|
October 2, 2004
I have been digging into the background of Stoic philosophy. More here.
Keith Seddon says that this Graeco-Roman school, of which Epictetus (c. A.D. 50-130) is a representative, began as a recognizable movement around 300 B.C. Its founder was Zeno of Cytium (not to be confused with Zeno of Elea, who discovered the famous paradoxes).
For more than 500 years Stoicism was one of the most influential and fruitful philosophical movements in the Graeco-Roman world. From the Renaissance until well into the nineteenth century, Stoic ethical thought was one of the most important ancient influences on European ethics, particularly because of the descriptions of it by Cicero, through surviving works by the Stoics Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and also Epictetus -and also because of the effect that it had had in antiquity, and continued to have into the nineteenth century, on Christian ethical views.
We never explored this school in philosophy in Australia. We read Plato and Aristotle, along with the presocratics. I only vaguely knew about Stocism, along with the two other major ancient philosophical movements, Epicureanism and Scepticism. That is a great pity because I have much sympathy with the whole idea of a therapeutic philosophy that enables us to live well.
In his introduction to Epictetus' Handbook Nicholas White says:
"....it is clear that early Stoic philosophy, particularly as carried on by Chrysippus (c. 279-206 B.C.), the third head of the Stoic school at Athens, was very largely a theoretical and (in the modern sense) academic philosophical movement. In a philosopher like Epictetus, on the other hand, one has the sense that the practical advice-giving side dominates, and that interest in working through philosophical problems or arguments is relatively small. In varying degrees, the works of later Stoics such as Seneca (c. 5 B.C.-A.D. 65) and Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 12 1-180) are in this respect much like those of Epictetus."
The core ideas involved in living well are: freedom from the violent feelings; the key to freedom from the violent feelings is living in accordance with virtue; the key to virtue is living consistently in agreement with nature.
The Stoics hold that emotions like fear or envy (or impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false judgements and that the sage--a person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection--would not undergo them. The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness.
|
