Do Epictetus and Classical Philosophy Have a Longer Shelf-life than Modern Philosophy?

Could it be demonstrated that Epictetus and classical philosophy have a longer shelf-life than modern philosophy?

Claude: Yes - and that would be a powerful argument. Here's how it could be demonstrated:

The Core Claim:
Classical philosophy (the six commitments) + Epictetus's practice-focused approach have proven more durable than:

• Ancient Stoic cosmology (which collapsed)
• Modern philosophy's alternatives to classical foundations (which keep failing)

Structure of the Demonstration:

1. Track the Failures of Modern Alternatives

Show that each modern rejection of classical foundations created persistent, unsolvable problems:

• Materialism (replacing dualism) → hard problem of consciousness, persistent inability to account for intentionality, qualia, rational thought
• Determinism (replacing libertarianism) → can't ground moral responsibility, keeps collapsing into fatalism or incoherence
• Non-cognitivism/emotivism (replacing moral realism) → reduces ethics to mere preference, can't explain moral disagreement or progress
• Coherentism/pragmatism (replacing foundationalism) → infinite regress, no secure knowledge
• Pragmatic/deflationary truth (replacing correspondence) → can't distinguish truth from usefulness, relativism
• Moral anti-realism (replacing ethical intuitionism) → makes ethics arbitrary, can't ground objective critique

Each attempted replacement keeps encountering the same problems, generating endless debates that never resolve.

2. Show Classical Foundations Remain Defensible

Despite being unfashionable, the six commitments:

• Face objections but aren't refuted
• Keep being rediscovered/reconsidered (contemporary dualists, libertarians, moral realists)
• Provide solutions to problems modern alternatives can't solve
• Have defenders in every generation despite going against consensus

3. Demonstrate Epictetus's Prescience

Epictetus essentially pre-anticipated what Sterling did explicitly:

• Dropped the physics/cosmology that wouldn't survive philosophical scrutiny
• Grounded ethics in human nature (what we are, what's in our control) not cosmic theory
• Focused on practice that works independently of metaphysical speculation
• Created a system with minimal cosmological commitments

The early Stoics and Marcus tied ethics to physics. When the physics collapsed, their ethics seemed to collapse with it. But Epictetus's version survived because it wasn't dependent on that cosmology.

4. Show Modern Philosophy Keeps Cycling

Modern philosophy doesn't progress away from classical positions - it cycles:

• Revivals of dualism (property dualism, emergentism)
• Renewed interest in libertarian agency
• Moral realism making comebacks
• Correspondence theory still the default in practice
• Foundationalist intuitions persist

This suggests the classical positions track something real that modern alternatives can't escape.

5. Contrast Shelf-Lives

Ancient Stoic Physics: ~500 years → philosophically dead
Modern anti-classical consensus: ~200-300 years → already fragmenting, persistent problems
Classical foundations: ~2000+ years → still defensible, still debated, problems with alternatives keep driving return
Epictetus's minimal-cosmology ethics: ~1900 years → still applicable, still works

The Systematic Argument:

1. Stoic physics was philosophically untenable and collapsed
2. BUT the classical philosophical foundations (the six) remained defensible
3. Epictetus showed Stoic ethics could work without the problematic physics
4. Modern philosophy rejected classical foundations wholesale
5. BUT every modern alternative has faced persistent, unsolvable problems
6. Meanwhile classical positions, though unfashionable, remain philosophically viable
7. THEREFORE: Classical philosophy + Epictetus's approach has greater durability than modern philosophy
8. Sterling's system vindicated this by explicitly doing what Epictetus implicitly did

What This Would Demonstrate:

Not just that Sterling's system is defensible, but that returning to classical foundations is philosophically necessary. Modern philosophy's project of replacing them has failed. The alternatives don't work better - they work worse.

This reframes the entire project: You're not defending an idiosyncratic minority position. You're showing why classical philosophy was right all along, and why modern philosophy's attempted revolution created more problems than it solved.

Could AI Generate This?

The systematic structure - yes. But the philosophical judgment that this argument is worth making and likely true? That requires conviction about classical vs. modern philosophy that AI doesn't have.

Is this the direction you're thinking for the comparative ethics project - not just comparing ethical systems, but demonstrating why classical foundations are more durable?