The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

Students of Stoicism are therefore advised not to do a lot of talking about it. Learning should be shown, not said. Epictetus: Never call yourself a philosopher, and don’t talk much among laymen about philosophical principles, but act according to them. . . . And if you should come upon a discussion among laymen about some philosophical principle, keep silent for the most part; for there is great danger that you will immediately vomit up what you have not digested. And when someone says to you that you know nothing, and you’re not stung by the taunt, know then that you are making headway. Sheep don’t throw up their grass to show the shepherd how much they have eaten; after digesting the grass inside, they bear wool and milk outside. So for you, too: don’t display your learning to the uninstructed: display the actions that result from the digestion of it. Epictetus, Enchiridion 46

If we don’t also put the right conceptions into practice, we’ll be nothing more than expositors of the opinions of others. Who among us right now is not able to discourse about good and evil, according to all the rules? “That among the things in existence, some are good, some bad, some indifferent; the good then are virtues, and things that participate in virtues; the bad are the opposites; the indifferent are wealth, health, reputation.” Then if there is a loud noise while we are speaking, or if someone there laughs at us, we are thrown off the track. Philosopher, where are those things you were just talking about? Epictetus, Discourses 2.9.14–17

These claims about the effects of experience and inexperience can be restated in terms referenced earlier in the book. The Stoic seeks the most useful perspective on all occasions. I have emphasized here that, with respect to emotion and adversity, Stoics want the kind of wisdom that we associate with long experience. But in certain settings they seek, in effect, the attitude of the newcomer. A reminder from Chapter 12, Section 4: “When then shall I see Athens again and the Acropolis?” Wretch, are you not content with what you see daily? Have you anything better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea? Epictetus, Discourses 2.16.32 From Chapter 5, Section 8: Don’t imagine having things that you don’t have. Rather, pick the best of the things that you do have and think of how much you would want them if you didn’t have them. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.27 In effect we can distinguish two kinds of mistakes. We fail to appreciate some things because they are too familiar. We overreact to others because they aren’t familiar enough. In the first case we suffer because we can’t see old things as a first-timer would. In the second we suffer because can’t see new things as a long-timer would. The Stoic is more concerned with the second kind of mistake than the first, but understands them both and tries to move from one point of view to another as appropriate to the situation.

When one has studied novelty and thought about it for a sufficiently long time that it loses charm and is less likely to cause you to do foolish things, that is Stoicism, and it is to the good. (Or replace “novelty” with “luxury” or “status” – all the same.) The alternative is to be taken in by novelty again and again until it is finally drained of its charm by many hard lessons about its unimportance, maybe late in life. The sage saves the trouble.

But as before, a word should be said, first, about what the Stoic teachings really require. Stoics suffer and do not pretend otherwise, though they don’t see any point in carrying on about it. What they try to do is understand the role of their own minds in the creation of their suffering, and then use that knowledge to reduce it. But the good Stoic, or in any event the type discussed in this book, takes a clear-eyed view of the human condition.

I’m not so shameless as to undertake to heal others while sick myself. It is rather as if we were lying in the same hospital room; I’m talking with you about our common illness, and sharing remedies. So listen to me as though I were talking to myself. I’m letting you into my private place, and am examining myself, using you as a foil. Seneca, Epistles 27.1

“You speak one way, you live another.” You creatures most spiteful, hostile to all the best men! This is the same taunt they threw at Plato, at Epicurus, at Zeno: for all of them were teaching not how they themselves lived, but how they ought to live. I am speaking of virtue, not of myself, and when I denounce vices, I denounce my own first of all. As soon as I can, I’ll live as I should. Seneca, On the Happy Life 18.1–2

Putting aside Seneca, the claim of hypocrisy also misunderstands what Stoicism is for in the lives of most of those with an interest in it. The claim views Stoicism as if it were a creed to which its adherents try to make converts, or that they use as a basis for judgment of others. That would leave the Stoic open to criticism for preaching one thing but doing another. Such a vision arises understandably enough from the writings in this book. In order to teach their ideas to others, the Stoics had to offer them as instructions. But the practice of Stoicism has nothing to do with telling others how to act or saying anything else that might be contradicted by what one does. Stoicism, at least for most who now study it, is a set of tools for thought, and a way of using them, with which some find they can help themselves. It is something to do, not something to say.

A productive last question one might ask about Stoicism is: compared to what? Suppose – plausibly, I think – that typical students of Stoicism advance only slightly toward its goals. They end up with a little less anxiety over what they can’t control, and a little more patience with irritation, indignity, and misfortune; a bit more resistance to convention in their thinking, and somewhat less desire or fear directed at things undeserving of either, and so forth. In other words, they make some modest progress. There are those who get more than that from the philosophy, and some get less, but imagine that this much were a common result. Those are paltry gains compared to the attainment of sagehood, but considerable compared to a baseline without them. They are considerable, too, compared to the results of other kinds of philosophical study (how much more does any philosophy do for its students?). It would be foolish to regard small improvements with contempt when it is so rare to find any other kind. So if Stoics seek great things but get only part way there, the discrepancy should not cause them to be thought of as hypocrites. They aimed high, fell short, and did well.