Grant Sterling Explains Why He Calls Himself A Stoic

Grant Sterling Explains Why He Calls Himself A Stoic.

"I've already said my piece about the definition
of Stoicism, but I thought I would make one final
comment...


I understand Malcolm's position--for him, "Stoicism"
is the name of a philosophical _school_, a collection of
beliefs and attitudes passed on through a series of personal
relationships between teacher/mentor and students. As such,
it cannot exist in the 21st century, since that line of
teachers has been broken irretrievably. We can read books
about some of the things the Stoics said, but no book can capture
the entire experience of going to a Stoic school. We can extract
ideas from those books, and use them in our own lives, but that's
not nearly the same thing as being a Stoic--in the same way,
we could read about the tradition of courtly love among
medieval knights, but anyone who decided to try to recreate
that life today would be sadly misguided. (I could give
innumerable other examples.) Put more bluntly, "Stoicism"
is the name of a corpse, and modern Stoics would be no more
than zombies--things with an outer semblance of the former
person but without the living force within.
I also understand Donald's position. "Stoicism"
is the name of a set of philosophical ideas. As such, it
is an inherently eternal entity--that is, any set of beliefs
can be adopted by anyone at any time in history. Write down
a list of philosophical ideas, and I can choose whether I
wish to believe the things in that set or not. The list
you give me might be the list of things the Stoics believed,
or the list of things that Immanuel Kant believed, or a list
of things that doesn't match up with what anyone in history
has ever believed. I might know where your list came from, or
not. All that is irrelevant--the ideas themselves can be
accepted or rejected regardless of whether anyone else in
history did, or did not, also believe them.
{The following aside will tell you something about my
view of philosophy, a view certainly not held by all philosophers
but also not a view unique to me:
Obviously, accepting a set of beliefs that was accepted
by any group of people a very long time ago may be possible
but may be grossly irrational. It is possible to adopt the
same scientific beliefs that Aristotle held, but you should be
ashamed to do so, since we have very good reason _today_ to
think that a large number of things that Aristotle reasonably
believed in his day cannot be reasonably believed today. You
would be even stupider to believe historical facts from Aristotle's
day--anyone in 2017 who believes that Egypt is ruled by the
Ptolemaic dynasty is a moron. So I do not, in general, recommend
believing things that people in ancient times believed.
But I don't think this is generally true in philosophy.
That is, I think the ideas of, say, Plato are, by and large, just
as serious contenders for being true as the ideas of Augustine,
of Locke, or William James, or Panayot Butchvarov (one of my
dissertation advisors). Occasionally a theory which was once
popular will confront a set of objections that render it highly
suspect, but this is rare. In general, the fact that a philosophical
theory is very old is not a reason to doubt it--if anything, it's
a reason to take it seriously.}

But even if we take the latter view, that leaves open
the question--_which_ set of philosophical views is denoted by
the term "Stoicism". Chris and Steve (et al) think it is (very
roughly!) 'the set of things the ancient philosophers called
"Stoics" believed'. I think it is (roughly) 'the set of ethical
and psychological things that the ancient Stoics believed'. Who's
right?
This is the issue that I have singularly failed to explain
in a way that other people can grasp it. What a word means is
totally and completely determined by what the people who use it
and hear it used think it means. Period.
So, for example, some years ago there could have been
(there wasn't) a public discussion of whether society should allow
the word 'gay' (which meant 'carefree and happy') to also mean
'homosexual'. There could have been a discussion about whether
this would confuse people (in the Christmas song when people sing
"don we now our gay apparel" does that mean we are to dress in clothes
denoting homosexuality?), whether there was or could be found a
different word that would be effective for the new use, etc. But
although that discussion _could have_ taken place, it _cannot_
(present tense) take place. Because society has accepted this as
the meaning of the word. Indeed, one cannot today use the word in
its former meaning without causing confusion--the word used to
mean 'carefree', then went through a stage where it meant 'carefree'
OR 'homosexual', and today it means only 'homosexual'.
I submit that the same thing has happened to 'Stoic'.
Whatever the term may have meant in ancient Greece, or in the
earliest English uses, today it means:
1) In ordinary conversation, "someone who doesn't show
emotion" (not capitalized).
2) In philosophical discussions, "someone who holds the
ethical views of the ancient Stoics".
3) In historical contexts (including history of philosophy),
"someone from the ancient Stoic school".

As a description of the views of the ancient Stoics, '1'
is grossly misleading. But I see little or no hope of changing
how the word is used, and no reason to expend the energy or
trying.
As a description of the views of the ancient Stoics, '2'
is much less misleading. As I have pointed out, people like
Epictetus spend very little time on any part of Stoic doctrine
except Ethics. But it is still misleading.
Only '3' does justice to the views of the ancient Stoics.
(Notice, though, that '3' is closer to Malcolm's view than to
Chris and Steve's.)
But that's totally irrelevant. Because philosophical
conversations [again, I am NOT talking about conversations in
history of philosophy] are only tangentially related to what
ancient people--what any people in the past--thought.

When I'm having a conversation with someone about their
beliefs, and they say "I'm a Marxist", I do not assume that
they believe everything Karl Marx believed. I assume they
believe a certain core set of beliefs that spells out the modern
usage of the WORD "Marxist". Some Marxists today believe things
that would have horrified Marx himself. That's historically
interesting, but irrelevant. The word has moved on. If someone
says "I am a Kantian". I do not assume that they believe all the
things Kant believed, a "Utilitarian" need not mimic Bentham,
a "Platonist" may diverge in many ways from Plato. They cannot
diverge in _just any_ way--there are some doctrines that mark
out the essence of those theories, and some doctrines that do not.
A Platonist who believes in Democracy is not an absurdity--
Plato's political views are simply not part of the class-2
usage of the term "Platonist". A Platonist who doesn't believe
in unchanging essences is an absurdity.

Just as I see little or no hope of changing how the
word "Stoic" is used on class-2 contexts, I see no reason to
expend the energy to change it. And at the most basic level
THE FIGHT IS OVER--or, more properly, it was never fought.
The decision about how the word "Stoic" will be used in class-2
contexts has _already been made_. It is like the word 'gay'--the
word means what it now means whether anyone likes it or not. I
had a professor who hated that the word 'hopefully' (an adverb
that once meant 'to act in a hopeful fashion') was being used to
mean 'I hope that'. I didn't have the heart to tell him, "I'm
sorry, but you've lost. The word has gotten away from you--it
now means something other than it used to mean. That might be a
linguistic defect--our language may have been better when it meant
what it used to mean. Or maybe not. But what a word means is a
strictly factual matter defined by how the word is used--and the
ship has sailed on 'gay' and 'hopefully'...and the ship has
sailed on both 'stoic' and "Stoic". I see Chris and Steve's efforts
to make "Stoic" include theological and other ideas as futile, in
exactly the same way that my professors efforts to correct my usage
of 'hopefully' was futile. Look at the Stoic Voice Journal, for
example. Read the comments from new subscriber--almost 100% of them
are interested in the _ethical_ ideas of the Stoics, and use the
word with that meaning only.
What _can_ be done is to refine the usage of the word in
philosophical contexts. Someone could write a nice article saying
"the word 'Marxist' is used to cover only a portion of Marx's
thought, but it is used loosely. Let's try to define more precisely
which doctrines of Marx one should have to hold to be a 'Marxist'."
And I (among others) have tried to do that for Stoicism. Philosophers
do this all the time--they take a word which has a meaning that is
somewhat fuzzy around the edges, and they try to refine it. That
a project that has some value. But it works within the confines of
an existing word.

So this has been unnecessarily long. My position is this:
1) I have no interest in zombie Stoicism. I have no interest in
trying to recreate (in myself or anyone else) what Stoicism as
a living social movement was to people in ancient Greece or Rome.
And I understand and respect Malcolm's view that this was 'real'
Stoicism, but I don't share it.
2) I am interested in the history of philosophy, and so I am interested
in conversations about what the ancient Stoics themselves actually
believed. Chrysippus was a determinist. That's historically
interesting. Posidonius held divergent views of ethics. That's
nice. All the Stoics were theists of some sort or other--and we can
argue about whether they were all pantheists of some sort of not.
Fine and dandy. But that's _history_. I have that sort of interest in
the views of Plato, or Confucius, or Heidegger.
3) As for the present tense, I believe that a certain set of ideas about
ethics and psychology are true. Not "interesting", or "historically
influential" or "deeply held by some past people"...I believe they are
_true_. (Just as I believe that certain theological, epistemological,
political, logical, etc. views are true.) Since I believe that they are
true, I wish to be able to articulate them clearly, and communicate them
to other people, and even perhaps to convince some of those people to
believe them, too. Those ethical and psychological views conform very
closely (but not perfectly) with the views that are ordinarily
understood to be the referent of the term "Stoic". So I say "I am a
Stoic". I find that when I say "I am a Stoic" other people who have
some familiarity with philosophy immediately and fairly accurately
understand what I believe. Since that's the whole purpose of language,
I continue to use the word. I am not homosexual, so I say (if the topic
comes up "I am not gay", even if I happen to be happy and carefree at
the time. I say "Hopefully, the Illinois legislature will now begin
to act more responsibly" even though I am not proceeding in a hopeful
manner (and neither are they).

"The number of Stoics (as I and they use the word) is indeed
growing. And I think that's a good thing, since I think Stoicism
(as I and they use the word) is true."

Regards,
Grant


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