Which Philosophical Commitments Are Exercised in Each of the Five Steps?

 

Which Philosophical Commitments Are Exercised in Each of the Five Steps?

Sterling's Core Stoicism rests on six philosophical commitments: substance dualism, libertarian free will, moral realism, ethical intuitionism, foundationalism, and the correspondence theory of truth. Each commitment is operative at specific points in the five-step method of making correct use of impressions. What follows documents where each commitment does its work and why it is necessary there.

Step One: Reception

Correspondence theory. The impression arrives already embodying correspondence theory — not as a philosophical doctrine applied afterward but as the native structure of impressional content. "I have been betrayed" does not present as "I have a betrayal-feeling." It presents as "Betrayal has occurred in objective reality." Every impression carries this structure: it claims to match what is. It says "I am true because I represent accurately." The impression is truth-apt from the moment of arrival. Without correspondence theory there is no false fact — there is only how things seem.

Moral realism. Many impressions arrive not merely as factual claims but as moral ones. "I have been harmed" claims that real harm has occurred — not that harm seems to have occurred, not that the agent dislikes what happened, but that objective harm is present as a feature of the situation. "This is unjust" claims that actual injustice obtains. The impression says "This IS bad," not "This seems bad to me." This is moral realism at the perceptual level — the impression claims to detect real good and evil before philosophy intervenes. Without moral realism there is no false value — there are only feelings and preferences.

Both commitments are operative at reception because the impression itself presupposes them. The taxonomy of error — false fact, false value, mixed error — is impossible without them. They are not applied to the impression. They are already embedded in what an impression is.

Step Two: Recognition

Substance dualism. Recognition is the act by which what seemed to be reality is reclassified as a representation of reality. It introduces and enforces three separations that ordinary experience collapses into one: the external event, the impression that represents it, and the rational faculty to which the impression appears. These are not conceptual distinctions. They are differences in kind.

This separation is not psychological but metaphysical. It presupposes that the rational faculty is not identical with its representations, and that representations are not identical with the world. The rational faculty is a distinct locus of judgment — not a function of the impression and not a product of the external event. Without substance dualism this separation collapses. If the self is simply one more physical event among physical events, there is no subject standing over against the impression, no one to whom the impression appears as distinct from the impression itself. There is only the flow of events — including the event of seeming-to-be-harmed — with no standpoint from which the claim could be evaluated.

Correspondence theory. Recognition makes correspondence applicable. Before recognition there is nothing to test — there is only what seems to be the case. After recognition the impression has been reclassified as a report about the world rather than the world itself, and can now match or fail to match reality. Recognition does not test the impression. It creates the conditions under which testing is possible.

Substance dualism is the primary commitment at recognition. Correspondence theory becomes available as a consequence of it.

Step Three: The Pause

Libertarian free will. The pause is not a delay. It is not indecision. It is the suspension of assent itself — the moment in which the impression is present but not yet endorsed. If assent were determined by the impression together with prior psychological and physical conditions, the pause could not exist. There would be no suspension, only latency. No interruption, only sequence. No freedom, only causation.

At the moment of the pause more than one outcome is genuinely possible. The impression does not fix the response. The prior state does not fix the response. This is not ignorance. It is ontological openness. The pause is the experiential manifestation of libertarian freedom: the fact that the next act of assent is not necessitated by any prior condition. Without libertarian free will the pause would be an illusion — a feeling of delay masking a fixed result.

Substance dualism. The pause does not occur in the body. The body reacts according to physical law — heart rate increases, muscles tense, neural firings propagate. The pause occurs in the rational faculty of judgment. It is not a physical event but a rational one. It is not a brain state but a suspension of endorsement. If the pause were a brain state it would be governed by physical causation and therefore determined. It would be one more link in a chain, not a break in it. The pause exists because the rational faculty is not governed by physical law in the way the body is. It operates in a domain where stimulus does not necessitate response.

Both commitments are necessary at the pause and neither is sufficient alone. Without libertarian freedom the pause would be impossible — the impression together with prior states would already determine the outcome. Without substance dualism the pause would have nowhere to occur — it would collapse into neural processing and be governed by physical law. Remove either and the pause disappears. The pause is the point at which causal momentum is interrupted and rational agency begins.

Step Four: Examination

Foundationalism. Examination does not invent standards. It applies criteria that are already in place. Virtue is the only good. Vice is the only evil. Everything else is indifferent. Only what is up to us has moral status. These are not hypotheses. They are not conclusions derived during the examination. They are the conditions under which moral reasoning is possible at all — the bedrock against which all claims are tested. They function as axioms. Without such foundations no impression could be tested, only compared. Without foundationalism the examination generates an infinite regress — every standard would itself require a standard.

Moral realism. The foundational standards the examination draws on are objective features of moral reality, not preferences or conventions. Virtue really is the only good. Externals really are indifferent. There is a fact of the matter independent of what the agent feels or prefers. Without moral realism the examination collapses into coherence, comfort, or cultural agreement. It would no longer be testing but harmonizing. Examination is possible only because truth is not negotiable.

Correspondence theory. The examination tests a single question: does the impression's claim match reality? The impression says the external event is evil, has harmed the agent. Reality as structured by the foundational standards says only vice is evil, externals are indifferent. The claims either match or they do not. There is a fact of the matter. The impression either corresponds to moral reality or it fails. This is the correspondence audit — the structure of the test itself.

Ethical intuitionism. The application of the foundational standards is not inferential. One does not compute that an insult is an external and therefore indifferent. One recognizes it as such. One does not derive that a lie is vicious. One apprehends it directly. This recognition is rational and immediate — the direct apprehension of category membership: virtue, vice, or indifferent. Just as perception distinguishes colors without syllogism, the trained rational faculty distinguishes moral kinds without proof. There is no regress, no mediation, no calculation. There is recognition. The verdict is perceived, not constructed.

All four commitments are operative at examination. Foundationalism supplies the standards. Moral realism guarantees their objectivity. Correspondence theory frames the test. Ethical intuitionism delivers the verdict.

Step Five: Decision

Libertarian free will. At the point of decision more than one outcome is genuinely possible. The impression does not necessitate assent. The past does not necessitate assent. The psychological state does not necessitate assent. Three alternatives are open: assent, refusal, suspension. None is forced. None is excluded by prior conditions. None is illusory. This is not freedom from coercion. It is freedom from determination. The choice is not produced by the world. It is introduced into the world. Without libertarian free will decision would be the inevitable output of prior causes — not an act of the self but an event that happens to the self.

Ethical intuitionism. At decision the rational faculty knows what the impression claims, what the standards are, and whether the claim matches those standards. Nothing remains to be discovered. Nothing remains to be calculated. Nothing remains to be tested. The verdict is already visible. What remains is whether the self will align with what it knows or diverge from it. The act of alignment — assenting to what corresponds, refusing what does not — is a direct act of rational perception enacting what examination has already revealed. No calculation occurs. No feeling is consulted. No preference is weighed. The claim simply does or does not match, and the will aligns with what is.

Correspondence theory. The criterion governing decision is correspondence. If the impression matches reality, assent is appropriate. If the impression fails to match reality, refusal is appropriate. If the match cannot be determined, suspension is appropriate. This rule is not pragmatic, emotional, or cultural. It is not about benefit, comfort, or approval. It is about alignment. Decision is not the assertion of will over the world. It is the alignment of will with what is.

Responsibility enters at decision because authorship enters at decision. The act is imputable because the agent could have chosen otherwise, knew what was true, and was not compelled. The agent owns the act because the act originates in the agent. This is why error is blameworthy and virtue is praiseworthy — not because of what follows from the act, but because of where the act comes from. Decision is the point at which the self becomes answerable for itself. It is where freedom becomes deed.

The Complete Map

Step One — Reception: Correspondence theory and moral realism. Both are presupposed by the structure of the impression itself before philosophy intervenes.

Step Two — Recognition: Substance dualism as the primary commitment. Correspondence theory becomes available as a consequence — the impression can now be tested because it has been reclassified as a representation.

Step Three — The Pause: Libertarian free will and substance dualism together. Neither is sufficient alone. Both are necessary for the pause to exist at all.

Step Four — Examination: All four remaining commitments together. Foundationalism supplies the standards. Moral realism guarantees their objectivity. Correspondence theory frames the test. Ethical intuitionism delivers the verdict.

Step Five — Decision: Libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, and correspondence theory. The will is genuinely free. The verdict is perceived directly. The criterion is alignment with what is.

The six commitments are not philosophical additions to the practice of examining impressions. They are its structural preconditions. Each step requires specific commitments to be what it is. Remove any commitment and the step it supports either collapses or becomes something other than what Epictetus prescribed and Sterling's framework makes explicit.