What do you have to believe, in order to count as a Stoic?

From a message sent by Grant Sterling to the International Stoic Forum on May 24, 2021:

Subject: Do you need God to be a Stoic?


"All:


  "Of course, you've heard this before.  Steve was brief...I'll be brief as well.  Of

course, I'm incapable of being as anywhere close to _as_ brief as Steve.

  "Being a Stoic" is not an objective factual matter, like being over 6' tall.

It requires people to develop criteria.

   Suppose someone agrees with everything Karl Marx said (for simplicity,

let's pretend that he was completely consistent in his beliefs).  There would

be no rational doubt, then, whether or not he was a "Marxist".  But suppose

he didn't agree with Marx's view of religion--suppose, in fact, that he was a

Christian.  Is he still a "Marxist"?  It depends on how important you think

Marx's view of religion is to his philosophical system.  I, personally, think

that the answer is "of course he is".  I think the heart and soul of Marx's

philosophy is his view on economics, specifically things like the labor

theory of value, the ultimate superiority of communism, etc.  If this man believes those

things (even if they have to be fitted into the rest of his system differently than Marx fit

them into his, since Marx's system included different religious ideas), then he's a Marxist. 

{You may have different standards.  But this is not _entirely_ an arbitrary, subjective

matter--I would say that someone who calls someone a "Marxist" entirely on the

basis of whether or not the person shares Marx's views on, say, Judaism was being irrational.

But there is certainly a subjective element.}

  (I just had this exact discussion about Christianity.  What do you have to believe, in

order to count as a "Christian"?  Do non-Trinitarians qualify?  Those who deny the

existence of Hell?  Etc.)

   So unless someone believes 100% of the things that the Stoics believed, we'll have to

decide what is so central and distinctive of Stoicism that it should count as a defining

feature, and what shouldn't count.  And since the "Stoics" didn't agree with each other

about 100% of things, then we either say there never were any Stoics, or we'll have to define

what is required to be "in".  (This doesn't have to be a list of necessary and sufficient conditions.

It can be a list of distinctive ideas, and someone counts as a Stoic if they agree with 80%

of them or something.)

  I think that what is truly central, important, and distinctive of Stoicism is the moral

psychology.  The theory of what things are good, of the origin of emotions, or

eudaimonia, etc.  So I think someone who believes those things is a Stoic.  I do not

pretend that this is 100% of the things that the ancient Stoics believed.  But I think it

was what set the Stoics apart from other philosophers throughout history.  And my view is

not idiosyncratic--I'll bet that if you look at the cases where someone has been described

as being a "Stoic", after you sort out the cases where the term is being used in it's

colloquial sense (someone who doesn't display much emotion), you'll find that 99%

of the time it's based on those characteristics.  Stand up at a philosophy convention and

say "what philosophical system do I follow?", and then start reciting those characteristics.

People will say "Stoicism", without waiting to hear whether you believe in cataleptic

impressions or pantheism.

  You can have a different set of criteria if you want to.  I don't object.  But be careful--

I don't think Epictetus was a pantheist, for example.  If you make pantheism essential to

Stoicism, then Epictetus wasn't a Stoic.  Chrysippus was a strict determinist.  I'm not sure

which other Stoics were strict determinists, but I'll bet not all of them were.  (Again, I

have doubts about Epictetus, for one.). Is determinism central?  Cataleptic impressions?

Belief in fiery pneuma?  You can end up defining "Stoicism" in such a way that no

living person would ever want to be one.  I think that's unhelpful--your mileage may vary."


   Regards,

           GCS