Sterling's Schema for the Examination of Impressions

 

Sterling's Schema for the Examination of Impressions

The following schema was formulated by Grant C. Sterling as a practical account of what correct use of impressions requires. It is the most complete practical account of impression management in the Stoic literature, and it maps precisely onto the epistemological structure that Michael Tremblay's analysis of Epictetan intellectualism requires.

a) Don't assent to impressions that depict externals as either good or evil.

b) If we fail 'a', don't assent to subsequent impressions that depict immoral responses to the good or bad thing as being appropriate.

c) Consciously formulate true propositions regarding the lack of value of external things. As far as possible, do this in advance. Remind yourself that your own life and health are neither good nor evil, as are the lives and health of those around you. The same for your job, etc. Whether or not you have done so in advance, try to do so at the time. "I have pictures here of your wife having sex with another man." Remind yourself: 'my wife's actions are not in my control. They are neither good nor evil. My happiness is in my control, not enslaved to the actions of others.'

d) Consciously formulate true action propositions. "I should report truthfully to my boss regarding the sales numbers from the last quarter: truth telling is virtuous, and I have a duty to act faithfully at work. If my boss fires me, I should remember that my job is an external, neither good nor evil." By paying attention to preferred and dispreferred indifferents, and to the duties connected with my various roles in life, I can recognize what it would actually be correct for me to do in each situation. Bring this consciously to mind, and assent to it.

e) When you do act correctly, assent to the proposition that you have done a good thing — then you will experience Joy (or at least proto-Joy.)

f) Over time, my character will change such that I no longer have the false value impressions in 'a' and 'b', and 'c' and 'd' and 'e' become routine. This is eudaimonia — good feelings combined with virtuous actions.

Commentary

Steps a and b are the immediate examination — the test applied to the arriving impression. Does this impression depict an external as a genuine good or evil? If assent to that depiction has already occurred, does the subsequent impression depicting an immoral response as appropriate also require refusal? These two steps are the correspondence audit in real time.

Steps c and d are explicitly foundationalist. They are not reactive. They are preparatory. The value propositions of c and the action propositions of d are consciously formulated in advance, held ready, and retrieved at the moment the impression arrives. This is the two-level foundational structure Tremblay's analysis of Epictetan intellectualism requires — and it is precisely what Epictetus means when he says to have your dogmata at hand for every situation, and specific ones for different situations.

Step c addresses value classification — the correct identification of externals as indifferent. Step d extends the foundational layer to include role-specific duty propositions. It is not enough to know that the job is an external. The practitioner must also have already formulated what his role requires — what truthful reporting demands, what faithfulness at work means, what the correct action is in the specific situation he faces. This connects directly to the Stoic doctrine of kathêkon — appropriate action determined by role. The foundational layer must include both value propositions and role-specific action propositions. Both are prepared in advance. Both are retrieved rather than generated under pressure.

This answers Tremblay's third category of failure — error in particular application — directly. The agent who holds the correct universal but misclassifies the present situation fails precisely because the situation-specific action proposition of step d was not already in place. Training in advance closes that gap.

Step e completes the epistemological picture by adding the affective dimension. Correct assent to having acted virtuously produces Joy — not the pseudo-joy of external satisfaction but the genuine positive emotion that corresponds to real moral achievement. This is moral realism operating at the affective level: the good feeling is appropriate because something objectively good has occurred.

Step f describes the telos of the entire process. Over time the false value impressions of a and b cease to arise. Steps c and d become routine rather than effortful. The practitioner no longer retrieves the dogmata consciously because they have become second nature — embedded in prohairesis at the level Tremblay calls fully possessed knowledge. This is eudaimonia: not a feeling pursued as an external goal but the natural condition of a rational faculty whose judgments consistently correspond to moral reality.

Sterling's schema is foundationalism, moral realism, correspondence theory, and ethical intuitionism operating as a single integrated practical system. Tremblay's scholarship confirms the epistemological structure. Sterling's schema shows what it looks like in practice.