Ben C. Davis

It’s teaching changed through time. Zeno taught a different doctrine to Aurelius. Although it’s ethical doctrine don’t change too much, with the exception that ethics became more the focus over time.

Unfortunately the work survives in only a few works, like Seneca.

Stoicism is less Greek; the early were Syrian, the later Roman.

It’s emotionally narrow, and some sense fanatical, with some religious aspects. It also appealed to rulers, like Alexander.

Zeno was a phonecian.

Most of he early stoics rejected Plato’s immortality. But they found Socrates’ simplicity appealing.

Zeno cared not about metaphysics, only about virtue, of ethics. Doubts of the trustworthiness of senses annoyed him.

His metaphysics was about cosmic determinism. Natural laws rigidly dictate what happens. They believed it all started with fire and will end with fire. It’s a cycle.

Everything has a purpose connected to man. This power is sometimes called god or Zeus. God though is not separate from the world. He is the soul of the world. It’s all apart of one thing: nature. Good is to be in harmony with nature.

Virtue is the sole good. All good, or badD depends entirely on one’s own will, their actions. No matter what happens to them. Accordingly, every man has perfect freedom, as long as they remove mundane desires.

Russell points out a flaw: if nature is deterministic, then I have no control over my virtue. There would be no argument against cruelty, as like the stoics point out, suffering is the ultimate instigator of practicing virtue.

All passions are condemned. When anyone dies, friends or family, can’t affect one’s own virtue; so therefore need not suffer.

Posidonuous brought Plato back in, along with some neo-Pythagorean astrological / Orphic ideas.

Seneca was a politician who made changes to stoicism. He was a very rich man, even though as a stoic he should support indifference to riches. He’s student was Nero. Eventually he was accused of plotting to overthrow him, but as a mark of respect, he was allowed to commit suicide. Supposedly his eloquence continued up until the moment he died.

Epictetus was a slave, also an influence. A Greek. No idea what the influence was, Russell doesn’t say.

Aurelius is as the most famous. An emperor. He was devoted to stoicism. His Meditations showed he suffered from a great wariness, a frustration with his public responsibilities. He persecuted the Christian’s. He was contentious in all his actions, but not very successfully. He seemed to want to live his life on a simple farm, but never did.

The complete different social statuses of these three show that for an individual philosophy, these circumstances matter less.

Russell describes Aurelius’ time as a weary age. One in which the future would be worse. Compared to Locke, we see the differences between a tired philosopher and a hopeful one.

The stoic ethics suited that age as its principles were of endurance rather than hope.

Epictetus preached that on earth, we are prisoners. Aurelius thought us a little soul bearing about a little corpse.

“I must die, but must a die moaning? Can anyone hinder me from going with a smile? At peace?” “You can chain my body, but not my will”.

Epictetus seems very religious. A sense that everything is subordinate to god. I nature. To its will. He seemed to hate passion. Freedom from passion, that your affairs depend on no one, that would be the source of true happiness. “Every man is an actor in a play, it’s our duty to play our part well”.

Russell admits it’s helpful in its teaching of a personal ethic that dissuades from tyrannical power. It’s preaching of the oneness of man, of the equality if slaves, is superior to anything to be found in Plato or Aristotle, or any philosopher whose thought is inspired by the city state.

Aurelius is doubtful of immortality. So regulate every action as if it could be your last. Harmony with the universe is the same thing as the will of god. “From thee are all thing” “to thee all things return”. He believed that god gives every man a personal demon. He believed the earth had one soul. The connection of all things. Whatever happens to you was created for you from all eternity. He saw himself a man of the world.

An issue that comes up in stoicism: how to reconcile free will and determinism. They preach that everything is the actual of an entirely deterministic chain of events, but then they also suggest that no man can be forced to sin, that their virtue is entirely is entirely their own making. Of their own mind. Outside causes has no effect.

This contradiction has run throughout all philosophy, and still does. It occurs in science and neuroscience today (my thought). If a stoic we’re to subject to a Socratic dialogue, their defence may be: the universe is a single being, it’s soul called god or reason. As a whole, the being is free. God chose to act according to fixed laws. The inconvenience of imperfect laws is acceptable. When a man is of fire, and is being virtuous, they are a part of god, and so are free. Russell provides a counter argument by discussing torture. We know there are drugs that destroy will power, and so remove one’s ability to act virtuously within the face of suffering. So in that case there is no decision, virtuous or not. So how does free will exist there? Generally the stoics preach it is he virtuous will that is free, the sinful one is a deterministic result of prior causes. An inconvenience of the laws of nature, as chosen by god. If they concluded, as Russell believes, that all will, good or bad, is the result of prior causes, this would have had a paralysing effect on moral effort.

Another contradiction: since the will is autonomous, and the virtuous will alone is good, one man can not do either good or harm to another, therefore benevolence is an illusion. Virtue is the sole cause of good, and virtue is only of internal causes, not external, by definition man cannot have a good or bad external effect.

But Aurelius knew that his actions did have an effect on his citizens, so some type of reconciliation needed to occur. Essentially: you can’t make someone else virtuous, by definition, but you can provide them with things that they consider good. I suppose it’s a way of doing something for the non stoics who’s lives you effect by your actions.

The stoic ethic: Certain things are vulgarly considered goods, but what is good is securing these false goods for other people. But this, Russell points out, is obviously flawed if we take that these worldly goods are inherently pointless.

Stoicism to Russell is a bit sour: we can’t be happy, but we can be good. Let’s pretend then that as long as we are good, being happy doesn’t matter. It’s a heroic attitude, especially in a bad world. It’s not quite true or sincere.

They did have an effect on the theory of knowledge. They held a rather scientific distinction between that which we can perceive to be true and that which we can only hold to be probably true.

Another doctrine that was influenced: innate ideas and principles. Greek work was entirely deductive, so we had the issue of first principle. Stoics held that there are innate ideas, obviously true to all humans, so can be used as the axioms, in things like Euclid’s work. Even Descartes held this idea.

Innate rights is a stoic doctrine. Natural law. Natural equality. By nature, all humans are equal. It did have an effect on Roman law, and the laws that followed.

Roman

Alexander left the Western Europe alone. It was mainly Syracuse and Carthage.

Roman conquered them. Than the Macedonian countries. Spain too. Then France. Then England.

They made the northern African plains fertile, that led to new cities.

Originally Rome was an independent city state. Started by kings, then aristocratic republic, then democratic elements. Seen as an ideal balance of monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic.

Conquest upset that balance. The money it brought in caused upset. The grain brought in caused an inflation of the power of the senate, and an isolation and subjugation of a slave class.

The democratic push by the gracchi brothers led to political instability in the republic, which then led to a tyrannical overthrow and the establishment of the empire. Specially they introduce a wealth / land redistribution act. Violence against them, when they were killed at the end of their political term, established an acceptability of violence against political enemies.

A similar pattern happened in Greek cities. It seems there is a pattern.

Augustus, Caesar’s heir and adopted son, created a political stability across the empire. This is in contrast to the Macedonian failure to create stability. Augustus created a provincial system that actually showed some care towards the people of the provinces. But adventure has gone from life. Things were established, and without much real freedom. This removed the zest for knowledge and exploration. This happened too during the Macedonian system.

Augustus hid his rise to power through military and instead gave it legitimacy through senate decree. No one felt humiliated.

This state was contented, but not creative.

Land was often stolen and given to soldiers after victory.

Augustus forced ancient piety, and so punished free inquiry.

Trajan to Marcus Aurelius was fairly decent. As good as a despotic system could be.

Eventually in the 3rd century, the army realised its power and began to hold power over the emperors. Invasion from northern barbarians were inadequately defended. The fiscal system broke down.

The empire was saved, somewhat, by its split between west and east, with Constantine leading in the east. Diocletian in the west, who began to include the Germanic barbarians. But a century later the western empire fell due to the Germans taking power.

Constantine established Christianity in the empire, probably because of its soldiers faith in it.

The Turks eventually invaded the eastern empire.

The west was Latin, the east was Greek. It was the Arabs that kept the Greek culture alive.

The ways Rome affected culture

1. The direct effect of Rome on Greece: generally it was a blight on culture. Its stability created a lack of vitality.
2. The effect of Greece on Rome: when Rome first met the Greeks, they became aware of they own inferiority in everything other than military and social cohesion. After the Punic wars, the young Roman soldiers grew an admiration of the Greeks. They copied their architecture, they merged the gods. Greek poets heavily influenced the romans. But the romans made no cultural inventions, created no art; no philosophy. Nothing excepts roads and social cohesion. The Greeks were parasitic on romans. Eventually, in the 3rd century AD, Greek influence declined, but generally because culture declined. This was mostly because Rome was becoming entirely a military state. The roman soldiers were more often barbarians. And so learning was less and less valued.
3. The unification of government and culture: Rome established the notion of a unified political, cultural, and religious mass. Inspired by stoicism and the philosophies of the oneness of man, an inherent brotherhood, they established the Holy Roman Empire. A single, worldwide empire. One people, one religion, united. Although the quality of thought may not have been eclipsed since the early Greek thinkers, Rome brought quantity through its cultural diffusion and expansion.
4. The Mohammadans as vehicles of Hellenism: the Arabs, in the 7th century, conquered large parts of the empire. They were learned and in the early days, weren’t fanatical. Jews and Christian’s were left alone, as long as they paid tribute. Our knowledge of Aristotle is mostly because of the Arabs. Algebra is a word we owe to them, although it was invented by the Alexandrian Greeks. Alchemy is another word, and again started by the Greeks. The Arabs were better as commentators on philosophy, rather than original thinkers. They were responsible for contraction of Greek study. It was mostly them that led to the increase in learning in the 11th century. The renaissance may not have happened if not for the constipation of Greek traditions by the Arabs.

Plotinus

The last great philosopher of antiquity. Coincidence with one of the worst history of Roman Empire - when the soldiers realised their power and started to control the emperors.

None of the terrible reality was present in his work. He paid attention to the good. The other world.

To the Christians it was the eternal heaven. To the Platonists it was the eternal world of forms.

He’s important because he has a great effect on the development of Christianity.

A theory can be important because: it’s truth, it’s beauty.

The happiness of the people of Plotinus time would be happy in spite of their surroundings. A happiness through strife - the opposite of children, who have an instinctive happiness.

Plotinus holds a very high place in those that sought happiness in a higher place. A transcendental happiness.

In many respects he clarified Plato’s thinking. He argued against materialism. He argued more clearly the superstition of mind and soul. He’s always sincere, always telling the reader what he believes important.

Russell believes that regardless of what you think of his philosophy, it’s hard to argue with his qualities as a man.

Plotinus’ metaphysic had a holy trinity: the one, spirit, and soul, in order of importance. One is sometimes called god, sometimes good. But it is not a being. It’s the potential for being.it’s the source of the world beyond any other possible thing or conception.

There’s a concept of nous (roughly translated to mind) is the intelligence, a foundation of all existents, a sentience able to to contemplate the One. Mathematics was a divine element to Plotinus, to Plato. It constitutes the activity of nous.

Logos means reason.

To understand the divine mind, a soul can use its self-will to analyse it self when it’s most divine. It is the light by which the sun shines on that which shines. Like how we see the sun by its own light. We see the One by its own divine light, through nous.

For Aristotle, I believe Nous represented awareness. So for Plotinus, it’s thought nous that one is aware of one’s divine origins.

But from reading up on it, it seems that Nous is god, or an image of god. The One represents first cause, the highest level.

The soul perceives the universe through materialised thoughts. So perceiving god, boys, is the ultimate good of a soul.

Plotinus described ecstasy: the feeling of being outside one’s body. It was through this that he felted connected to the divine.

Soul made the real world. The matter. The inner soul, intent on nous, and another which faces the external. The outer soul is looking “down” towards matter. The inner soul looks up to nous.

Plotinus was the last religious teacher who wasn’t hostile towards beauty. Beauty and all its pleasures became a manifestation of the devil, especially of the pagans and Christians.

Matter is created by soul. Every souls has its hour to descend into a body. The motivation isn’t reason, but the desire for creation. Souls are punished for their sins by rebirth.

Soul eventually becomes one with nous, forgetting all the memories of matter.

Soul is not matter to Plotinus. Soul creates matter so it cannot be of the same substance. This is contrast to the stoics who believed the soul material. The soul is of essence, something immortal.

With Plato, the soul is immortal as ideas are immortal. But this is implicit in Plato.

The soul is eternal when not within a body. When attached to a body it becomes concerned with something lower. The body obscures the truth of the soul.

The uncomfortable consequence of this position, as with Plato, is that the creation of the universe was a mistake. The soul is perfectly happy with nous. The soul, and all its material concerns, need not exist. In its best it would contemplate, not create.

They saw the material world as a copy, a derivative, of the eternal intellect. It only has the beauty of a copy.

The logic for why the soul exists, which the material world exists, is hard to understand, at least in Russell quotation and explanation. It seems plotinus’ argument was that only something with an end unto itself would fail to pass something down to a lower form. So as the divine intellect, nous, is eternal it must, through its very nature, create an impression of itself. Something without, to its inherent contemplative within.

Christian’s had the same problem of creation: it implies that before it, something about the divine was lacking. Plotinus just says that the nature of mind, of nous, makes creation inevitable.

Plotinus sees the intellect as an intermediary between the One and the soul. The intellect is profuse. In all. It is everything. The sun is all the stars. A soul, all the souls. There is an individual being, but all are all.

Sin is a consequence of free will.

A defect of Plotinus is to look only within, to ignore the external. A subjectivity that grew from early philosophies. Eventually this would kill scientific inquiry. Only virtue would be seen important. For Plato, virtue was everything that was possible in mental achievement, but eventually it would be known as only that the involved the will, not the desire to improve the physical or human world.

Plotinus was the end of the Greeks and the beginning of Christendom. To the ancient weary world his doctrine might be acceptable but not stimulating. To the barbarian world, where abundant energy, restriction not stimulation was needed. A cap on brutality, not a stimulation of imagination.