4 ms·

Stoicism Is Not a Philosophy

20 points by elsewhen 6y ago

ser0 6y ago
I think that just because a philosophy is misused, or used as an excuse for anti-social behaviour, doesn't make it less of a philosophy. As a few of the comments on the article already notes, the article is more of an off-the-cuff opinion piece and not really a deep discussion on what is philosophy and why stoicism doesn't qualify. One could say "Stoicism Is Not a Philosophy" is not a post on whether stoicism is a philosophy.
cptnapalm 6y ago
This is pretty bad. Hellenic philosophy merged the arguments with how to live. What has mostly survived are writings regarding the latter portion, but the former do exist. Chrysippus was the logician who first, I believe, came up with the final version of the truth table not to mention formal propositional logic.
HDMI_Cable 6y ago
I don't think this argument is valid. Were Zeno and Marcus Aurelius not Philosophers? Chrysippus or the countless others involved with Stoicism weren't philosophers either? Firstly, most philosophers never wrote anything, as the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and most of the other Greeks came from the lecture notes of their students. Secondly, Stoicism may be used to justify not-nice behaviour, but it doesn't mean it still isn't philosophical; it still aims to answer fundamental questions.
incrudible 6y ago
Obviously, the meaning of the word "philosophy" may have experienced a bit of a drift over more than two thousand years. Physics used to go by the name of "natural philosophy", for instance. Personally, I do associate the word with a meaning closer to "attitude" under certain circumstances. Stoicism and the contemporary Epicurianism are practical philosophies (attitudes) for living an ordinary life, not grandiose frameworks of thought.
- cptnapalm 6y ago
  They did have grandiose frameworks of thought. Stoic continuum theory clashed with Epicurean atomic theory, for example. They were both deep, rich veins of thought. This was still known in Kant's time, but somewhere along the line awareness has seemingly vanished from philosophers.
rcoveson 6y ago
> Meditating on Stoic mantras helps you accept our inability to control the world, and therefore the pointlessness of taking a world view in the first place. Instead, Stoicism encourages you to focus on maximizing the good within yourself, as that is all that is within your control. The only thing that Stoicism decries as pointless is lamenting or lauding the actual outcomes of your actions or those of others. It is not the belief that all of life is meaningless, or that "world views" are pointless. It is kin to neither Nihilism nor Hedonism. "Maximizing the good within yourself" does involve considering what outcomes you believe your actions will yield. Stoicism begs that you understand the distinction between predicted outcomes and actual outcomes, and detach yourself emotionally from the latter.
ofrzeta 6y ago
> The brevity of Stoicism makes it a poor philosophy. That's just false :) It's not a requirement for great philosophy to lay everything out verbosely in prosaic arguments. It may be so in Analytic Philosophy but that's far from the only way of philosophy. Many great philosophers are famous for being terse and that only adds to depth because of the possibility of interpretation and further thinking, which is what philosophy is all about (not to deliver answers). Compare Heraclitus and Parmenides for two ancient philosophers who may be understood as two fundamentally different ways of thinking with their famous quotes "panta rhei" (everything flows, Heraclitus) and "and it is all one for me" (Parmenides).

20 points by elsewhen 6y ago

ser0 6y ago

I think that just because a philosophy is misused, or used as an excuse for anti-social behaviour, doesn't make it less of a philosophy. As a few of the comments on the article already notes, the article is more of an off-the-cuff opinion piece and not really a deep discussion on what is philosophy and why stoicism doesn't qualify. One could say "Stoicism Is Not a Philosophy" is not a post on whether stoicism is a philosophy.

cptnapalm 6y ago

This is pretty bad. Hellenic philosophy merged the arguments with how to live. What has mostly survived are writings regarding the latter portion, but the former do exist. Chrysippus was the logician who first, I believe, came up with the final version of the truth table not to mention formal propositional logic.

HDMI_Cable 6y ago

I don't think this argument is valid. Were Zeno and Marcus Aurelius not Philosophers? Chrysippus or the countless others involved with Stoicism weren't philosophers either? Firstly, most philosophers never wrote anything, as the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and most of the other Greeks came from the lecture notes of their students. Secondly, Stoicism may be used to justify not-nice behaviour, but it doesn't mean it still isn't philosophical; it still aims to answer fundamental questions.

incrudible 6y ago

Obviously, the meaning of the word "philosophy" may have experienced a bit of a drift over more than two thousand years. Physics used to go by the name of "natural philosophy", for instance. Personally, I do associate the word with a meaning closer to "attitude" under certain circumstances. Stoicism and the contemporary Epicurianism are practical philosophies (attitudes) for living an ordinary life, not grandiose frameworks of thought.

cptnapalm 6y ago
They did have grandiose frameworks of thought. Stoic continuum theory clashed with Epicurean atomic theory, for example. They were both deep, rich veins of thought. This was still known in Kant's time, but somewhere along the line awareness has seemingly vanished from philosophers.

rcoveson 6y ago

> Meditating on Stoic mantras helps you accept our inability to control the world, and therefore the pointlessness of taking a world view in the first place. Instead, Stoicism encourages you to focus on maximizing the good within yourself, as that is all that is within your control. The only thing that Stoicism decries as pointless is lamenting or lauding the actual outcomes of your actions or those of others. It is not the belief that all of life is meaningless, or that "world views" are pointless. It is kin to neither Nihilism nor Hedonism. "Maximizing the good within yourself" does involve considering what outcomes you believe your actions will yield. Stoicism begs that you understand the distinction between predicted outcomes and actual outcomes, and detach yourself emotionally from the latter.

ofrzeta 6y ago

> The brevity of Stoicism makes it a poor philosophy. That's just false :) It's not a requirement for great philosophy to lay everything out verbosely in prosaic arguments. It may be so in Analytic Philosophy but that's far from the only way of philosophy. Many great philosophers are famous for being terse and that only adds to depth because of the possibility of interpretation and further thinking, which is what philosophy is all about (not to deliver answers). Compare Heraclitus and Parmenides for two ancient philosophers who may be understood as two fundamentally different ways of thinking with their famous quotes "panta rhei" (everything flows, Heraclitus) and "and it is all one for me" (Parmenides).