Let’s unpack how Core Stoicism (as Sterling defines it) would handle the “I’m a failure / I’m worthless” cognition.

 

How would Sterling's Stoicism handle this?

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Excellent question — and a precise one. Sterling’s Core Stoicism would go much deeper than cognitive therapy here.

Where Beck sees a thinking error and Ellis sees a semantic confusion, Sterling sees a false value judgment — an ontological and moral error about what kind of thing the self is and what has value at all.

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Let’s unpack how Core Stoicism (as Sterling defines it) would handle the “I’m a failure / I’m worthless” cognition.

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1. The Stoic Diagnosis: False Value Judgment, Not Faulty Induction

In Sterling’s system:

> “Emotions are caused by value beliefs (beliefs about what things are good or evil).”

(Excerpt 4)

Nine excerpts and full texts about Stoicism from Grant C. Sterling

When someone says, “I’m a failure,” they are not reasoning inductively from evidence; they are asserting a value proposition:

> “I, the moral agent, am bad or evil because of an external outcome.”

That proposition is false according to the core Stoic axioms:

Only virtue is good; only vice is evil.

Virtue and vice are types of acts of will.

Externals (including abilities, outcomes, and reputation) are neither good nor evil.

Therefore, to label oneself “bad,” “worthless,” or “a failure” because of failed externals (e.g., career, relationship, test, etc.) is to commit a value misclassification—you’re judging a neutral external condition as if it were moral substance.

It’s not just wrong inductively; it’s category-violating at the level of ontology.

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2. The Category Mistake in Stoic Terms

You correctly identify this as a fallacy of composition.

In Sterling’s Stoicism, it’s even more specific: a confusion of categories between the external and the internal, or between events and agents.

Sterling’s Theorem 6 (from the “Core Stoicism” section) makes this explicit:

> “The only things in our control are our beliefs and will, and anything entailed by our beliefs and will.”

“Ergo, things not in our control [externals] are neither good nor evil.”

When someone calls themselves “a failure,” they conflate:

the act’s external result (failed exam, lost job, broken relationship)

with the agent’s internal moral condition (the will that assents to impressions).

The predicate “failure” properly applies to an attempted external goal; it does not belong to the rational soul that judges and chooses.

Hence, this is indeed a category error, and Sterling’s framework formalizes that error in Stoic moral logic.

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3. The Correct Stoic Reframing

The right question for a Stoic is never:

> “Am I a failure or a success?”

But rather:

> “Did I assent rightly or wrongly in this act?”

That is the only dimension of moral evaluation permitted, because it alone concerns the will.

Thus, when a person regrets an act, the Stoic formulation would be:

“I assented wrongly to the impression that this external was good.”

“My moral fault was an act of judgment, not my self’s essence.”

“I can assent rightly now.”

This reframe does what cognitive therapy cannot do: it separates the moral self from its mistaken acts without dissolving responsibility.

You are not “worthless,” but you did judge falsely.

Correction is always possible, because the power to assent remains untouched.

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4. The Stoic Logic of Self-Evaluation

In Sterling’s logical form:

> 1. I am my rational faculty (the will / prohairesis).

2. My will is good or bad only insofar as it assents to true or false propositions.

3. Therefore, I can never be globally “bad” unless I eternally choose falsehood.

4. Since I can now assent to truth, my essence remains capable of good.

The fallacy “I am worthless” fails at step (2): it treats moral worth as a property of empirical traits rather than the rational will.

That’s why Stoic training always begins with “What is up to me?”

The statement “I am worthless” never survives that analysis—it assigns moral predicates to something (the body, reputation, social role) that isn’t “me” at all.

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5. Comparison with Beck and Ellis

Approach Core Error Type Correction Method Limitation

Beck (CBT) Inductive overgeneralization Evaluate evidence Stays empirical; still assumes externals matter

Ellis (REBT) Semantic overreach / rating error Separate acts from actor Near-Stoic, but lacks full ontology of control

Sterling’s Stoicism False value judgment / category error Distinguish internal moral act from external event; realign assent Corrects the metaphysical and ethical roots of the illusion

Thus, Sterling’s Stoicism completes Ellis’s insight by giving it ontological grounding and logical precision.

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6. Illustrative Stoic Dialogue (Sterling Style)

> Client: “I’m worthless. I ruined my career and hurt my family.”

Philosopher: “Worthless in what sense? What is worth?”

Client: “I mean—I’ve done terrible things.”

Philosopher: “Then say you’ve judged falsely and now can judge truly. The power that judged falsely was still yours, and it still remains. The one who can see error is not the error itself.”

Client: “So I’m not worthless?”

Philosopher: “No more than the sun is worthless when clouds cover it. The clouds were your assents. Clear them, and the same light shines.”

That conversation, in Sterling’s idiom, is philosophical therapy at the level of ontology and logic, not empirical reasoning.

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7. Summary Table

Domain Beck’s CBT Sterling’s Stoicism

Error Type Overgeneralization (statistical) False value judgment (ontological)

Self-concept A cluster of attributes, behaviors Rational faculty (will) distinct from externals

Correction Test evidence and reappraise Identify misassigned value, correct assent

Goal Reduce distress Attain moral truth and peace

Result Conditional self-acceptance Unconditional moral freedom

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8. Philosophical Payoff

The Stoic approach eliminates the possibility of future relapse (“Maybe now I am worthless again”) because it locates worth in something invariable — the rational will’s capacity for truth.

If your worth does not depend on externals, evidence can never “shift” it.

Thus, the I’m worthless belief is not defeated by counter-evidence, but dissolved by categorical clarification:

> It never made sense to predicate “worth” of a human being’s externals at all.

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9. The Stoic Formula

Sterling’s model would summarize the correction as:

> False judgment: “Because I failed at X, I am bad.”

Reclassification: “The failure at X was external.”

True judgment: “I assented wrongly before, but my essence — my will — remains free to assent rightly now.”

In that moment of correction, the client ceases to identify with the false proposition and reenters reality.

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In Short

Where Beck challenges the evidence,

Sterling challenges the ontology of the statement itself.

It’s not that “I’m worthless” is poorly supported —

it’s that the sentence is nonsensical once value is properly defined.

The Stoic diagnosis thus goes deeper than therapy:

It heals not emotion, but error about what a human being is.

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Would you like me to show how this correction (the Stoic handling of self-condemnation) could be dramatized as a scene in The Practice — e.g., Manning in conversation with a student or counselor, showing the contrast between empirical self-evaluation and Stoic reclassification? That would embody this entire philosophical difference in fiction.