training oneself to fit an established setting by genuinely feeling serene within it, each worker perpetuates the institutionalized and normalized feelings of that setting. These perpetuations of that feeling in turn participate in the feeling’s ongoing reproduction. All personnel in an environment for Hochschild accordingly do not simply regurgitate an

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

289

institutionalized rationality but also  “contribute to the creation of it” (Hochschild 1983, 18). What is personal about the resulting emotion for the individual is hence also impersonally distributed among various agents who recreate its reality. This redefines the conception we might have of a “sincere emotion.” Sincerity in the deep acting context does not simply refer to how unfiltered our external expression of our internal states is. An emotion that is sincere instead here heralds an internal experience that is filtered by what the external and communal environment expects and indeed desires. This correlates with our sincere feeling to meet those expectations and desires. Workers sincerely want to do their service industry roles well. In embodying a normalized mantra of only being concerned with what is in one’s control, acting sincerely involves how for a group “the very act of managing emotion can be seen as part of what the emotion becomes” (27). This becoming of sincere emotion is a collectively instilled act. Feeling sincere is a production of ongoing labor among a group about what works and is felt to work accordingly. The sincerity of the deep actor manifests structurally and environmentally. In this mode the deep actor learns how to feel sincere. The development of this kind of perspective regarding the sincerity of emotional labor motivates Hochschild to declare that it “was precisely by such techniques of emotion management that sincerity itself was achieved” (24). We have seen that for the Stoic our feeling of being a sincere self is an internalized awareness of what is in our control. For the service worker conversely their subjective sincerity is an external structural production, which while engendering a self-deception is a function they nevertheless really feel. The service worker’s conditioning presents a visage shaped by the labors of training. Even though we are aware of the socialized artificialities of such a presentation, within Hochschild’s work is a commentary on what she posits to be natural about this development. This natural characterization of one’s training is interesting. This is because the natural ends of such training are not really comparable to what Epictetus posits are the naturally primary conditions for Stoic internal, emotional control. Hochschild here draws an equation between notions of what “fits” or suits, and what is natural, for an individual. Firstly, we see her interest in the suitability of emotional labor to the subject enacting it in the claim that “behind the most effective display is the feeling that fits it, and that feeling can be managed” (34). Moreover, this feeling can be managed to feel “natural” (35).  The comparison with Epictetus from this concerns

290 

W. JOHNCOCK

what is natural about self-management in their respective outlooks. For Epictetus we work on ourselves to develop “restraint and self-control” in order to live in accordance with the timeless reality of our rational nature (Epictetus 2008, 1.13, 1). Conversely for Hochschild there is a “natural element” to this process of self-conditioning  that situationally  shifts according to what fits. The service worker in Hochschild’s perspective imparts a “display” that “is a natural result of working on feeling … a real feeling that has been self-induced” (Hochschild 1983, 35; my emphasis). Both perspectives portray self-regulation as a naturally oriented response to externally provocative stimuli, however the natural states that each identifies diverge radically. Hochschild does not refer to Stoic philosophy at all in her work. She does however indirectly reference themes which belong to Stoicism’s heritage. This becomes apparent in her recognition that the management of emotions and feelings, and “trying to feel what one wants,” is not a revolutionary idea but rather “is probably no newer than emotion itself” (20). The implication here is that humanity has long been concerned with such ideas. An explicit prominence indeed emerges for her in terms of the ongoing relevance for humans of “managing feeling … to civilized living” (21; my emphasis). This correlation of the management of feeling with civilized protocols now requires attention on specifically commercialized civilities. In the previous paragraph, both Epictetus and Hochschild acknowledge natural directions to emotion management. The introduction to the discussion though of this commercially civilizing element will help us to further appreciate that the service worker’s indifference does not seem to be as concerned with our nature as Epictetus’ Stoicism is.

Personal Development Versus Commercial Benefit of Emotional Control? Focusing on emotional self-control for Epictetus aids our personal development. If we only emotionally invest ourselves in what is in our control, we facilitate a way of living that is not contrary to our nature (Epictetus 2008, 4.1, 125). William Stephens is correct when he observes in this distinction for Epictetus that “only something contrary to the nature of a human being would be a true misfortune” (Stephens 2007, 65). We personally gain in Stoicism and experience a greater proximity to our true self by learning to be resilient to what is contrary to our nature. Conversely for Hochschild’s findings, emotional labor is publicly directed and commercially invested. As Hochschild states of this

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

291

commercial relevance, “what was once a private act of emotional management is sold now as labor in public-contact jobs” (Hochschild 1983, 186). The commercial parameters lurking within the deployment of emotional labor indeed are the motivation for her entire study. In exploring how “organizations have entered the game” (185) of emotion management Hochschild seizes upon the capitalist conditions which determine that “emotion work is no longer a private act but a public act, bought on the one hand and sold on the other” (118). Because a service industry worker enacts emotion labor to sell a product or service, Hochschild identifies their alienation from an aspect of their emotion. As the product or service is sold and exchanged so is something about the product that the employee’s emotional investment constitutes. This argument regarding “alienation” does not necessarily contradict the sincerity of the emotion that the “deep acting” service industry worker invests or feels. That internal governance which is a result of their training remains legitimate. Where alienation arises though concerns the Marxist-­ inspired notion that according to Hochschild “emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value” (7). We typically interpret our emotions as defining aspects of what is directly personal about subjectivity. Here however we witness how emotions become impersonal commodifications dispersed throughout the anonymous structures of capitalist exchange. A brief consideration of the Marxist legacy that equates the capitalist exchange of labor with alienation is worthwhile here. In Capital, Marx defines “socially necessary labour time” as the total labor time required to produce an average commodity “of its kind” (Marx 1976 (1867), 130). Or in other words, Marx’s interest is in how the value of that average form of a product relates to “the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour-time socially necessary for its production” (129). The value of this production, the value of the labor time invested in it, manifests via social or market exchange. The commodification of quantified labor time duly occurs via the market’s abstract framing of such time. This converts what is privately or personally material/concrete about the time that an individual spends laboring, into a broader magnitudinal exchange of “social value, the market value” (Marx 1981 (1894), 180). Correlatively I here interpret that for Hochschild one’s emotional labor time becomes an abstracted commodity. This commodification occurs in two forms. The first form is the time that the service worker gives to a customer in surface or deep acting. The value of this time is not determined by the direct interaction but rather by a pre-established anticipation

292 

W. JOHNCOCK

or expectation of a commercially viable service. The second form is the time spent training oneself to perform such labor. As we have seen this conditioning is sometimes so comprehensive (deep) that the individual deceives themselves regarding their own subjective status. The commodification of this time occurs via the transformation of what is personal and subjective (one’s emotions and time) into the impersonalized components of a service that is sold in the marketplace. The sale and distribution of individual time and emotion occurs according to a structurally abstracted exchange value rather than because of anything personally intrinsic about such time/emotions to the individual in question. It is as a result of the training that conditions the production of emotion labor that for Hochschild such work requires a self-suppression. For Epictetus the training of one’s emotional structure to a state of self-­ control, in which one is unperturbed by external circumstances, marks one’s self-“progress” (Epictetus 2008, 3.4, 26). The Stoic subject is more aware of their actual nature and felt self. Conversely for Hochschild, even though the consequent emotional display is sincerely felt, what is necessary to reach emotional control is to “suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others—in this case the sense of being cared for” (Hochschild 1983, 7). This suppressed separation from an aspect of the self that is engendered by emotion labor is duly perceived by Hochschild to be a negative price that the individual incurs, stating that there “is a cost to emotion work: it affects the degree to which we listen to feeling” (21). Epictetus contrarily would not characterize the training of or working on the self as a process via which the self loses something or experiences a “cost.” This reflects how in Stoicism remaining unaffected by externals means that we gain self-­ knowledge. To be unaffected by externals is for the Stoic to “benefit” entirely (Epictetus 2008, 3.20, 10). Or to again defer to Stephens, it is a product of “good fortune” (Stephens 2007, 65). Hochschild however portrays how such a process for the service worker is counter-productive and even self-destructive. To this end, she maintains that not only is there an alienation from the self that manifests through emotion management but also that a self-degradation occurs from the labor that is required. A comparison with Capital again emerges, this time in terms of Marx’s critique of the effects of industrialization on the human body. Marx attends to how capitalist, industrial mechanisms impose upon the physiological rhythms of the human body. Such mechanisms exhaust the

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

293

nervous system and restrict which muscles develop due to the limited range of operation necessitated by factory machinery (Marx 1976).8 Instead of focusing on Marxist perspectives of corporeal effects however, Hochschild directs our attention to other comparably damaging demands of emotion work. She posits that the suppression required in emotion labor degrades the human, emotional pulse. This occurs to the extent that a “nineteenth-century child working in a brutalizing English factory” (Hochschild 1983, 17) and a contemporary care worker deploying emotion labor must equally “mentally detach themselves” from their respective labors (17). Beneath the obvious difference between physical and emotional labor time, workers in both arenas share a process of becoming “alienated from an aspect of the self—either the body or the margins of the soul” (7). Epictetus also raises a comparison between physical and mental reactions that manifest from our management of adverse external conditions. In comparing physical and mental fortitudes, Epictetus duly describes of increased resiliences to external threats how just as “people with a strong physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold” likewise “people of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emotions” (Epictetus 2008, Fragments 20). Underpinning this position on a resilient Stoic subjectivity though are the sharp distinctions from Hochschild that we have encountered. For Hochschild, the training of oneself to focus on internal rather than on external phenomena produces a sincerely felt but alienated self. Alternatively, Epictetus celebrates how such training engenders our greater proximity to the true self. The emotionally trained self-sensibility is not an industrially alienated cost or depreciation in Stoicism but instead is a naturally strengthened awareness of our subjectivity. In concurrently appraising the approaches of Epictetus and Hochschild it is apparent that for both, labor and training are ongoing and perpetually shift our emotional positioning toward our circumstantial environment. The key difference between the Stoic and the sociological incarnations considered here though concerns the respective motivations that are associated with an individual’s emotional control. For Epictetus the themes are personal development, virtuousness, and with that, happiness. Hochschild’s study conversely exhibits how the capacity to focus on one’s emotional reactions has pragmatically social, vocational, and commercial orientations.

294 

W. JOHNCOCK

Despite this difference and in direct response to this chapter’s question of who benefits from the management of feelings, I am interested in the possibly equally socialized qualities in Epictetus perspective. If an individual is capable of indifference to external phenomena, not only do they make their own life increasingly straightforward, but they also potentially contribute to a more reliable or stable society. Epictetus in fact proclaims that for any Stoic there is an element of social influence and “example” that is implicit to their tendencies toward emotional control: To begin with, you have to set a different example with your behaviour. No more blaming God or man. Suspend desire completely, train aversion only on things under your control. (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 13)

It has been my argument in the preceding discussion that we can distinguish the theses of Epictetus and Hochschild around subjective and socialized parameters. For Epictetus there is an individually subjective orientation regarding themes of personal development. Hochschild conversely reveals there is a publicly commercialized sensibility involved in controlling an individual’s emotional responses. In a citation such as that which immediately precedes from Epictetus however, there is also a sense in which the “progress” by which he describes Stoic emotion management equates self-­ control with a cohesive social function. We do not only “set an example” to ourselves but also to a group. This indeed is a theme that we have seen Marcus Aurelius later endorse in describing the common interests that are at the heart of any individual’s actions. When each of us does “something good or otherwise contributory to the common interest” in Marcus’ estimations we have done what each of us “was designed for” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 9.42, 4). This draws from Epictetus’ wording directly. Epictetus states that God has “constituted the nature of the rational animal man” in a way that we are designed as individuals to “contribute something to the common interest” (Epictetus 1961, 1.19, 10–19).9 Both the Stoic individual and the service industry worker undertake labor in environments to which they have the capacity to be indifferent. Not only is the individual experience corrected and/or ameliorated from this indifference to affronting interpersonal behavior but so also are wider interpersonal relations and normalizations. While the imperatives of emotion management are situated within a personal identity, a social dispersal of the consequent benefits is present in both the social theory of Hochschild and in  Epictetus’ Stoicism. This directs a curiosity about who benefits

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

295

from managed emotion not exclusively to considerations of the individual’s welfare but also toward social structures and populations.

Notes 1. Other Stoics and Stoic commentators recognize and emphasize self-­ dependence. Harris Rackham describes in his “Introduction” to Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) how Cicero notes of “the Stoics … that happiness depends on peace of mind, undisturbed by passions, fears, and desires” (Rackham in Cicero 1967a, vii; my emphasis). This is possibly also a reference to the connection that Cicero draws in Academica (On Academic Skepticism) between “goods of the mind” and “happiness” (Cicero 1967b, 1.5, 21). The terminology of a dependence on one’s mind is further apparent in Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties). For Cicero our “moral goodness” to which Stoic happiness is intimately connected “depends wholly upon the thought and attention given to it by the mind” (Cicero 1928, 1.23, 79). The interdependencies of happiness, the mind, and morals emerge in Stoic presentations of the link between happiness and virtuousness. In The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes Alfred Pearson introduces how a “leading characteristic of Stoic morals” is “that virtuous conduct depends not on the nature of the deed but on the disposition of the agent” (Pearson in Zeno et al. 1891, 47). We here depend on our capacity to maintain an emotional independence (indifference) from the external world. This topic drives our earlier engagement with Epictetus who repeatedly signals the necessity of indifference to what is outside our control. A further key example of this is in Discourses where Epictetus states that the best sense of self manifests when you are “dependent on no one except yourself” (Epictetus 2008, 4.3, 36; my emphasis). 2. This is a point about which Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (1964) is also emphatic. Marcus demands that philosophy should offer a guide to how to live in line with Stoic virtue. A virtue fulfilled is happiness fulfilled. We should not desire happiness as a pleasurable feeling to possess if we act virtuously. It is rather from acting virtuously for the sake of being virtuous that happiness will ensue for the Stoic individual. 3. Life itself is not a moral good for Epictetus (especially a life not lived virtuously). David Sedley posits that responding to “non-moral ‘goods’ as indifferent was thoroughly Socratic in inspiration” (Sedley 2003, 11). This inspiration is exemplified for Sedley in a Stoic sage’s sense that suicide can be a “well-reasoned exit” from life, a topic explored in our earlier chapter on self-preservation. For Sedley, this imperative “owed much to the legend of Socrates” (11).

296 

W. JOHNCOCK

4. Hochschild’s work participates in the sociological tradition of Charles Wright Mills. This is especially apparent in the connections Hochschild conceives between the private concerns of individual experiences and what is collective or public about capitalist, social experience. Michael Burawoy notes this influence in suggesting that Wright Mills would “anticipate so much that came after” his era of theory, including the “idea of the sale of personality in service work that Arlie Hochschild’s The Managed Heart would term emotional labor” (Burawoy 2008, 370). 5. Throughout this chapter, I use the term “emotion labor” (and variations such as “emotion work”) interchangeably with Hochschild’s term “emotional labor/work.” I am fond of how the construction “emotion labor” indicates a primary concern with the laboring on emotion. Equally I am receptive to how Hochschild’s construction “emotional labor” prominently also evokes the subject’s emotional state at the time of such labor. Where I discuss Hochschild’s text directly, I use her construction exclusively. Otherwise, I tend to use the former construction. Hochschild’s receptivity to the former construction, “emotion labor,” is in fact evidenced in her earlier essay “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure” (Hochschild 1979). 6. Hochschild’s inquiry is attentive to the gender disparities in the service industry roles that she researches. Women occupy most of these positions and thus provide the majority of society’s emotional labor. See the chapter “Gender, Status, and Feeling” (Hochschild 1983, 162–184). 7. Suspending our desire toward what is uncontrollable about an external world is different from suspending our judgments regarding claims about truth in an external world. In Chap. 5 we considered Epictetus’, Weber’s, and Sextus’ respective impressions of the call to suspend judgment. While Weber goes beyond a Stoic context, see Annas (1993, 244–248) for further commentary on Sextus’ Pyrrhonist contestation to Stoic knowledge claims and his associated demand to suspend judgment. 8. Friedrich Engels similarly argues that the labor demanded by industrializing, capitalizing structures deforms human bodies. This is particularly true of children and women through tasks such as carrying coal (Engels 1987 (1845), 282–283). 9. Robin Hard’s more recent translations of the respective passages in Marcus’ Meditations (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 9.42) and Epictetus’ Discourses (Epictetus 2014, 1.19, 13) similarly reads “common interest” as “the common benefit.”

13  WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 

297

References Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press. Burawoy, Michael. 2008. Open Letter to C.  Wright Mills. Antipode 40 (3): 365–375. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1928. De Officiis (On Duties). Translated by Walter Miller. London and New York: William Heinemann Ltd. and G.P. Putnam’s Sons. ———. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1967b. Academica (On Academic Skepticism). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. Engels, Friedrich. 1987 (1845). The Condition of the Working Class in England. Translated by Florence Wischnewetzky. London and New York: Penguin. Epictetus. 1961. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments. Edited by T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E. Warmington. Translated by William Oldfather. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New  York: Dover Publications. ———. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. ———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gill, Christopher. 1996. Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hochschild, Arlie. 1979. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. ———. 1983. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. London and New York: University of California Press. Long, Anthony. 2006. From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2011. Meditations (with Selected Correspondence). Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. New  York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

298 

W. JOHNCOCK

Marx, Karl. 1976 (1867). Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy. London and New York: Penguin Books. ———. 1981 (1894). Capital: Volume 3: A Critique of Political Economy. London and New York: Penguin Books. Robertson, Donald. 2010. The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books. Schofield, Malcolm. 2003. Stoic Ethics. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 233–256. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Seddon, Keith. 2005. Epictetus’ Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living. London and New York: Routledge. Sedley, David. 2003. The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 7–32. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Sellars, John. 2006. Stoicism. London and New York: Routledge. Simplicius. 2014. Simplicius: On Epictetus Handbook 1–26. Translated by Charles Brittain, and Tad Brennan. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Stephens, William. 2007. Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. London: Continuum. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Alfred Pearson. 1891. The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes: With Introduction and Explanatory Notes. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.

CHAPTER 14

How Individual Is Happiness? Chrysippus and Harriet Martineau on the Universal End

A Virtuously Experienced Primary End In this chapter, we will be dealing with two conceptions of happiness. The first is the Stoic definition in which as seen in previous chapters, happiness is not strictly an emotional feeling itself. Stoic happiness refers to a rationalized and internalized virtuous nature. The second conception is the conventional modern sense of happiness as feeling good or pleasure. This is distinct from the Stoic sense of happiness. An intersection is nevertheless apparent between the two conceptions. If we are living a Stoically happy existence, that happiness regulates all our emotional directions which will necessarily include happiness as per the second conception. When reflecting on what makes us happy in the conventional (second) sense, we might seek to identify the causes for the feeling. By developing a self-awareness of what is conducive to feelings of happiness, we can arguably become proactive regarding our future happiness. Straightforwardly this can occur by integrating such causes more thoroughly into our lives. Or in other words, we can identify what makes us happy and repeat it. We might categorize the causes of this happiness as either intentionally or inadvertently enacted. Intentionally derived happiness marks a future event or set of circumstances as that which could probably make us happy. This is based on the process detailed in the preceding paragraph. Such an event or circumstance has made us happy before and we perceive that it is likely to again. Following this identification, we might deliberately attempt to activate a chain of events through which that anticipated © The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_14

299

300 

W. JOHNCOCK

happiness-inducing state reoccurs. This could be as simple as realizing that talking to our friends is a pleasing experience and thereby planning to talk to them more regularly. Such a method is the inverse of the “negative visualization” approach that Stoic thinkers including Epictetus and Seneca suggest that we enact in order to attain a Stoic rationalized happiness (first conception). As carefully qualified in earlier chapters, happiness for the Stoics does not merely amount to a pleasurable feeling. Stoic happiness instead comprises wise and virtuous activity in accordance with our rational nature. The opposite of a happy life for the Stoics is a life unhappily, as in irrationally and unvirtuously, determined by what is external to our control. In attempting to facilitate happiness not by enacting it directly but by avoiding unhappiness, Epictetus advises us to negatively visualize the worst possible scenarios that could eventuate. The belief is that this preparation will remove the unhappy shock of such scenarios should they actually occur.1 An example of this mantra is evidenced in his Enchiridion. Epictetus cautions to always keep in mind the mortality of those people that you love, in that when “you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies” (Epictetus 2004, 1.3). William Irvine’s comprehensive discussion of negative visualization explains that the purpose of this instruction is not only to avoid shockingly bad feelings when the deaths of friends and family occur but also to “derive more pleasure from friendships than we otherwise would” (Irvine 2008, 70). We might appreciate the people in our lives more if we are conscious that they will not always be alive with us. The preceding discussion concerns the intentional means of feeling happy or of avoiding feeling unhappy, according to both the Stoic (first conception) and conventional (second conception) understandings of happiness. In the conventional second conception, we can conversely define happiness’ inadvertent constitution in terms of causal developments that are unplanned but from which we “stumble upon” a happy state. Having experienced seemingly inadvertently eventuated happiness we might indeed try to identify its cause so that we can manufacture such happiness-inducing events in the future. Consistent with the rationalized constitution of the Stoic (first conception) form of happiness, Epictetus would not agree with the interpretation of an accidentally or inadvertently occurring happiness. I state this because of his opposition to the Epicurean explanation of our rational nature as the product of “accident and chance.”2 As we have already encountered for

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

301

Epictetus, we live in a rationally ordered world. This order constitutes the condition from which emerges any states of wisdom and happiness that we experience. In Discourses he explains the futility of not recognizing the systematic regularity of the world. If we ignore this “it’s left to us to explain who made” the world in such an ordered fashion, not to mention to decipher how it is possible that “such amazing craftsmanlike abilities came into being by accident, on their own” (Epictetus 2008, 1.6, 11). Because of happiness’ inherent wisdom and virtue, the Stoics often conceive of it as the most important state of subjective being. As considered in other chapters the earliest incarnations of Stoic philosophy to this extent explore the connection between happiness and nature’s ends. Stobaeus observes how founding Stoic principles position happiness as the primary end of being and “say that being happy is the end, for the sake of which everything is done” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394). This reflects a perspective of Zeno, the first head of the Stoic school, who Stobaeus informs us defines happiness as “living in agreement” with a “good flow of life” (3.16, in L&S, 394). The good flow of life cited here refers to living in accordance with one’s reason. This is an element that Zeno’s successor Cleanthes expands via Stobaeus’ reporting of it as “living in accordance with one’s nature” (3.16, in L&S, 394). It is through Cleanthes that we receive the clarification that Stoic individuals do not strive for happiness as an end in itself. Happiness rather will necessarily follow for the individual through virtuous ends. If virtue is lived or embodied, the associated ends will automatically possess the inherent status of “living in agreement with nature” (3.16, in L&S, 394). Zeno’s “good flow” mentioned previously would therefore be a natural flow in this latter sense. Stobaeus in fact cites Zeno’s demand that rather than living in search of happiness, if one lives according to this nature then what will become apparent is that happiness is that life itself (3.16, in L&S, 394). This is a theme that has emerged throughout this book and that is worth reiterating here given the impending discussion. Zeno, Cleanthes, and the later head of the Stoic school, Chrysippus (who David Sedley refers to as “the greatest Stoic of them all” [Sedley 2003, 7]), are in conditional agreement in defining happiness as a life lived in accordance with the good or nature. All three could consequently be engaged on the question of the importance of happiness in the context of original Stoic principles. It will however be Chrysippus’ position with which we will be primarily occupied in this chapter. This is because the commentaries that have survived on Chrysippus clearly establish his

302 

W. JOHNCOCK

definition as the full extension of the early Stoic understanding of happiness. An example of such commentaries is where Stobaeus informs us that Chrysippus and his Stoic “successors” believe that “happiness is no different from the happy life” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394). While happiness is an end toward which we orient ourselves, the virtuous living processes via which we enact that end also constitute happiness. Whether this adds anything to the earlier detailed positions of Cleanthes and Zeno is debatable. What is nevertheless attributable to Chrysippus, which does expand upon the definitions of happiness that precede him, is a sense that our happiness is bound to our experiences with what naturally actually happens. Here Chrysippus offers the most complete extension of the Stoic school’s original position (Boeri 2009, 177; Jedan 2009, 61; Long and Sedley 1987, 400; Striker 1996, 224). The Chrysippean definition of happiness in its full form is “living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394; my emphasis). In a contemporary, everyday regard this sounds consistent with what “being stoic” seemingly comprises. By this I mean how Stoicism refers to our resilience when “nature takes its course” and affects our lives adversely. If we withstand without emotional trauma what naturally happens to us the impression is that we will have a more content and happy life. This application is consistent with the Chrysippean definition. What we must also appreciate though is that in this Stoic demand happiness and nature are internal to each other. Nature in this regard is not simply a reference to a world in which anything or everything might happen and to which we should be resilient. By being virtuous rather we are living in accordance with an internal nature and this is an existence in which happiness is in-­ built. Our control over being virtuous is accordingly for Diogenes Laërtius a key factor in Chrysippus’ tandem conceptions of nature and happiness, stating that “to live according to virtue is the same thing as living according to nature; as Chrysippus explains it in the first book of his treatise on the Chief Good” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). As presented elsewhere in this book, there is a pervasive Stoic position that co-implicates individual nature and universal nature according to their common element of virtue. This part-whole relationship is explicit in the ancient commentaries on Chrysippean thought. Chrysippus posits that we should live in accordance with what happens in nature, given that “our individual natures are all parts of the universal nature” (7.53). According to the logic of part-whole co-implication, happiness is consequently not simply reducible to targeted ends about how we hope to

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

303

feel. By instead living virtuously, individual happiness arises as an internalized orientation. While we have encountered this insight in the perspectives of others from the Stoic school, what is notable about a Chrysippean engagement with it is the terminology that he uses. For Chrysippus, happiness is “supervened” to the individual, both in terms of the ends that inevitably or ultimately manifest as well as in our actual ongoing living of such ends.3 Chrysippus states in this regard that happiness is not attributable to the individual “who progresses to the furthest point” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.510, in L&S, 363) of any particular undertaking. Fulfilling an end is not autonomously happiness-inducing. In being ongoingly virtuously orientated happiness rather “supervenes” on the individual during the whole process of acting virtuously. Chrysippus refers to these virtuous actions as “intermediate actions” in terms of their continued relationship to one’s overall happiness. The sustained nature of a virtuously oriented life means that for the Stoic the associated happiness-inducing actions “acquire the additional properties of firmness and tenor and their own particular fixity” (3.510, in L&S, 363). We should pause here to study this Chrysippean language in order to recognize its ramifications regarding what for the Stoic is common about continual virtuousness and happiness.

The Common Good As I read it Chrysippus does not use the term “fixity” as a straightforward reference to a final or ultimate point of happiness. This is not where happiness is “fixed in place” so to speak. More interestingly, I believe fixity refers to the durable distinguishability of the happiness and virtuousness that is associated with an individual. The fixity of an individual’s happiness is that it is naturally enduring rather than contingently transient. This reading coheres with how scholarship interprets the durability of states that result when Stoic reason supervenes (Inwood 1985, 187; Long 1999, 574). I am not insinuating an unrefined application of the term “fixed” in which the individual is finally “fixed-as-corrected” from a previously unvirtuous state. By fixity rather, I believe Chrysippus is inferring that we can recognize the particularity of an individual’s virtuousness through actions which continually define that individual. The descriptor “virtuous” becomes of the individual and produces them as this or that individual. This fixity as stated does not mark a final or fixed point. It does nevertheless indicate a “firm” (as Chrysippus earlier described) resilience against a non-virtuous state. In following one’s naturally and virtuously inclined

304 

W. JOHNCOCK

ends, a self-aware individual harbors the happiness over which they have control from harmful externals. Plutarch observes in On Stoic Self-­ Contradictions that Chrysippus emphasizes this mutual exclusion of happiness (a state that is good for oneself) from unhappiness (the oppositionally bad state): Chrysippus admits that good and bad things are entirely different from one another. This must be so if the latter, by their presence, immediately make men utterly unhappy while the former make them happy to the highest degree. (Plutarch, SVF, 3.85, in L&S, 373)

“Bad things” are states and events that are contrary to our nature. Just as virtue implies a life led happily, equally vice means a life of misery. On this distinction Plutarch further records in On Common Conceptions how Chrysippus “maintains that vice is the essence of unhappiness, insisting in every book that he writes on ethics and physics that living viciously is identical to living unhappily” (3.55, in L&S, 396). These correlating divisions between good and bad, happy and unhappy, and virtue and vice symbolize how we calibrate with our naturally occurring ends. A coherence with our natural ends is conditioned by our implication in a governing universal Nature. As Plutarch advises of the Chrysippean perspective on this universal composition of the self, “Chrysippus says ‘there is no more appropriate way of approaching the theory of good and bad things or the virtues or happiness than from universal nature and from the administration of the world’” (3.68, in L&S, 368–369). The terminology “administration of the world” applied through this “universal nature” is a reference to what for the Stoics (as we have reviewed in Chap. 11) is the jurisdiction of God (Bobzien 1998, 210; Mansfield 1999, 469). This observation speaks to the tendency that is prevalent throughout Stoic thought to use the terms “God” and “Nature” interchangeably as references to the same life-force.4 If happiness is the universal end of Nature this implies that it is also the natural condition of the Stoic God, Zeus, and is implicit to His ordering or administering of the world. Diogenes attends to this consistency in noting that just as with a life lived according to one’s nature, similarly God is “perfect … in his happiness” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.72). This perspective broadens happiness from a particular experience of one person to also being a natural state of a pantheistic rational universe. We can begin to appreciate this duality by noting via Diogenes that Chrysippus

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

305

proposes common conditions to both human and universal life. This coheres with our earlier chapters’ accounts of what is concurrently anthropocentric and logocentric about Stoic existence, in that “nature, in a manner corresponding to which we ought to live, is both the common nature, and also human nature in particular” (7.53). In targeting this particularly human element to what is common about existence, we should note how Stobaeus imparts a version of Chrysippus’ earlier-reviewed juxtaposition between good and bad things. The benefit from good or natural ends will have a common prosperity for those living together in agreement with nature, in that “all goods are common to the virtuous, and all that is bad to the inferior” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.626, in L&S, 373). Virtuous humans will not only have the same good (happiness) in common, they will moreover share their good. There is a communal or collegial benefit acknowledged here that is distinct from the isolated existences of “inferior” individuals who are not living happily in accordance with collective nature. Happiness as the ultimate good thus flourishes among a community where “virtuous men benefit one another … but the foolish are in the opposite situation” (3.626, in L&S, 373). Stobaeus makes this final point regarding the human collegiality of happiness. It is nevertheless Chrysippean in spirit given the latter’s informing conception of the good of happiness as both a particular and a common phenomenon. The “mutual betterment” between individuals that a “community of goods” conditions is indeed what gives such an argument its “distinctive Stoic colouring” according to Anthony Long and David Sedley (Long and Sedley 1987, 377). From this, we arrive at a Stoic impression of individual happiness that defers to a state of communal and universal existence which pervades beyond an isolated self. In this chapter, we are considering how individual our happiness is. The Stoics here clearly identify how individual happiness has humanly collegial conditions. They also of course link localized happiness to what is universally common about happiness. This notion of the universality of happiness invites a modern thesis from the human sciences which also identifies happiness as our universal or essential condition.

Identifying What Is Essential or Universal Here we can turn to British social theorist Harriet Martineau (1802–1876).5 Martineau correlates a human’s happiness with social structures of morals and manners. What is interesting about Martineau’s perspective on

306 

W. JOHNCOCK

happiness for this discussion is that she does not simply work with the conventional impression of happiness as feeling pleasure (the second conception from this chapter’s introduction). I believe there is rather for Martineau as we will see something universally and intentionally rationalized about happiness (the first/Stoic conception). We can find this aspect of Martineau’s work in her guide to undertaking social science research, How to Observe Morals and Manners. Such a theme is consistent with how her most prominent inquiries highlight the junctures between sociological methods, social rules, and personal sentiments.6 To comprehend Martineau’s sociological interrogation of conceptions of happiness we must firstly appreciate her primary focus on sociological methods. By describing the sociological enquirer in the field as a “traveller,” Martineau posits that the sociologist’s examination of the various morals and manners of different cultures needs to attend to what is “fixed and essential in a people” (Martineau 1838, 11, 12). To acknowledge the subtleties of her notion of “fixed” we will compare it with my earlier reading of Chrysippus’ use of the same term. In the Chrysippean perspective, happiness “supervenes” on an individual in relation to how their virtuousness is “firmly” embedded or “fixed” in what is perpetual about their nature (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.510, in L&S, 363). As noted during the first encounter with this interpretation, I believe that happiness is not a finalized end or a corrected state that we target and acquire. Being virtuous for the sake of being virtuous instead enacts a process via which the natural end (happiness) becomes durably (fixedly) enacted. Similarly therefore I also now argue that in Martineau’s thesis what she describes as fixed and essential about a culture or “a people” does not mark an abstract or symbolic end-point. Cultures are not time-capsules which transcend ongoing relations. Characteristics that are fixed rather are those which continually distinguish and define such populations as or via their ongoing rituals. According to this reading fixity implies a durability without a finality. It is the end without an end-point. This is a definition which is remarkably like how the Stoics might describe the natural end of happiness. There are two parameters for Martineau which distinguish or define what is fixed or essential about “a people.” These are their collective morals and their manners. In one regard Martineau describes morals and manners as inseparably co-dependent. She in fact reviews that “manners have not been treated of separately from morals” in sociological works that

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

307

precede hers because “manners are inseparable from morals, or, at least, cease to have meaning when separated” (Martineau 1838, 132). There is however at least a passing sense that she will differentiate morals and manners. This lurks in her qualification that in her impending inquiry an attention to the “principles of morals and the rule of manners is required” (16). The distinction here pivots on “principles” versus “rules.” Morals apparently underpin a society’s collective identity and orientations—its principles. Manners conversely are the permitted or prohibited behaviors of daily affairs—the rules or regulations. This interpretation is consistent with Martineau’s subsequent description of manners as “manifestations of morals” (132). Manners manifest (from) morals, they are the occurrences of morals and this distinguishes manners from morals. Despite this distinction, it is only together that they form a society’s fixed and essential ritualistic protocols. In addressing social scientists who explore the mechanics of these protocols, Martineau stresses the importance of being aware of the connection between a particular society’s protocols and what is universal about being human. She opens a discussion accordingly that is receptive to both the specificity of any human culture and the generality of human conditioning. In asking “what does the traveller want to know?” (14) (where “traveller” is code for the social scientist) Martineau lists aspects of the human condition that she identifies in all human populations. These “universal” elements of being human include “a necessity for food, clothing, and shelter; and everywhere some mode of general agreement [about] how to live together” (14). The pragmatically survivalist orientation of many of these human universals seemingly sets them apart from the Stoics’ worldviews. For the Stoics we have seen that universals are instead concerned with the virtue and nature of our existence. Within this perspective Diogenes informs us though that what is universal about the human condition according to Chrysippus and indeed other Stoics is that our individual natures are parts of a whole, universal nature (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). The universal impetus of human subjectivity is not sheer survival but fulfilling our anthropocentrically charged responsibilities as part of a universal community. Despite this difference, it is in this sense of a universalized and common human nature that an intersection appears with Martineau’s thesis of universally shared human traits. This concerns how Chrysippus and Martineau assert that we have a universal orientation toward happiness.

308 

W. JOHNCOCK

The Universal Orientation to Collegial Happiness Sociology and anthropology for Martineau have a responsibility to determine how communities negotiate their morals and manners in service of the primary socialized end of each of its citizens; happiness. As Martineau states about human happiness, “every element of social life derives its importance from this great consideration” (Martineau 1838, 14). For any social scientist interested in studying a population, the parameter of happiness must in Martineau’s view be the ultimate focus: To test the morals and manners of a nation by a reference to the essentials of human happiness, is to strike at once to the centre, and to see things as they are. (15)

Chrysippus also describes happiness as the ultimate human end. We have repeatedly seen how happiness for the Stoic results from the harmony of one’s own nature with what is universally common to all (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). Of course for Chrysippus specifically and for  the Stoics broadly it is by acting virtuously that we are happy. The primary end that is happiness is not straightforwardly the target. Happiness instead is an inherent quality of our already occurring virtuous orientations. I like how Gisela Striker describes of this embedded character of happiness for the Stoics that “[t]hough every step will be referable to the intended result, that result is not the ultimate end for the sake of which the activity is performed” (Striker 1996, 246; my emphasis). The aim of virtuous action instead is living in agreement with nature. Can we say that this sense is equally apparent in Martineau’s identification in a social science context of what she describes as the “great end” of happiness? (Martineau 1838, 14). Is happiness for Martineau a state that we feel when we are living according to our universally rational nature (the Stoic “first conception” presented at this chapter’s outset)? Or is happiness a pleasurable state that we anticipate, identify, and even deliberately try to recreate the feeling of (the conventional “second conception”)? It is my assertion that aspects of Martineau’s thought cohere with Chrysippus’ and the Stoics’ first conception of happiness; living according to nature. To illustrate this coherence we firstly must revisit the communally beneficial aspect of the Stoics’ equation of virtue and happiness. This emerges in Diogenes’ reading that for the Stoics, as Long and Sedley eloquently translate it, “the virtue of the happy man” is dependent upon their

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

309

“always doing everything on the basis of the concordance of each man’s guardian spirit” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.178, in L&S, 395). This comprises a loose reference to the daimon that we have seen we each internalize. Similarly for Chrysippus as the harmony of oneself with what is common to all emerges through one’s continually virtuous direction toward all, so happiness for each individual is guaranteed (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). We have earlier seen Stobaeus also make these kinds of observations regarding the Stoic belief in a communal or “mutual betterment” (to borrow Long and Sedley’s phrasing) from individual virtue. Such accounts furthermore anticipate what we have encountered later Roman Stoics such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius express in terms of collective harmony. The Stoic sense of a harmony of happiness between individuals that benefits those individuals who are virtuous (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.626, in L&S, 373) is in fact also evoked by Martineau. Using remarkably similar terminology she defines those who contribute most to the lives of others as where “the most virtuous and happy part of the population will be those who are engaged in tilling the soil, and in the occupations which are absolutely necessary in towns” (Martineau 1838, 23; my emphasis). I read this as arguing that happiness manifests for the “virtuous” people of the town while they actually engage collectively beneficial work. As this work is directed toward what Martineau identifies as universal human ends, such actions in her view accord with our universal nature and are instruments of our happiness. Happiness here is not just the conventional second conception of feeling pleasure. Happiness manifests for Martineau as we undertake happiness’ virtuous instrumentation. It does not simply represent individually pleasurable end-states to attain at the completion of such instrumental actions. This perspective evidently matches the Chrysippean position that when undertaking virtuous action, happiness supervenes on the individual through that undertaking. Given how this undertaking contributes for Martineau to a population’s universal necessities, we reveal in her thesis a concrete example of what is socially inclined about an individual’s virtuously directed happiness. This matches the dual beneficiaries (individual and community) conceived in the Stoic perspective. Even more concretely Martineau identifies specific parameters that define how collective structures of morals and manners engender happiness for humans. These parameters include a resistance to being dominated, community participation, capacity to act morally, and material

310 

W. JOHNCOCK

equality. The component of material equality is firstly important for our discussion. This is due to its connection to Martineau’s already encountered, universalizing portrayal of the human desire to obtain the self-­ preserving necessities of life. The social scientist for Martineau should become aware of how human material requirements shape collective moral frameworks by affecting “the condition of the inhabitants as to the supply of the necessities of life” (94). The happiest societies she claims are those which distribute such necessities equally. The “comparative prosperity or adversity” (96) between a society’s relative classes will inform the differences in how morals and manners manifest between such classes and the consequent degrees of respective and overall happiness. Societies where all classes have suitable access to the necessities of life will remain in good collective health. Martineau’s argument is that good collective health in turn sets a platform for mutually respecting morals and manners of the people in that society, meaning the “health of a community is an almost unfailing index of its morals” (98). This is particularly apparent when comparing these societies to those in which, for example, the health of the poorer classes is not maintained. Martineau interprets that any lack of moral standards in such classes is an insight into those communities’ unhappiness and that such unhappiness is a product of their unhealthiness: physical suffering irritates the temper, depresses energy, deadens hope, induces recklessness, and, in short, poisons life. (98)

The collective health of a population in this interpretation manifests as an insight into its morals, manners, and happiness. As we have discussed in Chap. 4, the Stoics do not equate happiness with material externals like bodily health. These conventional states of our being induce indifference in the Stoic. Ancient commentators report though the early Stoic concession that if given the choice and when “circumstances permit, we choose … health instead of disease, life instead of death, wealth instead of poverty” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.124, in L&S, 355). Health in this understanding is a “preferred indifferent.” We are for the Stoics still rationally indifferent to material/bodily health in comparison to the virtuous goods which comprise our internal nature and happiness. This feature of Stoicism nevertheless does position health “in some way adjacent to the nature of goods” (3.128, in L&S, 355). This Stoic perspective is likely informed by the elements of Aristotelian philosophy that we have reviewed in Chap. 4.

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

311

Aristotle’s assertion there is that of the bodily goods (which are distinct from those of the internal soul and of externals) that he includes in the structure of happiness the “most noble is that which is justest, and best is health” (Aristotle 2004, 1.8). This health is a “preferred indifferent” for the Stoics. In On Stoic Self-Contradictions Plutarch indeed reports that Chrysippus affirms how we are “not wrong” to orient ourselves toward preferred indifferents as goods: In his On good things book 1 he [Chrysippus] concedes in a sense and gives way to those who wish to call the preferred things good and their opposites bad, in the following words: “If someone in accordance with such differences [i.e. between the preferred and dispreferred] wishes to call the one class of them good and the other bad, and he is referring to these things [i.e. the preferred or the dispreferred] and not committing an idle aberration, his usage must be accepted on the grounds that he is not wrong in the matter of meanings and in other respects is aiming at the normal use of terms”. (Plutarch, SVF, 3.137, in L&S, 356)

This does not necessarily internalize health in our rationally happy state. It does indicate though that for Chrysippus, health as a preferred indifferent is classifiable as a “good” and not as “bad.” We have seen earlier that a happy life is comprised only of “goods.” This is in distinct opposition to an unhappy life. We can build on this point in a way that will illustrate the mutually exclusive conditions between happiness and unhappiness both for Chrysippean Stoicism and Martineau’s sociology. Martineau sharply opposes the happiness that manifests from good health and morals from the contrary states induced by bad health and morals. Health is the conditioning and conditioned force of how the people within a group behave individually and interpersonally. Good collective health breeds good interpersonal relations which in turn make the members of that group feel better. Given that the converse is also true regarding bad health, for Martineau “good and bad health are both cause and effect of good and bad morals” (Martineau 1838, 99). Health, happiness, and virtuous interpersonal actions here present as inextricably intertwined. Martineau as mentioned earlier has clear concerns about the methods of the social sciences. When mandating that the social scientist should be primarily concerned with studying the happiness of humans she emphasizes the importance of direct observation of subjects. This observation for

312 

W. JOHNCOCK

Martineau must specifically be of the discourse between the individuals of the society in question. There are two reasons for this focus on discourse. Firstly, for Martineau discourse provides “an indispensable commentary upon the classes” (133). Secondly, she recognizes that happiness is not itself representable. The impossibility of measuring and quantifying happiness as we conventionally understand it (due to its lack of standard units) would later become one of Henri Bergson’s early philosophical insights.7 Happiness in Martineau’s estimation can be studied though. This is only possible in her view via a discursive analysis of the universal drive for it. Happiness itself is not the direct object of analysis consequently. Again evoking Chrysippus’ sense that happiness manifests via communal and virtuous activity, Martineau approaches the study of happiness through cultural contexts and associated ritualized activity. Attending to these cultural and structural contexts for happiness will not surprisingly inform our question about how individualized happiness really is.

God, Creation, and Collective Happiness In considering alternative ways to gauge happiness, the universal tendency toward it is for Martineau as for Chrysippus apparent in themes around Creation. Martineau attributes as a common element in the collective structures of morals and manners between seemingly disparate societies the precondition that God wants human happiness. There is a deliberate overseeing direction to the human inclination for happiness in her view, for that “man should be happy is so evidently the intention of his Creator … that the perception of the aim may be called universal” (Martineau 1838, 21). Stoic thought also emphasizes God’s objective of human happiness. For the Stoics not only does God intend for happiness to be a universal and natural human end but God’s perfect happiness also symbolizes this condition (Diogenes Laërtius, 1853, 7.72). In De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) Cicero reports that for Chrysippus “god is the world” (Cicero 1997, 1.15, 39). From this insight and the preceding discussion on God’s happiness, we can surmise that for Chrysippus happiness in the world must be singularly ordered, administered, and intended by God. Diogenes reports that Chrysippus expands on this point in identifying a whole nature or “right reason which pervades everything … who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). Our right reason as

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

313

happiness is not only supervened by a common virtuousness but is regulated by God’s perfect virtuousness. This exemplifies the earlier Chrysippean point regarding the connection between the particular and the universal. Diogenes reports that Chrysippus’ On Ends describes how individual accordances with happiness actually indicate that each of our individual natures is a part of the nature of the universal whole (7.53). If God as whole nature is perfect in happiness, as the “perfect happiness of life when everything is done according to a harmony” (7.53), then happiness for each part of this nature is universally present. We can again recall the daimon that we encountered early in this book. The daimon “guide” comprises both an individual and a universally pantheistic constitution. Through this feature of subjectivity, the Stoics attribute a dispersed nature of happiness to the connection between “the genius of each individual with reference to the will of the universal governor” (7.53). In fulfilling our natural ends, according to this Stoic perspective, we fulfill what is universally supervened on us as God’s happiness. For Martineau similarly it is through the fulfillment of what is naturally Created that we become happy because “whatever tends to make men happy, becomes a fulfillment of the will of God” (Martineau 1838, 21). In fulfilling our ends we are satisfying what God intends for us. Happiness in Martineau’s understanding again exhibits all the signs of the Stoic conception as what is not reducible to a conventionally signified pleasurable individual feeling. Our moral structures through which happiness reverberates are indeed described by Martineau as “religious structures” in evidencing the “dependence of morals upon the character of the religion” (48). Religion here however is not a simple reference to the observance of a transcendent God. It rather more broadly incorporates the protocols that are universally enacted by human cultures in particularized ways. Different forms of human happiness here lead to a religious experience because happiness is for Martineau a universal and necessary human condition. With this argument, Martineau again mimics the mutual opposition between happiness and unhappiness that is present in Chrysippus’ thesis. Plutarch informs us that for Chrysippus actions and experiences that are not instruments of our universal, natural ends must instead be oppositional sources of unhappiness (Plutarch, SVF, 3.85, in L&S, 373). This we should recall is the difference between the rational and the irrational. There is no middle ground between happiness and unhappiness in Chrysippean Stoicism. Equally for Martineau, happiness does not feature

314 

W. JOHNCOCK

degrees of relative pleasure as we conventionally understand it but rather it is a universal mode that we either live or we do not. If we do not fulfill God’s intention for our happiness, our life, which will be “miserable, becomes opposition to his will” (Martineau 1838, 21; my emphasis). Martineau does not distinguish these states so emphatically simply to identify hypothetically respective sources of happiness and unhappiness. She instead wants to guide social science methods regarding the observation of such states. Her directive accordingly is that an observer should not maintain an objective distance from the subjects being observed but engender “sympathy” with them. Martineau here differentiates the coldness of a “student of geology or statistics” from the sociological observer who “must have sympathy” with their subjects (32). This sympathy is necessary to understanding how collective rules around morals and manners contribute to human happiness (32). Such rules according to Martineau when connected to personal sentiments “become religion” (32) in how they create (Create) or animate a collective sense of what being and acting as a human subject means. While happiness is a universal, it manifests in various ways in different social structures. It is therefore not simply happiness’s universality that gives it a religious mode for Martineau. Rather it is the juncture between happiness and socialized or ritualized protocols that forms a “religion [that] is the animating spirit of all that is said and done” (32). If the social scientist cannot make themselves available to how subjects ritually enact this concurrent universalization and culturalization they also cannot “sympathize in the sentiment” and hence “cannot understand the religion” (32). An observer who cannot understand the religion, as in the enacted rules and protocols of a society, will not appreciate why certain morals and manners have been socially normalized and not others. Or in Martineau’s words, a social scientist in such a mode “cannot appreciate the spirit of words and acts” (32). This spirit is at once universally and locally rationalized. From this I would like to consider whether a religiously infused definition of collectively or socially constructed orientations reconfigures the identity of the earlier identified “Creator” in Martineau’s thesis? For Chrysippus, as for Martineau, human happiness is a universal end that coheres with our Created preconditions. Part of the reason for the universality of happiness for Chrysippus concerns the Stoic belief that we are implicated in a universe in which God’s happiness and intention for our happiness pervades. God and a universe which “administers” our happiness are indeed interchangeable terms. Likewise for Martineau, God’s

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

315

intention for our happiness is universal. Martineau though identifies how this intention threads through a society’s rules which administer its peoples’ happiness. Could we therefore argue that for Martineau, God and society are terms which are as interchangeable as God and universe are for Chrysippus? In considering a response to this question we can firstly return to the Stoic perspective. For the Stoics there is the impression that our naturally virtuous good ends are interpersonally common and mutually beneficial ends. There is a communal reason for or benefit to our virtuous drive. We have reviewed this in eras spanning the early Greek Stoics through to the later Romans such as Marcus Aurelius. Marcus’ belief, for example, is that it is a natural end for all of us to be rationally directed toward each other’s interests or benefit; “each creature is made in the interest of another” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.16). Given that we are “born for community” according to Marcus it so follows that a key “good of a rational creature is community” (5.16). If Chrysippus was alive during Marcus’ era, he might have responded affirmatively to these words. I say this given how for Chrysippus we all together embody a universal inclination toward the mutually enacted goods of virtue and happiness. For Martineau human happiness is the primary social end. Morals and manners facilitate the production of human happiness collectively in that “it is found that the more pursuits and aims are multiplied, the more does the appreciation of human happiness expand, till it becomes the interest which predominates over all the rest” (Martineau 1838, 131). While therefore we know that human happiness is the fulfillment of the will of God in Martineau’s argument, we also see that this “will” is collectively and socially rationalized and regulated. As the will to happiness manifests in a particular way within a cultural or social context, all citizens within that jurisdiction manifest a novel but durable “fraternal spirit of society” (131). Martineau describes this socialized administering as a religious spirit that produces the clearest or most “vigorous” (131) form of human happiness. This further informs my suggested reading of Martineau’s correlation of social and theological elements. Religion for Martineau is a synthesis of socialized rules and our universal inclination for happiness. As a result, the Creator (Religion) of this inclination for happiness is not straightforwardly a transcendent God but is implicated in and as the social structure via which our universalized happiness manifests. This mirrors how for Chrysippus God intends our happiness and it pervades through a universe in which we manifest it.

316 

W. JOHNCOCK

Individual happiness for both Chrysippus and Martineau actualizes through a universal presence of happiness that is beyond the self. There are in both perspectives interpersonal or collegial and universal commonalities of happiness. It could even be that Chrysippus and Martineau bring our attention to the impersonal structures via which personal happiness supervenes on individuals. Individual happiness here speaks to a rationalization concurrently occurring beyond the self but with which the self is immersed.

Notes 1. Seneca’s application of negative visualization is apparent in “Consolation to Marcia.” Here Seneca writes to a woman stricken with grief for three years since the death of her son. Seneca’s advice concerns not only how to manage her current emotions but also how she can avoid grief in the future by anticipating the events that cause it (Seneca 2015b, 38–69). This is a specific example of the more general advice Seneca elsewhere offers to “hope for the best but prepare yourself for the worst” (Seneca 2015a, 24, 12). 2. See Epicurus’ physics which holds that the world is the product of chance/ accidental, atomic collisions (Epicurus 2005, 1–28). Sextus Empiricus later observes in Against the Physicists that the Epicurean characterization of worldly phenomena as accidental even applies to time. For Epicurus parts of time such as night, or a particular hour, no longer remain when other parts of time do. Sextus thus argues that for Epicurean time if “its parts in this way do not exist, nor can it exist itself. But let’s say there is day, and night hours do exist. Then, since these things are time, and Epicurus says that time is an accident of them, then time itself will, according to Epicurus, be an accident of itself” (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 2.C, 244). 3. For what a “supervened” state means regarding earlier reviewed notions of Stoic pantheism, see Levine (1994, 123). 4. For orthodox readings of this Stoic God-Nature equation, see Lapidge (1978, 163–164) or McDonough (2009, 109–110). George van Kooten offers the broader summation that what this refers to for the Stoics is that “physics is in the end interchangeable with theology” (Van Kooten 2003, 17). I explore contemporary concerns about the ramifications of pantheism for modern science in the “Physical Conditions” section of this book. 5. Commentators regularly identify Martineau as the first formal female sociologist. Kathy Stolley observes numerous such characterizations of Martineau as the “Mother of sociology” (Stolley 2005, 15). Not only did Martineau’s work address gender from a newly female voice, but she also

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

317

analyzed the interaction of gender and disability. Martineau’s deafness and other physical ailments for Mary Jo Deegan position Martineau’s work uniquely as representing “a woman’s standpoint and as a person with a disability” (Deegan  2003, 58). Martineau notably also introduces the social theory of Auguste Comte to the English-speaking world via her translation in The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (Comte 2009 (1853)). 6. On this point also see Martineau’s Household Education (1849) in which she laments the conditions of women’s education and associated socialized rules and feelings. 7. This concerns Bergson’s distinction between extensive and intensive magnitudes. Extensive magnitudes are for Bergson measurable and comparable, whereas intensive magnitudes are not (Bergson 1960 (1889), 3). In Chap. 3, we discussed this distinction regarding time. For this chapter’s concerns about emotion we can note how for Bergson intensive states, which he describes as “inner experiences” including “joy or sorrow” (7), have no measurable or comparable units. A stronger or weaker “intensive experience” of happiness appears to match spatial/extensive magnitudes. There are however no quantifiable units of happiness with which to measure it (3). We should therefore appreciate such intensive states as having progressively differing qualities but not as having simultaneously and mutually comparable quantities. Because intensive states reproduce each other, they are indiscernible and cannot be treated “as things which are set side by side” (8–9).

References Aristotle. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and New York: Penguin. Bergson, Henri. 1960 (1889). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by Frank Pogson. New  York: Harper Torchbooks. Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Boeri, Marcelo. 2009. Does Cosmic Nature Matter? In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 173–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Comte, Auguste. 2009 (1853). The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte. Edited and translated by Harriet Martineau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deegan, Mary Jo. 2003. Making Lemonade: Harriet Martineau on Being Deaf. In Harriet Martineau: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives, ed. Michael Hill and Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, 41–58. New York and London: Routledge.

318 

W. JOHNCOCK

Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers. Epictetus. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New  York: Dover Publications. ———. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. Epicurus. 2005. Letters and Sayings of Epicurus. Translated by Odysseus Makridis. New York: Barnes and Noble Books. Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Irvine, William. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jedan, Christoph. 2009. Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics. London and New York: Continuum. Lapidge, Michael. 1978. Stoic Cosmology. In The Stoics, ed. John Rist, 161–186. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. Levine, Michael. 1994. Pantheism, Ethics and Ecology. Environmental Values 3 (2): 121–138. Long, Anthony. 1999. Stoic Psychology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 560–584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mansfield, Jaap. 1999. Theology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 452–478. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. Martineau, Harriet. 1838. How to Observe Morals and Manners. London: Charles Knight & Co. ———. 1849. Household Education. London: Edward Moxon. McDonough, Sean. 2009. Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sedley, David. 2003. The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 7–32. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 2015a. Seneca: Letters on Ethics. Translated by Margaret Graver and Anthony Long. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 2015b. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations. Translated by Peter Anderson. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.

14  HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 

319

Sextus Empiricus. 2012. Against the Physicists. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stolley, Kathy. 2005. The Basics of Sociology. Westport and London: Greenwood Press. Striker, Gisela. 1996. Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Van Kooten, George. 2003. Cosmic Christology in Paul and the Pauline School: Colossians and Ephesians in the Context of Graeco-Roman Cosmology, with a New Synopsis of the Greek Texts. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

References

Adam, Barbara. 1993. Time and Environmental Crisis: An Exploration with Special Reference to Pollution. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 6 (4): 399–413. ———. 1998. Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. London: Routledge. Aikin, Scott, and Emily McGill-Rutherford. 2014. Stoicism, Feminism and Autonomy. Symposium 1 (1): 9–22. Algra, Keimpe. 2003. Stoic Theology. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 153–178. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Alter, Alexandra. 2016. Ryan Holiday Sells Stoicism as a Life Hack, Without Apology. The New  York Times, December 6. https://www.nytimes. com/2016/12/06/fashion/ryan-holiday-stoicism-american-apparel.html. Anderson, Ronald. 2017. Well-Being, Future Generations, and Prevention of Suffering from Climate Change. In Alleviating World Suffering. Social Indicators Research Series: Volume 67, ed. Ronald Anderson, 431–448. Cham: Springer. Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2007. Ethics in Stoic Philosophy. Phronesis 52 (1): 58–87. Aristotle. 1955. On the Cosmos. In On Sophistical Refutations. On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away. On the Cosmos, ed. T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E.  Warmington, 344–409. Translated by David Furley. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 1993. Physics. Books III and IV. Translated by Edward Hussey. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

© The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2

321

322 

References

———. 1995. Politics. Books I and II. Translated by Trevor Saunders. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1996. Physics. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New  York. Oxford University Press. ———. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and New York: Penguin. Arnold, Edward. 1911. Roman Stoicism: Being Lectures on the History of the Stoic Philosophy with Special Reference to Its Development Within the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arnot, Madeleine, Miriam David, and Gaby Weiner. 1999. Closing the Gender Gap: Postwar Education and Social Change. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Asmis, Elizabeth. 1996. The Stoics on Women. In Feminism and Ancient Philosophy, ed. Julie Ward, 68–92. New York: Routledge. Augustine of Hippo. 1961. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London and New York: Penguin. Babich, Babette. 1994. Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life. Albany: State University of New York Press. Baltzly, Dirk. 2003. Stoic Pantheism. Sophia 42 (2): 3–33. Barnes, Jonathan. 1999. Aristotle and Stoic Logic. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 23–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barthes, Roland. 1985. The Responsibility of Forms. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill & Wang. Bartlett, Jonathan, and Chris Frost. 2008. Reliability, Repeatability and Reproducibility: Analysis of Measurement Errors in Continuous Variables. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology 31: 466–475. Batuman, Elif. 2016. How to Be a Stoic. The New Yorker, December 19 & 26. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/how-to-be-astoic?utm_content=buffer3f614&utm_medium=social&utm_ source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer. Becker, Lawrence. 1998. A New Stoicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2004. Stoic Emotion. In Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 250–276. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2017. A New Stoicism: Revised Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bénatouïl, Thomas. 2009. How Industrious Can Zeus Be? The Extent and Objects of Divine Activity in Stoicism. In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 23–45. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Bergson, Henri. 1911 (1907). Creative Evolution. Translated by Arthur Mitchell. New York: Random House. ———. 1960 (1889). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by Frank Pogson. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

 References 

323

———. 1965 (1922). Duration and Simultaneity: With Reference to Einstein’s Theory. Translated by Leon Jacobson. Indianapolis; New  York; Kansas City: The Bobbs-­Merrill Company. ———. 2007 (1934). The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics. Translated by Mabelle Andison. New York: Dover Publications. Berry, Sarah. 2016. Why Stoicism Is Changing People’s Lives for the Better. The Sydney Morning Herald, February 10. http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/ why-stoicism-is-changing-peoples-lives-for-better-20160209-gmptyy.html. Blumenthal, Jeremy. 2005. Law and the Emotions. Indiana Law Journal 80 (20): 159–238. Bobonich, Christopher. 2010. Socrates and Eudaimonia. In The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, ed. Donald Morrison, 293–332. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Boeri, Marcelo. 2009. Does Cosmic Nature Matter? In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 173–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bonazzi, Mauro. 2017. The Platonist Appropriation of Stoic Epistemology. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 120–141. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990a (1980). The Logic of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 1990b. In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology. Translated by Matthew Adamson. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1996 (1989). The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Translated by Lauretta Clough. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bowen, Edwin. 1950. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius: A Condensation of a Paper. The Classical Outlook 27 (7): 77–79. Bowin, John. 2008. Plato and Aristotle on the Instant of Change—A Dilemma. In The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter: Binghamton University, 382. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/382. Bowler, Peter. 1989. Evolution: The History of an Idea. Berkeley; Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Brennan, Tad. 2005. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Brodkey, Linda, and Michelle Fine. 1992. Presence of Mind in the Absence of Body. In What Schools Can Do: Critical Pedagogy and Practice, ed. Kathleen Weiler and Candace Mitchell, 75–94. New  York: State University of New York Press. Brown, Kirk, and Richard Ryan. 2003. The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (4): 822–848.

324 

References

Brunt, P.A. 1977. From Epictetus to Arrian. Athenaeum 55: 19–48. Buck, Ross. 2002. The Genetics and Biology of True Love: Prosocial Biological Affects and the Left Hemisphere. Psychological Review 109 (4): 739–744. Burawoy, Michael. 2008. Open Letter to C.  Wright Mills. Antipode 40 (3): 365–375. Cameron, Euan. 1999. Editor’s Introduction. In Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History, ed. Euan Cameron, xvii–xxxi. Oxford and New  York: Oxford University Press. Cheney, Jim. 1989. The Neo-Stoicism of Radical Environmentalism. Environmental Ethics 11 (4): 293–325. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1914. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil). Translated by Harris Rackham. London and New York: William Heinemann and The Macmillan Company. ———. 1928. De Officiis (On Duties). Translated by Walter Miller. London and New York: William Heinemann Ltd. and G.P. Putnam’s Sons. ———. 1942. De Oratore Book III. De Fato. Paradoxa Stoicorum. De Partitione Oratoria. Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. ———. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1967b. Academica (On Academic Skepticism). Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. ———. 1991. In De Officiis (On Duties), ed. M. Griffin and E. Atkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2006. De Divinatione (On Divination). Translated by David Wardle. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cleanthes, and Johan Thom. 2005. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Comte, Auguste. 2009 (1853). The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte. Edited and translated by Harriet Martineau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Connell, Raewyn. 2014. Love, Fear and Learning in the Market University. Australian Universities Review 56 (2): 56–63. Cooper, John. 1998. Posidonius on Emotions. In The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-­Pedersen, 71–112. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. Cornford, Francis MacDonald. 1939. Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides’ Way of Truth and Plato’s Parmenides Translated with an Introduction and a Running Commentary. London and New York: Routledge.

 References 

325

Crawley, Jacqueline, Mary Sutton, and David Pickar. 1985. Animal Models of SelfDestructive Behavior and Suicide. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 8 (2): 299–310. Crossley, Nick. 2005. Sociology and the Body. In The Handbook of Sociology, ed. Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, and Bryan Turner, 442–456. London; New Delhi; Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Curran, Giorel. 2009. Ecological Modernisation and Climate Change in Australia. Environmental Politics 18 (2): 201–217. Darwin, Charles. 2008 (1859). On the Origin of the Species. Edited by Gillian Beer. New York: Oxford University Press. Davis, James. 2010. In Defense of Civility: How Religion Can Unite America on Seven Moral Issues. Louisville and Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. De Ste. Croix, G.E.M. 1981. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. London: Duckworth. Deegan, Mary Jo. 2003. Making Lemonade: Harriet Martineau on Being Deaf. In Harriet Martineau: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives, ed. Michael Hill and Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, 41–58. New York and London: Routledge. Deleuze, Gilles. 1990 (1969). The Logic of Sense. Edited by Constantin Boundas. Translated by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. New  York: Columbia University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1976 (1967). Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Spivak. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. ———. 1982 (1972). Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Desai, Panache. 2014. Are You Present in Your Life? Banish Busyness and Start Living Your Soul Signature. HuffPost, September 14. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/panache-desai/are-you-present-in-your-l_b_5588670.html. Descartes, René. 1968 (1641). Meditations. Translated by F.  Sutcliffe. London and New York: Penguin Books. ———. 1993 (1641). Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated. Translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 1998 (1637). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Digeser, Paige. 2016. Friendship Reconsidered: What It Means and How It Matters to Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Dillon, James. 2004. Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life: A Model of Teaching and Living Virtue. Dallas; Lanham; Boulder; New  York; Oxford: University Press of America. Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Charles Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn Publishers.

326 

References

Douglas, Jack. 1967. The Social Meanings of Suicide. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Drengson, Alan. 2012. Some Thought on the Deep Ecology Movement. Foundation for Deep Ecology. http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm. Dudley, Donald. 1937. A History of Cynicism: From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. Dudley, Susan, and Amanda Fine. 2007. Kin Recognition in an Annual Plant. Biology Letters 22 (3–4): 435–438. Durham, Ian. 2007. Posidonius. In Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey, 927–928. New York: Springer-Verlag. Durkheim, Émile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by George Catlin. Translated by Sarah Solovay & John Mueller. New York: The Free Press. ———. 1952 (1897). Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Edited by George Simpson. Translated by John Spaulding and George Simpson. London and New York: Routledge. ———. 1974 (1898). Individual and Collective Representations. In Sociology and Philosophy, 1–34. Translated by D. Pocock. New York: The Free Press. ———. 1995 (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: Simon and Schuster. ———. 1997 (1893). The Division of Labour in Society. Translated by Lewis Coser. New York. The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile, and Marcel Mauss. 1967 (1903). Primitive Classification. Translated by Rodney Needham. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dyson, Henry. 2009. The God Within: The Normative Self in Epictetus. History of Philosophy Quarterly 26 (3): 235–253. Easter, Anna. 2000. Construct Analysis of Four Modes of Being Present. Journal of Holistic Nursing 18 (4): 362–377. Eliasson, Erik. 2008. The Notion of That Which Depends on Us in Plotinus and Its Background. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Engel, David. 2000. The Gender Egalitarianism of Musonius Rufus. Ancient Philosophy 20: 377–391. Engels, Friedrich. 1987 (1845). The Condition of the Working Class in England. Translated by Florence Wischnewetzky. London and New York: Penguin. Ensor, Bradley. 2013. The Archaeology of Kinship: Advancing Interpretation and Contributions to Theory. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Epictetus. 1916. The Discourses and the Manual: Together with His Writings. Translated by Percy Ewing Matheson. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1961. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments. Edited by T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E. Warmington. Translated by William Oldfather. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.

 References 

327

———. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New  York: Dover Publications. ———. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin. Oxford: Penguin Classics. ———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Epicurus. 2005. Letters and Sayings of Epicurus. Translated by Odysseus Makridis. New York: Barnes and Noble Books. Erskine, Andrew. 1990. The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Evans, Jules. 2014. The Stoic Mayor. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 87–93. CreateSpace. Farren, Jen. 2014. Stoicism & Star Trek. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 196–200. CreateSpace. Felski, Rita. 2000. Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture. New York: New York University Press. Fisher, Chris. 2016. The Path of the Prokopton—The Discipline of Desire. Traditional Stoicism, January 4. http://www.traditionalstoicism.com/ the-path-of-the-prokopton-the-discipline-of-desire/. Fletcher, John, and Andrew Benjamin (ed.). 1990. Abjection, Melancholia, and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva: Volume 4. London and New York: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 1977 (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House. ———. 1985 (1984). The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality Volume 3. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin. Fränkel, Hermann. 1938. Heraclitus on God and the Phenomenal World. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 69: 230–244. Frede, Michael. 1999. Stoic Epistemology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 295–322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freud, Sigmund. 1949 (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press. ———. 1989 (1930). Civilization and Its Discontents. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London and New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc. ———. 2006. Letter to Romain Rolland (A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis). In The Penguin Freud Reader, ed. Adam Phillips, 68–76. London and New York: Penguin. Fridman, Ruth. 2000. The Maternal Womb: The First Musical School for the Baby. Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health 15 (1): 23–30.

328 

References

Game, Ann, and Andrew Metcalfe. 1996. Passionate Sociology. London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage Publications. Geiger, Joseph. 1979. Munatius Rufus and Thrasea Paetus on Cato the Younger. Athenaeum 57: 48–72. Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan. ———. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 1995. Politics, Sociology and Social Theory: Encounters with Classical and Contemporary Social Thought. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gildenhard, Ingo. 2011. Creative Eloquence: The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gill, Christopher. 1996. Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1998. Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions? In The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-­ Pedersen, 113–148. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. ———. 2003. The School in the Roman Imperial Period. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 33–58. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2007a. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: How Stoic and How Platonic? In Platonic Stoicism—Stoic Platonism: The Dialogue between Platonism and Stoicism in Antiquity, ed. Mauro Bonazzi and Christoph Helmig, 189–208. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ———. 2007b. Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers. Phronesis 52 (1): 88–120. ———. 2010. Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016. Stoicism and the Environment. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 119–126. CreateSpace. Goldhill, Oliva. 2016. Silicon Valley Tech Workers Are Using an Ancient Philosophy Designed for Greek Slaves as a Life Hack. Quartz, December 17. https://qz.com/866030/stoicism-silicon-valley-tech-workers-are-readingryan-holiday-to-use-an-ancient-philosophy-as-a-life-hack/. Grahn-Wilder, Malin. 2018. Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Graver, Margaret. 2007. Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Greene, John. 1977. Darwin as a Social Evolutionist. Journal of the History of Biology 10: 1–27. Greene, Maxine. 1984. The Art of Being Present: Educating for Aesthetic Encounters. The Journal of Education 166 (2): 123–135.

 References 

329

Grosz, Elizabeth. 1999. Becoming…An Introduction. In Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory and Futures, ed. Elizabeth Grosz, 1–12. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Hankinson, R.J. 1999. Explanation and Causation. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 479–512. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, Martin. 1968. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Heidegger, Martin. 1962 (1929). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Translated by James Churchill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2010 (1927). Being and Time. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany: State University of New York Press. Helmstetter, Shad. 1982. What to Say When You Talk to Your Self. New  York; London; Toronto; Sydney: Pocket Books. Heraclitus of Ephesus. 1889. The Fragments of the Work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature. Translated by G. Patrick. Baltimore: Isaac Friedenwald. Hesiod. 1982. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Translated by Hugh EvelynWhite. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hierocles. 2009. Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts. Edited by Ilaria Ramelli. Translated by Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Hill, Rebecca. 2012. The Interval: Relation and Becoming in Irigaray, Aristotle, and Bergson. New York: Fordham University Press. Hochschild, Arlie. 1979. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. ———. 1983. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. London and New York: University of California Press. Holiday, Ryan. 2014. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumphs. New York: Penguin. Holland, Alan. 1997. Fortitude and Tragedy: The Prospects for a Stoic Environmentalism. In The Greeks and the Environment, ed. Laura Westra and Thomas Robinson, 151–166. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Holy, Ladislav. 1996. Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor Adorno. 2002 (1947). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Howatson, M.C. (ed.). 2013. A‘rrian. In The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature: Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hume, David. 1998 (1779). Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, with; Of the Immortality of the Soul; Of Suicide; Of Miracles. Edited by Richard Popkin. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.

330 

References

Inglis, David. 2014. Cosmopolitanism’s Sociology and Sociology’s Cosmopolitanism: Retelling the History of Cosmopolitan Theory from Stoicism to Durkheim and Beyond. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 15 (1): 69–87. Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2005. Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2017. The Legacy of Musonius Rufus. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-­Pedersen, 254–276. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Inwood, Brad, and Pierluigi Donini. 1999. Stoic Ethics. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 675–738. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson (ed. and trans.). 1994. The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. ———. 2008. The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Irvine, William. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2011. Editor’s Preface. In Musonius Rufus: Lectures & Sayings, ed. William Irvine, 9–12. Translated by Cynthia King. CreateSpace. ———. 2015. Putting the Greek Back into Stoicism. BBC News, July 3. https:// www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33346743. Jackson-McCabe, Matt. 2005. The Stoic Theory of Implanted Preconceptions. Phronesis 49 (4): 323–347. Jedan, Christoph. 2009. Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics. London and New York: Continuum. Jenkins, Richard. 1982. Pierre Bourdieu and the Reproduction of Determinism. Sociology 16 (2): 270–281. Johncock, Will. 2011. The Experimental Flesh: Incarnation in Terms of Quantum Measurement and Phenomenological Perception. Phenomenology and Practice 5 (1): 140–154. ———. 2019. Naturally Late: Synchronization in Socially Constructed Times. Lanham and London: Rowman and Littlefield International. Johnsen, Hans. 2014. The New Natural Resource: Knowledge Development, Society and Economics. London and New York: Routledge. Johnson, Ryan. 2017. On the Surface: The Deleuze-Stoicism Encounter. In Contemporary Encounters with Ancient Metaphysics, ed. Abraham Greenstine and Ryan Johnson, 270–288. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Jones, Madeleine. 2014. Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius: Hypocrisy as a Way of Life. In Seneca Philosophus, ed. Jula Wildberger and Marcia Colish, 393–430. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.

 References 

331

Keller, Evelyn. 1985. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kelsen, Hans. 1945. General Theory of Law and State. Translated by Anders Wedberg. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Ker, James. 2011. A Seneca Reader: Selections from Prose and Tragedy. Mundelein: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. Konstantakos, Leonidas. 2016. Would a Stoic Save the Elephants. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 127–140. CreateSpace. Kourany, Janet. 2012. Feminist Critiques: Harding and Longino. In Philosophy of Science, ed. James Brown, 236–254. London and New York: Continuum. Kristeva, Julia. 1980 (1977). Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Edited by Leon Roudiez. Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1981. Women’s Time. Translated by Alice Jardine and Harry Blake. Signs 7 (1): 13–35. ———. 1982. Psychoanalysis and the Polis. Translated by Margaret Waller. Critical Inquiry 9 (1): 77–92. Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lampe, Kurt. 2016. Kristeva, Stoicism, and the “True Life of Interpretations”. SubStance 45 (1): 22–43. Lapidge, Michael. 1978. Stoic Cosmology. In The Stoics, ed. John Rist, 161–186. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. LeBon, Tim. 2014. Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology. London: Hodder & Stoughton. LeGates, Marlene. 2001. In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society. London and New York: Routledge. Leib, Ethan. 2011. Friend v Friend. The Transformation of Friendship—And What the Law Has to Do with It. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Levine, Michael. 1994. Pantheism, Ethics and Ecology. Environmental Values 3 (2): 121–138. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963 (1958). Structural Anthropology. Translated by Claire Jacobson and Brooke Schoepf. New York: Basic Books. ———. 1966 (1962). The Savage Mind. Translated by George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. Letchworth: The Garden City Press Limited. ———. 1969 (1949). The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Translated by James Bell, John Richard von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham. Boston: Beacon Press. ———. 1992 (1955). Tristes Tropiques. Translated by John Weightman and Doreen Weightman. London and New York: Penguin Books. Long, Anthony. 1968. The Stoic Concept of Evil. Philosophical Quarterly 18 (73): 329–343. ———. 1996. Stoic Studies. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press.

332 

References

———. 1999. Stoic Psychology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 560–584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2004. The Socratic Imprint on Epictetus’ Philosophy. In Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 10–31. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2006. From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2013. Plato and the Stoics on Limits, Parts and Wholes. In Plato and the Stoics, ed. Andrew Long, 80–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2018. Stoicisms Ancient and Modern by Tony (A.A.) Long. Modern Stoicism, October 6. https://modernstoicism.com/stoicisms-ancient-andmodern-by-tony-a-a-long/. Long, Anthony, and David Sedley (ed. and trans.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maccoby, Eleanor. 1992. The Role of Parents in the Socialization of Children: An Historical Overview. Development Psychology 28 (6): 1006–1017. Maclean, Paul. 1959. The Limbic System with Respect to Self-­Preservation and the Preservation of the Species. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 127 (1): 1–11. Mansfield, Jaap. 1999. Theology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 452–478. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus Aurelius. 1964. Meditations. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin Books. ———. 2002. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New  York: The Modern Library. ———. 2011. Meditations (with Selected Correspondence). Translated by Robin Hard. Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill. New  York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 2002 (1964). One-­Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London and New York: Routledge. Marquis, Timothy. 2013. Transient Apostle: Paul, Travel, and the Rhetoric of Empire. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Martineau, Harriet. 1838. How to Observe Morals and Manners. London: Charles Knight & Co. ———. 1849. Household Education. London: Edward Moxon. Marx, Karl. 1976 (1867). Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy. London and New York: Penguin Books.

 References 

333

———. 1981 (1894). Capital: Volume 3: A Critique of Political Economy. London and New York: Penguin Books. Massey, Heath. 2010. On the Verge of Being and Time: Before Heidegger’s Dismissal of Bergson. Philosophy Today 54 (2): 138–152. McDonough, Kathleen. 2015. Performing Critical Consciousness in Teaching: Entanglements of Knowing, Feeling and Relating. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl e=1383&context=dissertations_2. McDonough, Sean. 2009. Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. McMichael, Anthony. 1993. Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. Cambridge; New  York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Mead, George. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2002 (1932). The Philosophy of the Present. New York: Prometheus Books. Moore, Wilbert. 1966. Global Sociology: The World as a Singular System. American Journal of Sociology 71 (5): 475–482. Morgan, Lewis. 1871. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution. Morrow, Susan. 2005. Quality and Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research Counseling Psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology 52 (2): 250–260. Musonius Rufus. 2011. Musonius Rufus: Lectures & Sayings. Edited by William Irvine. Translated by Cynthia King. CreateSpace. Naess, Arne. 1995. The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary. In The Deep Ecology Movement, ed. Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue, 3–10. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Nicholls, Robert, Frank Hoozemans, and Marcel Marchand. 1999. Increasing Flood Risk and Wetland Losses Due to Global Sea-Level Rise: Regional and Global Analyses. Global Environmental Change 9 (1): 69–87. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1995 (1886). The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music. London and New York: Penguin. Nock, Arthur. 1959. Posidonius. The Journal of Roman Studies 49 (1–2): 1–15. Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2002. The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman. In The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, 283–326. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. O’Donovan, Katherine. 1989. Engendering Justice: Women’s Perspectives and the Rule of Law. The University of Toronto Law Journal 29 (2): 127–148. Obbink, Dirk. 1999. The Stoic Sage in the Cosmic City. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 178–195. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

334 

References

Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. 2014. The Theory of Language Socialization. In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ed. Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi Schieffelin. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Orange, Donna. 2013. A Pre-Cartesian Self. Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology 8 (4): 488–494. Owen, Huw Parri. 1971. Concepts of Deity. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. Papadelos, Pam. 2010. From Revolution to Deconstruction: Exploring Feminist Theory and Practice in Australia. Bern: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers. Parry, Richard. 1996. Morality and Happiness: Book IV of Plato’s Republic. The Journal of Education 178 (3): 31–47. Pascal, Blaise. 1958 (1670). Pascal’s Pensées. Translated by W.F. Trotter. New York: E.P. Dutton. Pearce, David. 1987. Foundations of an Ecological Economics. Ecological Modelling 38 (1–2): 9–18. Piaget, Jean. 1952. The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International Universities Press Inc. Pigliucci, Massimo. 2015 How to Be a Stoic. The New York Times, February 2. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/how-to-be-a-stoic/. ———. 2016. Foreword. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, viii–xiv. CreateSpace. ———. 2017a. How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. New York: Basic Books. ———. 2017b. What Do I Disagree about with the Ancient Stoics? How to Be a Stoic, December 26. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/12/26/ what-do-i-disagree-about-with-the-ancient-stoics/. ———. 2017c. Becker’s A New Stoicism, II: The Way Things Stand, Part 1. How to Be a Stoic, September 9. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress. com/2017/09/29/beckers-a-new-stoicism-ii-the-way-things-stand-part-1/. ———. 2018. The Growing Pains of the Stoic Movement. How to Be a Stoic, June 5. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2018/06/05/ the-growing-pains-of-the-stoic-movement/. Pigliucci, Massimo, and Gregory Lopez. 2019. A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control. New York: The Experiment Publishing. Plato. 1864. Plato’s Gorgias. Translated by E.M.  Cope. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co. ———. 1871. Sophist. In The Dialogues of Plato: Volume IV, 281–408. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. London: Oxford University Press. ———. 1977. Phaedo. Translated by George Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 1980. Meno. Translated by George Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

 References 

335

———. 1995. Phaedrus. Translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 1996. Parmenides. Translated by Albert Whitaker. Indianapolis: Focus Publishing. ———. 2002. Apology. In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Translated by George M.A.  Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2008a. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2008b. The Symposium. Edited by M.C. Howatson and Frisbee Sheffield. Translated by M.C.  Howatson. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York: Penguin Books. Plêse, Zlatko. 2010. Plato and Parmenides in Agreement: Ammonius’s Praise of God as One-­Being in Plutarch’s The E at Delphi. In Plato’s Parmenides and Its Heritage: Volume 1: History and Interpretation from the Old Academy to Later Platonism and Gnosticism, ed. John Turner and Kevin Corrigan, 93–114. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Popper, Karl. 2002 (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York. Routledge. Porpora, Douglas. 2015. Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Posidonius of Rhodes. 1999. Posidonius: Volume III: The Translation of the Fragments. Edited by J. Diggle, N. Hopkinson, J. Powell, M. Reeve, D. Sedley, and R. Tarrant. Translated by I.G. Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pratt, Norman. 1983. Seneca’s Drama. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press. Protevi, John. 1994. Time and Exteriority: Aristotle, Heidegger, Derrida. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 1997. Posidonius and the Timaeus: Off to Rhodes and Back to Plato? The Classical Quarterly 47 (2): 455–476. ———. 1999. Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus. Turnhout: Brepols. ———. 2005. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 2010. Philosophy and Education in Stoicism of the Roman Imperial Era. Oxford Review of Education 36 (5): 561–574. ———. 2011. Authority and Agency in Stoicism. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51: 296–322.

336 

References

———. 2017. “Becoming like God” in Platonism and Stoicism. In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-­ Pedersen, 142–158. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Rice-Oxley, Mark. 2017. How to Escape the Overthinking Trap: Stop Judging Yourself. The Guardian, January 16. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/16/escape-overthinking-trap-stop-juding-yourself. Rist, John. 1969. Stoic Philosophy. London and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Robertson, Donald. 2010. The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books. ———. 2013. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. London: Teach Yourself. ———. 2014. Stoics Are Not Unemotional! In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 33–36. CreateSpace. ———. 2018. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Russell, Bertrand. 1943. An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity. Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications. Salles, Richardo. 2009. Chrysippus on Conflagration and the Indestructibility of the Cosmos. In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo Salles, 118–134. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sambursky, Samuel. 1959. Physics of the Stoics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Schibli, Hermann. 2002. Hierocles of Alexandria. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Schneider, David. 1984. A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Schofield, Malcolm. 2003. Stoic Ethics. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 233–256. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Schütz, Alfred. 1967 (1932). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Translated by George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Schwartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Schwartz, Sean. 2001. Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Seddon, Keith. 2005. Epictetus’ Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living. London and New York: Routledge. Sedley, David. 1999a. Hellenistic Physics and Metaphysics. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm Schofield, 355–411. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1999b. The Stoic-Platonist Debate on Kathêkonta. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou, 128–152. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

 References 

337

———. 2003. The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus. In The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 7–32. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Sellars, John. 2006. Stoicism. London and New York: Routledge. ———. 2009. The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (Second Edition). London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury. ———. 2016a. Stoicism and Emotions. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II, ed. Patrick Ussher, 43–48. CreateSpace. ———. 2016b. Introduction. In The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, ed. John Sellars, 1–14. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 1962. Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales: Volume 1. Edited and translated by Richard Gummere. London and Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. ———. 1969. Letters from a Stoic. Edited and translated by Robin Campbell. London and New York: Penguin. ———. 1997. On the Shortness of Life. Translated by Charles Costa. London and New York: Penguin. ———. 2015a. Seneca: Letters on Ethics. Translated by Margaret Graver and Anthony Long. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 2015b. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations. Translated by Peter Anderson. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Sextus Empiricus. 1933. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Translated by R.G.  Bury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1949. Sextus Empiricus IV: Against the Professors. Translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2000. Outlines of Scepticism. Edited and translated by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2005. Against the Logicians. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Against the Physicists. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seyppel, Joachim. 1956. A Criticism of Heidegger’s Time Concept with Reference to Bergson’s “Durée”. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 10 (34): 503–508. Shapiro, Ed, and Deb Shapiro. 2011. Are You Here? Are You Now? Are You Present? HuffPost, November 17. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-anddeb-shapiro/mindfulness-meditation-ar_b_610500.html. Sharpe, Matthew. 2014. How It’s Not the Chrisippus You Read: On Cooper, Hadot, Epictetus, and Stoicism as a Way of Life. Philosophy Today 58 (3): 367–392. ———. 2017. Stoicism 5.0: The Unlikely 21st Century Reboot of an Ancient Philosophy. The Conversation, July 13. https://theconversation.com/ stoicism-5-0-the-unlikely-21st-centur y-reboot-of-an-ancient-philosophy-80986.

338 

References

Shils, Edward. 1970. Tradition, Ecology, and Institution in the History of Sociology. Daedalus 99 (4): 760–825. Simplicius. 2014. Simplicius: On Epictetus Handbook 1–26. Translated by Charles Brittain, and Tad Brennan. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Snow, Charles Percy. 1998 (1959). The Two Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sorabji, Richard. 2000. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2006. Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. Chicago and Oxford: The University of Chicago Press. Spencer, Herbert. 1861. Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical. New York: A.L. Burt Company Publishers. ———. 1864. The Principles of Biology: Volume 1. Edinburgh and London: Williams and Norgate. ———. 1883. Social Statics: Or the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and One of Them Adopted. New York: D. Appleton and Company. ———. 1969. The Man Versus the State. Edited by Donald Macrae. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ———. 1981. The Proper Sphere of Government. In The Man Versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack, 181–264. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics. Stankiewicz, Piotr. 2017. Modern Stoicism and the Responsibility for the Global Polis. Studies in Global Ethics and Global Education 8: 54–62. Stanton, G.R. 1968. The Cosmopolitan Ideas of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Phronesis 13 (2): 183–195. Starr, Chester. 1949. Epictetus and the Tyrant. Classical Philology 44 (1): 20–29. Stephens, William. 1994. Stoic Naturalism, Rationalism, and Ecology. Environmental Ethics 16 (3): 275–286. ———. 2007. Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. London: Continuum. ———. 2012. Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. ———. 2014. Epictetus on Beastly Vices and Animal Virtues. In Epictetus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance, ed. Dane Gordon and David Suits, 207–239. New York: RIT Press. Stolley, Kathy. 2005. The Basics of Sociology. Westport and London: Greenwood Press. Strang, Colin, and K.W.  Mills. 1974. Plato and the Instant. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 48: 63–96. Striker, Gisela. 1996. Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Thomassen, Bjørn. 2012. Émile Durkheim between Gabriel Tarde and Arnold van Gennep: Founding Moments of Sociology and Anthropology. Social Anthropology 20 (3): 231–249. Tieleman, Teun. 1996. Galen and Chrysippus on the Soul: Argument and Refutation in the De Placitis Books II-III. Leiden; New York; Koln: Brill.

 References 

339

Tzamalikos, Panayiotis. 2006. Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time. Leiden and Boston: Brill. UNESCO. 2013. Education for All Global Monitoring Reporting: Girls’ Education—The Facts. http://en.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/gem-report/ files/girls-factsheet-en.pdf. Ussher, Patrick (ed.). 2014. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I. CreateSpace. ———. 2016. Stoicism Today: Selected Writings II. CreateSpace. Van Kooten, George. 2003. Cosmic Christology in Paul and the Pauline School: Colossians and Ephesians in the Context of Graeco-Roman Cosmology, with a New Synopsis of the Greek Texts. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Vernon, Mark, and Tim LeBon. 2014. The Debate: Do You Need God to Be a Stoic? Modern Stoicism, November 26. https://modernstoicism.com/ the-debate-do-you-need-god-to-be-a-stoic/. Von Arnim, Hans. 2016. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta: Volumes 1–4. Eugene: Wipf and Stock. Weber, Max. 1949. The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Edited and translated by Edward Shils & Henry Finch. Glencoe: The Free Press of Glencoe. ———. 1978. The Nature of Social Action. In Weber: Selections in Translation, ed. Walter Runciman, 7–32. Translated by Eric Matthews. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2004. The Vocation Lectures. Edited by David Owen and Tracy Strong. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Weisberg, D. Kelly. 1977. Barred from the Bar: Women and Legal Education in the United States 1870–1890. Journal of Legal Education 28 (4): 485–507. White, Nicholas. 2002. Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Whiting, Kai, and Leonidas Konstantakos. 2019. Stoic Theology: Revealing or Redundant. Religions 10 (3): 193. Whiting, Kai, Leonidas Konstantakos, Angeles Carrasco, and Luis Gabriel Carmona. 2018. Sustainable Development, Wellbeing and Material Consumption: A Stoic Perspective. Sustainability 10 (2): 474. Wilson, Peter. 2014. Introduction. In A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Peter Wilson, 1–8. Malden; Oxford; Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Worland, Justin. 2016. How Climate Change Unfairly Burdens Poorer Countries. Time, February 6. http://time.com/4209510/climate-change-poorcountries/. Yamada, Teri. 2010. Restructuring the California State University: A Call to Action. Thought and Action Fall 2010: 91–106. Yeandle, Heidi. 2017. Angela Carter and Western Philosophy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Alfred Pearson. 1891. The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes: With Introduction and Explanatory Notes. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.

Index1

A Active/passive, 61, 151–152, 176–177, 183–184 See also Bodies; Causation; Fire Adam, Barbara climate change, 144–148, 160–161, 163, 167n6 time, 146–148, 160, 166n4 Annas, Julia, 245, 296n7 Appropriate acts, 75–76, 81–82, 102–103, 165, 194, 209n6 See also Ends/goods; Nature; Self-preservation Aristotelianism vs. Stoicism, 6, 37n6, 38n8, 63n5, 75, 187n8, 208n2, 310 happiness for, 11n1, 80 time for, 47–50, 52–54, 56–57, 64n9, 64n11 Aristotle celestial bodies, 45–47, 64n7 community, 206, 208n2

ends/goods, 311 God and eternity, 48, 49, 53 happiness and virtue, 10–11, 80–82 order, 38n8 rationality, 37n6 time, 45–49, 51–54, 56, 64n7, 65n12, 65n13, 66n17, 66n18 void, 187n8 B Baltzly, Dirk, 150–153, 155 Barnes, Jonathan, 63n5, 101 Becker, Lawrence, 37n4, 149–151, 205, 209n6 Belonging, 58–60, 62, 182–185 Bergson, Henri-Louis, 66n15 extension, 55–58, 60, 66n16, 66n17, 317n7 happiness, 317n7 intensive, 55, 58–60, 62, 317n7 time, 55–62, 66n16, 66n17, 66n18

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2

341

342 

INDEX

Blessing, see Obstacle Bobzien, Susanne, 28, 39n15 Bodies, 44, 174, 176, 187n8, 187n12, 194, 248n5, 273n2 are causal, 173–178, 180, 183–184 are continuous, 61–62 and emotion/desire, 255, 266, 269 are external to control, 18, 21, 110, 185n2, 310 and God, 152, 164 and incorporeality, 48, 49, 177, 180, 184–185, 186n6, 186n8 and labor, 284, 292, 296n8 as parts, 76, 215 are social/structural, 138n8, 180–183, 185, 237–238, 246, 248n6 See also Active/passive; Causation; Celestial bodies; Incorporeal; Soul; Virtue Bourdieu, Pierre causation and habitus, 138n8, 178–185 materialist, 187n14 Breath, see Active/passive Brennan, Tad, 7, 209n6, 283 C Cato, 91n6 community, 77, 90 happiness, 82 knowledge, 87 self-preservation and hormé, 73–75, 77, 82, 86 suicide, 85 Causation, 38n6, 113, 157, 185n1, 311 bodily, 173, 177–178, 180, 181, 183–185 of climate change, 144–145, 147, 148, 162 emotion and, 261, 262, 267, 271, 282, 286, 299, 316n1

God’s, 32, 47, 49, 88, 164, 176–177 ordered, 20, 23, 158, 181, 183 of self-preservation, 71, 74 socialized, 24, 27, 28, 30, 136, 179, 183–185 See also Active/passive; Bodies; Fire; Order; Self-preservation; Whole Celestial bodies, 20, 38n8, 45–48, 143, 165, 239 See also Bodies Chrysippus, 9, 45, 63n5, 121, 206 appropriate acts, 75 causation, 138n7 community, 304–305, 309, 314–316 conflagration, 63n4, 187n8 continuum, 50–54, 59–62 extension, 49–50, 56 happiness and ends/goods, 228n6, 301–305, 308–316 pantheism, 20, 49–50, 61, 152, 245, 248n3, 304–305, 308, 312, 316n3 rationality, 37n4, 276n14, 313 reason vs. emotion, 256–260, 265, 269, 275n12 self-dependence, 28, 39n15 self-preservation, 74 time, 47–54, 56–62, 64n11 void, 186n8 Cicero, 28, 72, 91n4, 149 bodies, 175 community, 77, 89 daimon, 32 happiness, 295n1 knowledge, 89, 103, 107, 115n9 nature, 74–76, 83, 85, 87, 90 pantheism, 50, 167n7, 177, 187n11, 312 self-preservation, 72–77, 83, 85–86, 89, 91n5, 275n9 Cleanthes, 9, 45, 63n3, 121 city and justice, 244–246

 INDEX 

conflagration, 63n4 happiness, 301 pantheism, 149, 167n8, 167n10, 245–246 reason vs. emotion, 258 self-control, 282 virtue, 295n1 Climate change, 99, 143–147, 150, 156, 159–162, 166n1, 166n3, 167n6 and rationality, 162–166 See also Causation; Ecology/ environment; Nature; Rationality Community, 77, 78, 133, 178, 182, 198, 206, 236, 237, 289, 304–305, 308–312 born for, 2, 4, 17, 234, 243, 315 universe, 239–246, 307, 315 See also Family; Kinship; Whole Comte, Auguste, 11n8, 39n12, 317n5 Conception, see Preconception Conflagration, 63n4, 187n8 Continuum, 187n8, 248n3 material, 60–62 time, 44, 50–53, 56, 58–62, 66n16 Control, see Bodies; Emotional labor; Health; Knowledge; Rationality; Self-preservation Cynics, 4 D Daimon, 31–36, 39n17, 89, 275n11, 309, 313 Death, 267 from extinction, 144–147, 166n3 rationalization of, 35, 86, 122–123, 138n6, 160–163, 166, 281, 300, 310, 316n1 and self-preservation, 84 via suicide, 27 See also Fear; Suicide

343

Deleuze, Gilles, 60 Derrida, Jacques, 65n13, 210n9 Descartes, René, 38n7, 38n9, 185n2 Diogenes Laërtius, 63n3, 91n8, 92n13, 244 active/passive, 61, 152, 176 bodies, 182, 187n12 daimon, 32 fire, 168n14 gender, 227n3 happiness, 228n6, 304, 309, 312 knowledge, 103 pantheism, 20, 61, 152, 176, 304 part-whole universal relations, 307, 308 rationality, 37n4 self-preservation, 74, 75 virtue, 302 Duration, see Intensive; Time Durkheim, Émile, 39n12, 39n13 bodies, 236–238, 248n6 collective consciousness and social order, 22–27, 29–30, 35, 130 freedom, 27–31 religion, 22, 209n7 social facts, 23–29, 133–136, 264, 276n18 structuralism, 26–31, 126–128, 209n7 suicide, 25, 27–30, 91n2, 127, 138n9 E Ecology/environment, 88, 120, 234, 238–242 human impact on the, 143–148, 160, 166n1, 166n2, 166n3, 167n6 Stoicism and the, 148–149, 151, 153–156, 161–166 See also Climate change; Nature

344 

INDEX

Education, 8, 11n6, 37n3, 63n2, 63n4, 121, 125, 132, 214, 227n3, 228n4, 263, 274n6 access for women to, 214, 216–219, 221, 223, 225–226, 227n2, 227n3, 317n6 Meno’s paradox and, 115n5 rationality and, 262 as self-preservation, 83–86, 89 social/informal, 23, 24, 102 training preconceptions via, 102, 109, 110 See also Rationality; Self-­ preservation; Training Emotion, see Causation; Emotional labor; Intensive; Rationality; Soul; Training Emotional labor, 284–293, 296n4, 296n5 See also Rationality; Time; Training Ends/goods, 38n10, 87, 102, 109, 125, 155, 163, 234, 240, 245, 282, 295n3 as happiness, 11n1, 79–82, 228n6, 301–304, 306, 308–309, 312–315 judgements of, 22, 108 of self-preservation, 72–76, 78, 89–90 See also Appropriate acts; Happiness; Nature; Self-­ preservation; Virtue Epictetus, 37n3, 39n14, 39n18, 160, 227n3, 228n5, 295n3 community, 234, 296n9 control, 21–22, 30–31, 38n9, 110, 243, 279–285, 289–294, 295n1 daimon, 33–36 emotional labor, 284–293 freedom, 21, 28, 35, 37n5 indifference, 25, 38n10, 280–289, 292–294, 295n3

internal vs. external to self, 19, 22, 24–36, 215, 274n5, 279–289, 292–294 ladder of existence, 19, 154–155 negative visualization, 300 pantheism, 18–20, 33–36, 153, 300 philosophy as practice/life, 22, 39n11, 214, 280 rational nature, 17–20, 32–36, 38n8, 102–111, 136n2, 154–155, 220, 234, 283, 290, 296n7 reason vs. emotion, 255, 274n5, 274n7 training, 281–286, 292 Epicureans, 4, 82, 122, 168n15, 300, 316n2 Eternal, 45–49, 53, 66n14, 89, 152, 176–177, 220 See also Present; Time Ethics, see Appropriate acts; Ecology/ environment; Rationality; Value; Virtue Eudaimonia, see Happiness Extension, see Bodies; Continuum; Time F Falsifiability, see Science Family, 136n1, 194–199, 204–206, 208n1, 227n3, 241, 243 philosophy serving the, 217–219 See also Community; Kinship Fear, 21–22, 122–124, 128, 160, 162, 256, 260, 280–283 See also Death Fire, 152, 168n14 See also Active/passive; Causation Freedom, 21, 27–30, 35, 37n5, 121, 138n7, 222 Freud, Sigmund, 90n1, 136n1, 273n1

 INDEX 

G Galen active/passive, 61 causation, 176, 183, 187n10 rationality, 254 reason vs. emotion, 33, 255–263, 265, 267, 271, 275n12, 276n13 Game, Ann control, 267–268, 272 death, 267 rationality, 264, 270, 276n17 reason vs. emotion, 266–273 Gender, see Education; Emotional labor; Rationality; Time; Virtue Genius, see Daimon Giddens, Anthony ignorance vs. knowledge, 27, 127–132, 134 internal vs. external to self, 128, 135 structuralism, 27, 39n12, 125–127, 133, 138n8, 180 Gill, Christopher, 101, 187n10, 235, 256, 275n12, 287 God, see Active/passive; Bodies; Causation; Daimon; Eternal; Ladder of existence; Nature; Order; Pantheism; Rationality; Time; Whole Government, 78 as administration of the universe, 138n7, 163, 245, 304 Grahn-Wilder, Malin, 195, 219, 223, 227n3 H Happiness vs. feeling pleasure, 2, 10n1, 32, 79, 82, 279, 295n2, 299 See also Ends/goods; Health; Nature; Negative visualization;

345

Rationality; Self-preservation; Training; Virtue Hard, Robin, 19, 26, 158, 159, 163, 168n16, 168n18, 242, 244, 248n4, 249n9, 283, 296n9 Harmony, see Community; Justice; Kinship Health, 165, 247n1, 254–255 as controlled desire, 83, 85, 120–123, 128, 132, 137n5, 274n7, 293 physical, 73, 81, 166n3, 310–312 See also Happiness; Virtue Heidegger, Martin, 57, 65, 66 Heraclitus, 114n5, 168n14, 186n7 Hierocles, 9, 10, 74, 194, 208n3, 208n4 circles of community, 194–199, 203–206 self-preservation, 209n6 Hochschild, Arlie deep acting vs. surface acting, 286–291 emotional labor, 284–295, 296n4 Holiday, Ryan, 3, 11n2, 137n2 Hormé, 71–75, 90, 255, 275n9 See also Pathê; Self-preservation I Impression, 18, 29, 37n4, 101, 103–109, 112, 155 See also Knowledge; Obstacle; Preconception; Skepticism Incest, 197, 205, 206, 209n7 prohibition is cultural not natural, 199–203, 205 Incorporeal, 48–49, 177, 181, 184, 186n8 See also Bodies; Time Indifference, see Emotional labor; Rationality; Training

346 

INDEX

Industrialization, see Climate change; Ecology/environment; Emotional labor Intensive, 55 emotion, 317n7 time, 58–62, 66n16 See also Time Inwood, Brad, 9, 112, 137n5, 180, 229n11, 248n3 Irrationality, See Rationality; Soul Irvine, William, 11n3, 37n2, 221, 300 J Judgement, see Ends/goods; Knowledge; Preconception; Rationality, Soul Justice, 72, 80, 102, 136n2, 174, 178, 186n4, 215–219, 226, 245, 281, 282, 311 See also Rationality K Kidd, I.G., 10, 32, 64n11, 258–259, 263, 265, 275n11 Kinship, 36, 196–200, 203–207, 208n1, 209n7, 209n8 See also Community; Family Knowledge, 93n15, 114n4, 114n5, 115n6, 125, 159, 178, 214, 218, 225, 248n8, 262, 269, 270, 292, 307 control the world through, 110–112 scientific, 86–89, 99, 105, 108–109, 151, 226n1, 248n3 of self and socialized self, 126–135 and self-preservation, 90 Sextus vs. Stoics on, 100–105, 107, 112–113, 296n7 as Stoic gesture, 106 See also Impression; Obstacle; Preconception; Science;

Self-preservation; Skepticism; Time Konstantakos, Leonidas, 148–151, 154–156, 164 Kristeva, Julia, 220, 228n8, 228n9 nature|culture division, 220–224 women’s time, 216–226 L Labor, see Emotional labor; Time; Training Ladder of existence, 19, 91n3, 155, 165, 240, 244–247 Language, 57, 60, 87, 133, 247n1 Law, 167n8, 199, 227n2, 234, 236, 245, 253, 274n3 Levine, Michael, 153, 316n3 Lévi-Strauss, Claude incest, 197, 209n7 kinship, 196–207, 209n7 nature|culture division, 205, 209n9 Long, Anthony, 4, 9, 19, 38n8, 39n17, 49, 73, 74, 87, 91n7, 102–103, 113, 115n10, 138n7, 148, 152, 165, 186n4, 187n9, 195, 202, 204, 205, 234, 245, 261, 305, 308, 309 M Marcus Aurelius, 39n18 causation, 157, 162–165 community, 233–247, 248n5, 274n4, 294, 296n9, 315 daimon, 33 death, 159–162, 236 internal vs. external to self, 33, 36 ladder of existence, 91n3, 240, 244–246 materiality and order, 157, 161, 164, 165, 168n14, 168n15, 168n17, 234–238, 241

 INDEX 

pantheism, 36, 157–166, 168n18, 235–238, 242, 244–246, 249n9 part-whole universal relations, 234–247 self-preservation, 72, 91n3, 92n14 virtue, 137n2, 295n2 Martineau, Harriet education and gender, 317n6 God/religion, 312–316 happiness and morals/ manners, 305–315 virtue, 309–311 Marx, Karl, 39n12, 291–293 Materiality, see Active/passive; Bodies; Continuum; Fire; Nature; Pantheism; Whole Mead, George, 248n7 community, 240–242, 244–246 ecology/environment, 237–240 mind, 248n8 time, 63n1 Metcalfe, Andrew control, 267–268, 272 death, 267 rationality, 264, 270, 276n17 reason vs. emotion, 266–273 Modern Stoicism, 3, 11n2 Musonius Rufus, 21, 38n10, 214, 227n4, 228n5, 228n9, 229n11 gender equality in education, 214–221, 223–226, 227n3, 228n7 virtue, 215–218, 222 N Nature living in accordance with, 76, 85–86, 92n14, 108, 109, 115n10, 122–125, 129, 137n2, 138n7, 150, 228n6, 273,

347

282–284, 288–290, 301–305, 308 our communal, 77, 237, 239–247, 274n4, 305, 315 our internal rational, 1, 3–4, 18–20, 28, 32, 34, 81, 90, 102–104, 108, 110, 128, 130, 159, 201, 214, 219, 234, 244, 247, 253–255, 262, 274n4, 275n12, 279, 283, 288–290, 294, 300, 306, 310 as self-preservation, 72–77, 82–85, 209n6 universal, 8, 18–20, 35, 38n8, 39n17, 39n19, 73, 76, 89–90, 102, 134, 149–166, 167n10, 177, 198, 201, 214, 228n6, 234, 237, 239–247, 248n3, 249n9, 283, 301–305, 307–309, 312–314, 316n4 See also Appropriate acts; Climate change; Ecology/environment; Ends/goods; Happiness; Order; Pantheism; Rationality; Self-preservation; Virtue; Whole Negative visualization, 300, 316n1 Nussbaum, Martha, 215, 217–219, 228n7 O Obstacle as blessing/opportunity, 29, 119, 136–137n2 to knowledge, 103–105, 108 See also Impression; Knowledge; Preconception; Skepticism Oikeiôsis, see Self-preservation Oldfather, William, 39n14, 106, 283 See also Causation; Nature; Pantheism; Rationality

348 

INDEX

Order, 38n9, 197, 254, 271–273, 282 of a rational universe, 20, 38n7, 38n8, 151, 153, 157, 164–165, 236, 241–243, 245, 300, 304, 312 socially structured, 22, 25, 111, 127, 181, 183, 202, 273n1 P Pantheism, 19, 20, 33–36, 39n17, 49–50, 61, 88–89, 148–166, 167n10, 175–177, 183, 186n7, 187n11, 235, 242, 246, 248n3, 294, 304, 308, 312, 316n3, 316n4 See also Nature; Order; Rationality; Whole Passion, see Rationality; Soul Pathê, 255, 274n8 See also Hormé Philosophy as practice/life, 3, 6, 11n2, 11n3, 18, 30, 37n2, 39n11, 71–72, 112, 119, 156, 174, 187n14, 196, 214, 217–219, 221, 225, 229n11, 280, 302 Pigliucci, Massimo, 3, 121, 138n6, 150, 167n9 Plato, 115n6, 187n13, 208n3 active/passive, 152, 167n12, 175 education, 114n5, 217 gender, 217, 226n1, 227n3 God, 31 happiness and virtue, 79–82 justice, 186n4 reason vs. emotion, 39n16, 256–258, 261, 275n10, 275n12, 276n15, 276n19 soul, 32, 92n11, 174, 257, 266 time, 45–50, 63n6, 65n12, 66n18

Platonism vs. Stoicism, 6, 10n1, 31–33, 37n6, 64n9, 79–81, 152, 173–175, 186n4, 217, 256–258, 261, 266, 268, 271, 275n12, 276n15 time for, 45–50 Pleasure, see Happiness; Self-preservation Plutarch, 206, 208n3 bodies, 49, 61, 76 ends/goods, 245, 311 happiness, 304, 313 pantheism, 248n3 reason vs. emotion, 260 subsistence and time, 54, 59 Pneuma, see Active/passive; Fire Posidonius, 9, 132, 274n6, 274n8 daimon, 32, 254, 275n11 reason vs. emotion, 32, 255–263, 265–272, 275n11, 275n12, 276n13, 276n15 time, 51, 64n11 training, 263, 268 Preconception, 100–105, 107–112, 114n5, 115n10 See also Impression; Knowledge; Obstacle; Rationality; Science; Skepticism Present, 48, 63n1, 161, 174, 183 being present, 43–45, 53, 58, 59, 62, 63n2 point of time, 50–54, 56–62, 65n13, 66n14 socially structured, 23, 30, 89, 127, 133, 134, 183, 240 See also Eternal; Time R Ramelli, Ilaria, 10, 194, 208n4 Rationality, 38n7, 149, 198, 235, 253, 276n15

 INDEX 

vs. emotion, 32–33, 39n16, 122, 253–273, 274n3, 274n7, 275n10, 275n11, 275n12, 276n13, 276n19 as happiness and virtuousness, 10n1, 32, 79–83, 108, 137n5, 228n6, 279, 282, 299, 301, 308, 312, 313 hierarchy of, 18, 20, 37n4, 37n6, 154–156, 165, 220, 240, 244, 255–260, 263, 276n14, 276n15 and internal self, 2, 28, 32–36, 159, 259, 262, 266, 274n7, 275n11, 283, 310 and preconceptions, 102–105, 107–110 same for both genders, 214, 219 and science, 87, 90, 93n15, 110, 254, 263–266, 274n3, 276n17, 276n18 socially structured, 23, 127, 131, 134, 200, 234, 244–247, 263–265, 270, 274n4, 315 universal, 2, 18–20, 23, 32–36, 38n8, 39n17, 61, 76, 88, 90, 91n3, 129, 133, 134, 149–154, 157–166, 167n8, 168n18, 176, 201, 214, 235–238, 244–246, 264, 274n4, 288, 294, 300, 304, 312 See also Climate change; Education; Happiness; Justice; Nature; Order; Pantheism; Preconception; Science; Self-preservation; Soul; Virtue; Whole Reason versus emotion, see Emotional labor; Nature; Preconception; Rationality; Soul; Training; Virtue Religion, 22, 88, 209n7, 312–316

349

Reydams-Schils, Gretchen, 39n19, 121, 152, 209n6, 215, 228n5 Robertson, Donald, 11n2, 268, 281 S Science, 48, 93n15, 154, 168n14, 226n1, 235, 248n3, 254, 274n6, 316n2 objective knowledge of, 24, 55, 86–88, 90, 99–101, 105–113, 113n1, 113n2, 114n3, 114n4, 115n8, 264–266, 276n17, 276n18 self-preservation through, 88–90 social, 23, 39n12, 86, 113n1, 220, 305–308, 311, 314 vs. theology, 88–89, 149–153, 167n10, 316n4 See also Knowledge; Preconception; Rationality; Skepticism Sedley, David, 9, 49, 58, 64n8, 74, 113, 115n10, 138n7, 152, 186n3, 187n9, 195, 202, 204, 205, 245, 261, 295n3, 301, 305, 308 Self-preservation, 91n3 collectively oriented, 76–79, 85, 89–90, 92n10, 92n12 knowledge as, 84–90, 108 our natural mode is, 71–90, 90n1, 123, 209n6 vs. pleasure, 74–75, 80–83 See also Appropriate acts; Causation; Education; Ends/goods; Happiness; Hormé; Knowledge; Nature; Rationality; Suicide Sellars, John, 11n1, 54, 93n15, 107, 138n5, 206

350 

INDEX

Seneca, 120, 137n3, 167n10 daimon, 33 ecology/environment, 119–121, 148 fear, 122–124, 128–129 friendship, 208n2 health and death, 120–123, 138n6 ignorance, 123–125, 127–133 knowledge, 132–136, 266 negative visualization, 300, 316n1 social arts, 125–134 Sex, 196–204, 207, 255, 257 Sextus Empiricus, 187n9 active/passive, 176–177 bodies, 182 incorporeal, 48, 177, 181 Skepticism, 100 time, 48, 316n2 vs. Stoics on knowledge, 101–105, 108, 112–113, 115n10, 296n7 Skepticism, 100–101, 112 See also Impression; Knowledge; Obstacle; Preconception; Science Social arts, 125–128, 131 Social Darwinism, 78, 92n10 Social facts, 23–26, 29, 111, 135, 264 Socrates, 132, 187n13 active/passive, 152, 167n12, 175 celestial bodies, 45–49 ends/goods, 295n3 gender, 227n3 God, 31 happiness and virtue, 79–82, 106 justice, 186n4 knowledge, 114n5 reason vs. emotion, 39n16, 256–258, 261, 275n10, 276n15 soul, 174, 257, 266 time, 45–50, 65n12, 66n18

Socratism vs. Stoicism, 10n1, 37n6, 38n8, 64n9, 79–82, 106, 152, 173–175, 186n4, 256–258, 261, 266, 276n15, 295n3 time, 45–50 Sorabji, Richard, 85, 260 Soul, 137n5, 149, 152, 159, 163, 167n10, 293 body vs., 82, 174–175, 180, 186n4, 311 as counter of time, 47–50 as daimon, 32, 33 is divided into faculties, 32, 39n16, 80–81, 256–259, 261–263, 266, 269, 274n7, 275n10, 275n11 See also Bodies; Rationality; Time Spencer, Herbert education, 78, 83–87 evolution, 92n9, 92n10 happiness, 79, 81–85 rationality, 82, 90 religion, 88–89 science, 86–90 self-preservation, 78 structuralism, 209n7 Staniforth, Maxwell, 33, 137n2, 157, 274n4 Stephens, William, 18, 37n5, 154–155, 160, 165, 236, 290, 292 Stobaeus, 208n4 bodies, 61, 180, 215 causation, 183 community, 198, 202–204 education, 216–218, 225 family, 194, 195, 205, 223 gender, 214, 221, 223 happiness, 79, 301–303, 306, 309, 310 justice, 245

 INDEX 

knowledge, 109, 214 rationality, 276n14 subsistence, 54 time, 48–51, 56, 58, 64n11 virtue, 215, 222, 305 void, 187n8 Stoicism Today, see Modern Stoicism Striker, Gisela, 3, 38n8, 308 Subsistence, 49, 54, 59, 160 See also Belonging Substance, see Active/passive; Bodies; Continuum; Fire; Nature; Pantheism; Whole Suicide, 25, 27, 29–30, 85–86, 91n2, 92n12, 92n13, 138n9, 295n3 See also Death; Self-preservation T Time, 53, 129, 134, 138n6, 163, 166n4, 167n5, 177, 240, 316n2 and change/motion, 45–53, 56, 64n7, 64n10, 64n11 divided continuum, 43–45, 51–54, 56, 58–62 durationless present that is outside, 51–54, 58, 60, 65n12, 65n13, 66n14 and environment, 144, 146–148, 160, 167n6 extensive, separate points of, 55–58, 60, 62, 64n10, 66n16, 66n17, 129, 146 gendered, 219–226, 228n10, 229n12 incorporeal, 48–50 intensive, duration, 58–62, 66n15, 66n16

351

required for emotional labor, 284, 291–295, 296n5 socially constructed, 55, 57, 60, 144, 146–147 Stoics vs. other ancients, 45–54, 57, 64n7, 64n9, 65n12, 65n13, 66n14, 66n17, 66n18 and timelessness, 5, 23, 86, 99, 113n1, 242 See also Continuum; Emotional labor; Eternal; Incorporeal; Intensive; Knowledge; Present; Soul Training emotional labor as self-, 281–293 of internal Stoic self, 4, 125, 196, 263 philosophical education as self-, 216, 226 See also Education; Emotional labor; Happiness Truth, see Impression; Knowledge; Preconception; Science; Skepticism Two cultures problem, 113n1 U Universe as a city, see Community; Government; Justice; Order; Pantheism V Value, 155, 222 exchange, 210n10, 291–292 orientations, 100, 105–112, 275n12, 280–282 of philosophy, 122, 217 of science, 86, 115n8

352 

INDEX

Virtue, 32, 156, 157, 165, 245 and action, 72, 79–82, 303, 308–312 bodies and, 174, 175 communally oriented, 308–316 all genders can have, 215–219, 222, 227n3 and knowledge, 109 opportunity for, 119, 137n2 as rationality and happiness, 10n1, 32, 79–83, 108, 137n5, 163, 165, 228n6, 279, 282, 295n1, 295n2, 299–315 vs. vice, 37n5 See also Bodies; Ends/goods; Happiness; Health; Nature; Rationality Void, 186n8 W Wealth, 80, 120, 122, 137n4, 137n5, 310 Weber, Max control, 110 science and value, 105–113, 276n17 Whiting, Kai, 148–151, 154–156, 164

Whole, 39n19 vs. everything, 186n8 pantheistic, 149, 152, 156, 249n9, 312 part-whole universal relations, 19, 27, 35–36, 157–166, 168n15, 168n17, 234–239, 244, 302, 307 See also Causation; Community; Nature; Pantheism; Rationality Wisdom, see Rationality; Virtue Z Zeno of Citium, 9, 45, 63n3, 91n8, 132, 173, 186n3, 244 bodies and causation, 173–178, 180, 182–184, 186n4 conflagration, 187n8 gender, 227n3 happiness, 301 justice, 186n4 knowledge, 87, 103, 106, 112, 115n9 pantheism, 152, 175–177 reason vs. emotion, 258, 260 self-preservation, 72–76 soul, 174–175, 178, 180 time, 48, 50