Is God necessary for a Stoic ethics?
Over at the Stoic forum, Nigel Glassborow captures very nicely the essence of Stoicism.
"So we start to get an inkling as to why the Living Cosmos is essential to Stoic philosophy and ethics. The conclusions arrived at from the knowledge they put together convinced the Stoics of old that to live life well meant living life virtuously, in full recognition that the individual is just a spark of the whole, and so the selfish longing to live life well required that one lives life selflessly. One has to live for the whole Self rather than the Self contained in one’s mortal body. And the whole Self is the living Cosmos."
2 Comments:
nice blog! i enjoyed reading it.
I don't know much about stoicism but your blog and links have helped.
If i could offer my interpretation on the quote:
Stoicism is the belief that there is a greater entity than one's self that must be served. But does that necessarily mean that it has to be a God, could it not be the state, or the populace, or an ideal( such as the progression of knowledge and science)?
Stoicism is not to become a servant to anything. It is a philosophy by which one can become free. This means that there is no state of servitude to anything, god cosmos or idea. Instead one can be self reliant in knowing what one can control and what one cannot. Epictetus said that the ultimate in this knowing of self is to understand the will of Zeus and thus to live in accordance with it as a willing participant in the cosmos.
Post a Comment
<< Home