In 1815, the Italian scholar Angelo Mai discovered a cache of letters between Marcus Cornelius Fronto and several of his friends, including Marcus Aurelius.
One of these letters is basically a birthday greeting from Marcus to Fronto, believed to have been written around 140–143 AD, when Marcus would have been a young Caesar, somewhere between nineteen and twenty-two years old.
The tone of Marcus’ letters is generally strikingly affectionate and, indeed, he says in The Meditations “From Fronto I learned… that generally those among us who are called Patricians are rather deficient in natural affection.” (1.11), which suggests that Fronto taught him how to display greater affection toward his friends and family.
Hail, my best of masters.
I knew that on everyone’s birthday his friends undertake vows for him whose birthday it is. I, however, since I love you as myself, wish to offer up on this day, which is your birthday, hearty prayers for myself.
I call, therefore, with my vows to hear me each one of all the Gods, who anywhere in the world provide present and prompt help for men; who anywhere give their aid and shew their power in dreams or mysteries, or healing, or oracles; and I place myself according to the nature of each vow in that spot where the god who is invested with that power may the more readily hear.
Therefore I now first climb the citadel of the God of Pergamum and beseech Aesculapius [the god of healing] to bless my master’s health and mightily protect it.
Thence I pass on to Athens and, clasping Minerva [Athena, goddess of wisdom] by her knees, I entreat and pray that, if ever I know aught of letters, this knowledge may find its way into my breast from the lips of none other than Fronto.
Now I return to Rome and implore with vows the gods that guard the roads and patrol the seas that in every journey of mine you may be with me, and I be not worn out with so constant, so consuming a desire for you.
Lastly, I ask all the tutelary deities of all the nations, and the very grove, whose rustling fills the Capitoline Hill, to grant us this, that I may keep with you this day, on which you were born for me, with you in good health and spirits.
Farewell, my sweetest and dearest of masters. I beseech you, take care of yourself, that when I come I may see you. My Lady greets you.
I get a lot of enquiries from people asking “When is your book coming out in…?” So here’s the current list of translations. There may be more coming, though, this list is just how things stand at the moment.
The Croatian translation, Kako razmišlja car filozof, is now available from Planetopija (ISBN 978-953-257-457-9).
The Turkish translation, Roma İmparatoru Gibi Düşünmek, is available from Beyaz Baykuş Yayınları (White Owl Publishing, part of the Destek group). (ISBN 9786254410895)
The Benefits of Understanding More About Stoic Philosophy
The Benefits of Understanding More About Stoic Philosophy
I write books about and run courses on Stoic philosophy. (I’m currently working on a graphic novel about Marcus Aurelius.) I also run a large discussion group for Stoic philosophy on Facebook. One of the most common things you have to deal with online is the phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, a very common cognitive bias whereby people who lack competence in some field will tend to underestimate their own incompetence. Professor Dunning, for instance, said that the Dunning-Kruger effect “suggests that poor performers are not in a position to recognize the shortcomings in their performance.”
Where you encounter that in the classics is with people who have read very little on the subject assuming that they know everything there is to know. They don’t know how much they don’t know, precisely because they don’t know enough to realize. That used to take the form of people who have read one or two classics— usually The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or Handbook of Epictetus — assuming that they’re experts and have nothing left to learn about the philosophy. Nowadays, surprisingly, you’ll find people who haven’t even read those books and whose only exposure to the subject is from a few blog articles, podcasts, or videos.
Now, it’s true that the ancient Stoics thought that too much study was potentially a vice, if it didn’t actually improve our character. Knowledge for its own sake isn’t a virtue in Stoicism. Scholars who argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin are simply wasting their time. Stoicism isn’t about reading endless books. However, neither is it about intellectual laziness. You can’t make a virtue out of ignorance when it comes to the most important things in life. Marcus Aurelius, for instance, although he tells himself to put his books away, was a voracious reader. He meant that he should cease wasting his time on irrelevant studies, stop arguing about what a good man should be, and just be one. That’s typical Stoicism. He didn’t mean that people should embrace ignorance, though, and rest on their laurels after only having scratched the surface of the subject.
The central principles of Stoicism are actually quite simple, as Epictetus says. For example, “to make correct use of our impressions”. But if people don’t understand what that means, as Epictetus also says, the explanation takes time and can become lengthy. When it comes to reading the Stoics there’s a lot that people can gain from further study, particularly reading modern texts. I’m not suggesting that people have to read my books. I’d be happy if they read more or less any modern commentaries, as long as they were trying to genuinely penetrate deeper into the real meaning and practical application of the ancient texts.
For example, I know that I would only have obtained half as much value from reading The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius if I hadn’t also read books like Pierre Hadot’s The Inner Citadel, which explain the philosophical presuppositions of Marcus’ Stoic philosophy, the historical context that give his remarks meaning, and the connotation of the Greek words and phrases he was using. People study The Meditations for decades. There are many different translations you can compare. You can study the original Greek, learn about the philosophical and historical context, and read the surviving Roman histories of Marcus’ reign, in order to learn more about his character and some of the people to whom he’s referring in the text, such as his main philosophical tutor Junius Rusticus.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it’s virtually impossible to fully understand texts like The Meditations and The Handbook of Epictetus unless you have at least a basic grasp of the principles of Stoic philosophy. None of the main surviving Stoic texts — containing the thought of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius — were intended as systematic treatises on Stoic philosophy. They all take for granted that the reader will have some familiarity with the philosophy to which they’re referring, as well as to the historical events and other individuals mentioned.
The closest thing we have to a systematic presentation of Stoicism in an ancient text is the third chapter of Cicero’s De Finibus, in which Cato of Utica is portrayed discoursing at length on Stoic Ethics. However, that’s pretty limited in scope. The only way to really get a primer in Stoic philosophy is to read modern commentaries, such as Brad Inwood’s excellent Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction, John Sellars’ Lessons in Stoicism, or any number of other excellent books which are available to guide you. That way you’ll be more able to understand what Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius take for granted, and won’t run the risk of misinterpreting their philosophy.
And I don’t just mean at what some people like to call the “theoretical” level but in your daily practice of Stoicism. Individuals who haven’t properly acquainted themselves with the philosophy often get completely the wrong idea about what the Stoics are actually suggesting you do. They also don’t realize how many practical techniques the Stoics describe. In my first book on Stoicism, The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, I tried to give a comprehensive overview of the parallels between ancient Stoicism and modern evidence-based psychotherapy. I listed roughly eighteen distinct psychological strategies that can be found in the Stoic writings. Yet people who think they’ve exhausted everything the ancient texts have to teach them and have nothing more to learn can usually only describe one or two of those strategies, if you’re lucky. There’s a lot more to learn, in other words, not only about the theory that informs the practice but also about the practice itself.
The greatest empire is to be emperor of oneself. — Seneca, Letters, 113
When I came up with the title of my latest book How to Think Like a Roman Emperorit was intended to have a double meaning. First of all, of course, I had in mind a specific Roman emperor. Not one of the bad ones like Caligula, Nero, or Commodus, but rather one of the good ones: Marcus Aurelius. That’s made explicit in the book’s subtitle: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, we might say that we have an excellent guide to thinking like the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in his private notes, known today as The Meditations.
However, I was also referring to one of the famous paradoxes of Stoicism, the notion that being a king, or a ruler such as an emperor, is actually a state of mind.
We can all be kings or emperors, in this sense, as long as we free ourselves from certain unhealthy desires and emotions, which the Stoics call the “passions”. We might view this as a striking metaphor, although the Stoics intended it to be taken more literally. The true meaning of kingship, for them, is self-determination and freedom from slavery to our passions. Most of the individuals, though, who are popularly called “kings” (or “emperors”) aren’t actually worthy of the name.
How better or how otherwise could a man be a good ruler or live a good life than by studying philosophy? For my part, I believe that the good king is straightway and of necessity a philosopher, and the philosopher a kingly person. — Musonius Rufus, Lecture 8
Over a hundred years before the Stoic school was founded, Socrates had considered equating moral wisdom with the art of kingship, according to Plato’s Euthydemus. As is often the case, notions hinted at in the Socratic dialogues appear later to have been embraced more fully by the Cynics and their philosophical heirs the Stoics. Indeed, according to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, wrote a lost book On Kingship. We’re told that he said, presumably in this book, that as only the wise are truly free only they can truly be called kings. This obviously seemed ridiculous to many people. The third head of the Stoic school, Chrysippus, had to defend his paradoxical use of the word “king” by arguing that a true king must know the difference between good and evil, and that only the genuinely wise can be said to possess this knowledge. Once again, therefore, only the wise man can be called a king.
When Epictetus later says that “An ill-fortuned king does not exist more than an ill-fortuned god”, he means that a true king makes his own good fortune out of whatever circumstances befall him in life (Discourses, 3.22). According to the Stoic definition, the mythic tyrant Eurystheus wasn’t a true king, although he appeared outwardly to be one. How could he be if he did not have sovereignty over himself? By contrast, his cousin Hercules, despite being constrained to complete the Twelve Labours, and having no kingdom of his own, was a true sovereign because he exercised wisdom and self-mastery of the kind revered by the Stoics.
[Zeus] does not supply me with many things, nor with abundance, he does not will me to live luxuriously; for neither did he supply Hercules who was his own son; but another (Eurystheus) was king of Argos and Mycenae, and Hercules obeyed orders, and laboured, and was exercised. And Eurystheus was what he was, neither king of Argos nor of Mycenae, for he was not even king of himself; but Hercules was ruler and leader of the whole earth and sea, who purged away lawlessness, and introduced justice and holiness; and he did these things both naked and alone. — Discourses, 3.26
The training in self-mastery endured by Cynic and Stoic philosophers is in the service of attaining the sort of inner “kingship” possessed, at least according to the their interpretation of the myths, by the hero Hercules: “Great is the combat, divine is the work; it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness, for freedom from perturbation” (Discourses, 2.18).
According to Stobaeus, the early Stoics held that the wise man is the most fulfilled (eudaimon) type of person and therefore also the most blessed, prosperous, pious, and indeed the most like a king and a general. Hence, the vicious, foolish and base are the opposite, being essentially bankrupt and servile by their very nature. Therefore, “only the wise man is a king and regal, but none of the base is”, because true monarchy is absolute and superior to everything else, we’re told. Likewise, “only the virtuous man rules, and even if he does not in all circumstances do so in actuality, still in all circumstances he does so by disposition.” In other words, even if he lacks any worldly power, the wise and virtuous man is still kingly in his very character.
By this standard, men like Socrates and Diogenes the Cynic were kingly and free. Socrates lived in relative poverty, was ridiculed by many Athenians, condemned, and eventually cast into prison and executed. Diogenes was an exile who lived like a beggar, was mocked even by children, and ended up being kidnapped and enslaved by pirates. However, they were considered wise and therefore absolutely free. Powerful rulers like Xerxes I, the Great King of Persia, and Alexander the Great, by contrast, were more like slaves than kings, according to this paradox, insofar as they lacked moral wisdom and were ruled by their passions.
The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was one of the most powerful men in European history. However, ironically, we can see from his private notes in The Meditations that he dedicated his life to learning how to think like the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, a crippled former-slave who had lived, a generation before him, in poverty.
What are Alexander [the Great], [Julius] Caesar, and Pompey when compared to Diogenes, Heraclitus, and Socrates? For these latter [were wise and free]. As to the others, consider how many cares they had and to how many things they were enslaved! — Meditations, 8.3
If this sounds like he’s being a bit harsh on these great rulers, he does comes back to this point later to justify his remark.
Go on, then, and talk to me of Alexander [the Great] and Philip [of Macedonia] and Demetrius of Phalerum. If they saw what universal nature wishes and trained themselves accordingly, I will follow them; but if they merely strutted around like stage heroes, no one has condemned me to imitate them. The work of philosophy is simple and modest; do not seduce me into vain ostentation. — Meditations, 9.29
Here famous rulers are compared to actors playing a role on stage. They pretend to be regal, heroic, and powerful but if they haven’t mastered themselves, and aren’t living in agreement with Nature as the Stoics described the goal of life, then it’s just an appearance rather than reality. The external trappings of wealth and power are of negligible importance from the perspective of philosophy because, in the grand scheme of things, they’re temporary: “Alexander the Great and his stable boy were brought to the same level in death” (Meditations, 6.24).
In one well-known passage, Marcus does say that he’s seeking to avoid having his character turned into that of a Caesar:
Take care that you are not turned into a Caesar, that you are not stained with the purple; for such things do come about. Keep yourself simple, then, and good, sincere, dignified, free from affectation, a friend to justice, reverent towards the gods, affectionate, and firm in the performance of your duties. Struggle to remain such a person as philosophy wished to make you. — Meditations, 6.30
However, he clearly means that he must avoid being made ostentatious and insincere by his position as emperor, again, like an actor playing the role. On the contrary, the true ruler speaks plainly, without affectation. He is also someone unafraid of death and totally committed to virtue.
When you act, let it be neither unwillingly, nor selfishly, nor unthinkingly, nor half-heartedly; do not attempt to embellish your thoughts by dressing them up in fine language; avoid excessive talk and superfluous action. Furthermore, let the god within you be the overseer of one who is manly and mature, a statesman, a Roman, and a ruler, who has taken his post as one who is awaiting the signal for his recall from life and is ready to obey without need of an oath or another man as his witness. And show a cheerful face to the world, and have no need of help from outside or the peace that others confer. In brief, you must stand upright, not be held upright. — Meditations, 3.5
Marcus uses one of his favourite phrases here to express the self-reliance of the wise and good man, who rules over his own mind: he stands upright of his own accord, without having to depend on others to hold him up.
In his tragedy Thyestes, Seneca expresses the same notion albeit dressing it up in fine language himself:
Ye know not, for high place greedy, wherein true kingship lies. A king neither riches makes, nor robes of Tyrian hue, nor crown upon the royal brow, nor doors with gold bright-gleaming; a king is he who has laid fear aside and the base longings of an evil heart; whom ambition unrestrained and the fickle favour of the reckless mob move not, neither all the mined treasures of the West nor the golden sands which Tagus sweeps along in his shining bed, nor all the grain trod out on burning Libya’s threshing-floors; whom no hurtling path of the slanting thunderbolt will shake, nor Eurus, harrying the sea, nor wind-swept Adriatic’s swell, raging with cruel wave; whom no warrior’s lance nor bare steel ever mastered; who, in safety ‘stablished, sees all things beneath his feet, goes gladly to meet his fate nor grieves to die. — Seneca, Thyestes
In particular, one of secrets of true kingship is the ability to endure criticism and even insults from others with relative indifference. In Hercules Furens, Seneca wrote “’Tis the first art of kings, the power to suffer hate.” This notion perhaps goes back to Antisthenes whose saying Marcus Aurelius later quoted with approval: “It is a king’s part to do good and be spoken of ill” (Meditations, 7.36). If we’re easily upset by negative remarks then we make ourselves into slaves of our own passions, and we grant other people lordship over us. Someone who has the wisdom and strength of character to genuinely rise above these things, though, is a king.
I think, ultimately, though, the Stoic king, or emperor, is someone unafraid of death. Their inner sovereignty and freedom is grounded in the philosophical acceptance of their own mortality. Seneca said that to learn how to die is to unlearn how to be a slave. This reminds me of the final verses from William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
What if the Greek and Roman myths were “history in disguise” — stories about real historical individuals and events that gradually became exaggerated and distorted through centuries of retelling? Some influential ancient Stoics appear to have been proponents of a theological doctrine, later known as Euhemerism, which said just this.
The term “Euhemerism” is derived from the name of an obscure Greek philosopher called Euhemerus, believed to have been born in Messina, Sicily. Euhemerus was a friend and courtier of King Cassander of Macedonia, and a contemporary of Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism. His major work Sacred History was written in the early 3rd century BC, during the first decades after Zeno founded his Stoic School in Athens. Only fragments of Euhemus’ writings, quoted by other authors, survive today. However, from these the broad outlines of his philosophy can be seen.
Euhemerus argued that mythological accounts of the gods should not be taken literally but rather interpreted in a more rational and naturalistic manner. He believed that most of these myths originated in accounts of real events and individuals, which had become exaggerated and mythologized over time. Storytellers naturally tend to embellish stories and so what began as naturalistic accounts of real historical events, such as the lives of famous rulers, are gradually distorted by continual retelling over the centuries and turned into mythological accounts of supernatural events. Today, we might also describe Euhemerus as favouring a relatively skeptical perspective on ancient myths and theology.
In short, Euhemerus appears to have developed a systematic account of ancient myths, which claimed that the gods were originally great kings, heroes, and benefactors of humanity, who became objects of religious veneration over time. He noted that the deification or apotheosis of powerful rulers was not uncommon, even within living memory, such as that of the tyrant Dion of Syracuse, a couple of generations earlier, or the Egyptian pharaohs. (Centuries later, of course, Stoics would witness the Romans also deifying their emperors.) This observation naturally led to the skeptical view that myths concerning most deities originated in a similar manner but were fashioned into increasingly supernatural stories.
There appear to be two main ways in which this tradition reinterprets myths naturalistically:
Some myths about gods are read as symbolic representations of natural phenomena, e.g., the Egyptians worship the River Nile as a god, the discovery of wine led to its personification as the god Dionysus, etc.
Others myths are viewed as resulting from the deification of kings (also pharaohs and emperors) and various great men and women
For example, Euhemerus claims that Zeus was actually a real king of Crete, who became so highly revered that legends gradually turned him into a god. This interpretation was supported by the fact that the Cretans were known for making the controversial claim that a tomb near Knossos, inscribed with the words “The tomb of Zeus”, contained the mortal remains of a Cretan king upon whose life the myth of the Greek god was originally based. Porphyry later claimed that Pythagoras discovered the tomb and inscribed it with the words “Here died and was buried Zan, whom they call Zeus”. In fact, Cretans had earned a reputation among other Greeks for being liars and atheists because of their controversial claim that Zeus had, in reality, been a mortal king of Crete.
These naturalistic and somewhat skeptical methods of interpreting myths don’t necessarily lead to atheism. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, positions resembling Euhemerism were widely regarded in the ancient world as forms of atheism or agnosticism, which could lead to the persecution of those advocating such ideas.
Although he became known for promoting it, Euhemerus was not the first to develop a rational, naturalistic interpretation myths. Some of the natural philosophers who preceded Socrates appear to have held similar views. For example, Xenophanes observed that people tend to construct representations of the gods in their own image:
But if cattle and horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do, horses like horses and cattle like cattle also would depict the gods’ shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves have. […] Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed and black Thracians that they are pale and red-haired. — Xenophanes
If a god exists he must be quite unlike humans. “But mortals think that the gods are born and have the mortals’ own clothes and voice and form”, says Xenophanes. In other words, we naturally tend to create anthropomorphic images of gods. The natural philosophers who came before Socrates therefore realized that the gods of Greek mythology were probably, in some sense, merely human inventions. However, it was from the Sophists that the Stoics inherited their naturalistic interpretation of the gods as “history in disguise”.
The Sophists as Euhemerists
Protagoras, the first famous Sophist, earned considerable notoriety for his agnosticism. According to Diogenes Laertius, for instance, his book On the Gods began with the words:
As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or that they do not exist. For many are the obstacles that impede knowledge, both the obscurity of the question and the shortness of human life. — Protagoras, On the Gods
Protagoras’ most famous student, the Sophist Prodicus, a friend of Socrates, was also frequently labelled an “atheist” or “agnostic” because, a few generations before Euhemerus, he embraced a naturalistic reinterpretation of the gods as symbolic personifications of natural phenomena.
Prodicus of Ceos says that ‘the ancients accounted as gods the sun and moon and rivers and springs and in general all things that are of benefit for our life, because of the benefit derived from them, even as the Egyptians deify the Nile.’ And he says that it was for this reason that bread was worshipped as Demeter, and wine as Dionysus, and water as Poseidon, and fire as Hephaestus, and so on with each of the things that are good for use. — Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians
These sort of interpretations appear to have been very familiar to educated Greeks. For instance, in the Phaedrus, Plato portrays Socrates discussing the myth about Boreas, the god of the north wind, abducting the Athenian princess Orithyia. Socrates mentions that some intellectuals, perhaps Sophists like Prodicus, claim the myth originated because a strong gust of wind blew a real girl called Orithyia over the rocks by the riverside, causing her to fall to her death, something that became transformed over time into the myth that she had been carried off by Boreas, the god of the north wind. However, Plato’s Socrates finds this mode of naturalistic interpretation somewhat unpersuasive.
The Early Stoic Euhemerists
The famous allegory of Prodicus, called “The Choice of Hercules”, as recounted in Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates, was apparently the text that inspired Zeno of Citium to become a philosopher. It ultimately led to the founding of the Stoic school. As we’ll see, we’re told that one of Zeno’s most influential students accepted Prodicus’ interpretation of religious myths as metaphors for natural phenomena. Although we can’t be certain, it’s quite possible therefore that Zeno himself also adopted this view, as it may have followed quite naturally from his pantheism.
In Diogenes Laertius, who provides one of our best accounts of early Greek Stoicism, we’re told:
The deity, say they, is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect or intelligent in happiness, admitting nothing evil [into him], taking providential care of the world and all that therein is, but he is not of human shape. He is, however, the artificer of the universe and, as it were, the father of all, both in general and in that particular part of him which is all-pervading, and which is called many names according to its various powers. They give the name Dia because all things are due to him; Zeus in so far as he is the cause of life or pervades all life; the name Athena is given, because the ruling part of the divinity extends to the aether; the name Hera marks its extension to the air; he is called Hephaestus since it spreads to the creative fire; Poseidon, since it stretches to the sea; Demeter, since it reaches to the earth. Similarly men have given the deity his other titles, fastening, as best they can, on some one or other of his peculiar attributes. — Diogenes Laertius
This is attributed to Stoics in general, although the context suggests it may perhaps have been the original view of Zeno, perhaps stated in his treatise On the Whole.
For the Stoics, therefore, the universe considered in its totality was divine, a single living rational being, which they called Zeus. “Zeus” and “Nature” were therefore basically synonymous terms, as they would later be for Spinoza, another pantheist, who became notorious during his lifetime for saying Deus sive Natura — “God aka Nature”. By interpreting the traditional myths as metaphors for Nature as a whole, or aspects thereof, the Stoics could potentially avoid the charge of atheism for which earlier philosophers had been persecuted. Although sometimes the very ambiguity of their position would backfire and bring the same charge upon their heads.
Zeno, in his Republic, reputedly taught that all temples and religious sculptures should be abolished. Similar views resurface three centuries later in the Pharsalia of Lucan, Seneca’s nephew, which portrays the Stoic Cato of Utica refusing to seek an oracle from the priests in a temple to Zeus (called Jupiter by Romans) because he is a pantheist and therefore believes that god is everywhere and within everyone equally.
Did he select the barren sands to prophesy to a few and in this dust submerge the truth and is there any house of God except the earth and sea and air and sky and excellence? Why do we seek gods any further? Whatever you see, whatever you experience, is Jupiter. — Lucan, Pharsalia
In an article entitled ‘The Stoic Worldview’, John Sellars, one of the leading contemporary scholars of Stoicism, writes:
It is difficult to know how serious this talk of ‘God’ was. The early Stoic Cleanthes appears very sincere in his ‘Hymn to Zeus’, for instance, and we have no reasons to doubt his sincerity. However the Stoics were also well known for offering allegorical interpretations of the pagan Gods, including allegorical interpretations of the portraits of the Gods in Homer for instance. Famously, the Stoic Chrysippus once said that Zeus and his wife Hera are actually the active and passive principles in Nature, breath and matter. (In one source, Diog. Laert. 7.147, divine names for Nature are explained on the basis of their etymology.) Much later, in the third century AD, the philosopher Plotinus said that the Stoics bring in God into their philosophy only for the sake of appearances (Enn. 6.1.27). If ‘God’ is simply another name for Nature then it doesn’t really do much work in their philosophy; it doesn’t add or explain anything, so one might easily drop the word without any obvious loss. — John Sellars
Indeed, the Stoics became especially known for interpretation the Greek myths allegorically, as metaphors or symbols for various natural phenomena and processes. For instance, Henry Sedgwick, in his biography of Marcus Aurelius, summarizes the original teachings of Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism as follows:
Zeus, Hera and Vesta, And all the gods and goddesses Are not Gods, but names Given to things that lack life and speech; For Zeus is the sky, Hera the air, Poseidon the sea, and Hephaestus fire.
We’re actually told that Persaeus, the most prominent of Zeno’s immediate students, adopted this agnostic or atheistic way of interpreting the gods from the teachings of Prodicus.
Persaeus appears in reality to be prepared to dispense with a divinity, or at least take up an agnostic position; seeing as, in his treatise On the Gods, he says that Prodicus was not unpersuasive in writing that things that provided nourishment or other help to us were the first things to be acknowledged and honoured as gods, and later that persons who first found new means of obtaining food or providing shelter, or invented other arts and crafts were called names like Demeter, Dionysus and the like. — Philodemus, On Piety
Cicero also attributes Prodicus’ view of the gods to Persaeus:
Persaeus says that it was men who had discovered some great aid to civilization that were regarded as gods, and that the names of divinities were also bestowed upon actual material objects of use and profit, so that he is not even content to describe these as the creations of God, but makes out that they are themselves divine. — Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 1.15
In his recent book, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World, Tim Whitmarsh therefore classes the Stoic Persaeus as an atheist, like Prodicus before him. Early Christian authors familiar with Stoicism, would turn this into a way of refuting the very existence of their pagan gods. They enthusiastically embraced Euhemerism, with regard to the Greek and Roman gods, allowing Clement of Alexandria to exclaim: “Those to whom you bow were once men like yourselves”.
However, Persaeus wasn’t the only Stoic to use arguments based on the historical theory of mythology. We actually have a surviving text from the Stoic Cornutus, titled the Compendium of Greek Theology, which elaborates at great length on the symbolic interpretation of the gods, drawing heavily on speculations about ancient etymologies.
For example, the Greek goddess Artemis was traditionally given the epithet Phosphoros, meaning “light-bearing” because, says Cornutus, the moon, like a lesser version of the sun, also “emits light and illuminates the surroundings to some extent,” especially when it is full. The moon, he says, came to be depicted as the huntress Artemis because it appears to “chase” the animals of the zodiac “and swiftly catches them up — speed being something associated with a hunt as well.” Cornutus therefore concludes:
In the same way, my child, you can apply these basic models to everything else that comes down through mythology concerning those considered to be gods, in the conviction that the ancients were far from mediocre, but were capable of understanding the nature of the cosmos and ready to express their philosophy in symbols and enigmas. — Cornutus, Compendium of Greek Theology
Cornutus wanted to remove “superstition” from the ancient myths by interpreting them symbolically but he still believed piety was important and customary rituals should be preserved. Throughout his text traditional myths concerning each of the gods are understood metaphorically as references to different aspects of divine Nature.
Seneca, who was a contemporary of Cornutus, makes it clear that he sees the ancient myths as akin to children’s stories and that no educated adult should take them literally.
I am not so foolish as to go through at this juncture the arguments which Epicurus harps upon, and say that the terrors of the world below are idle — that Ixion does not whirl round on his wheel, that Sisyphus does not shoulder his stone uphill, that a man’s entrails cannot be restored and devoured every day; no one is so childish as to fear Cerberus, or the shadows, or the spectral garb of those who are held together by naught but their unfleshed bones. — Seneca, Letters, 24
It’s not necessarily the case that skeptical positions like Euhemerism should lead to atheism or even agnosticism. One might believe in the divinity of Nature as a whole, like the Stoics, or in a single transcendent God, like the Christians, while interpreting numerous ancient myths as “history in disguise”, deriving them from distorted accounts of real historical individuals and natural phenomena. However, once you start down the skeptical road, it can be hard to turn back. Someone who basically reinterprets all of the traditional myths allegorically is surely bound to go on to question whether or not gods even exist at all.
What Stoic Philosophy Would Say About Offensive Behaviour
What Stoic Philosophy Would Say About Offensive Behaviour
Recently I’ve been thinking more about insults and what Stoicism might tell us about how to view them. That’s been prompted by some articles by William Irvine and Eric O. Scott about insults, social justice, and political correctness, following Irvine’s recent publication of the book A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt and Why They Shouldn’t. Their discussion does a good job of applying Stoic philosophy to a specific dilemma that’s topical at the moment. There’s been a lot of reference in the media recently to “microaggression”, “safe spaces”, and “trigger warnings”, particularly on US college campuses.
I’m not attempting in this post to provide a comprehensive overview of these issues. I mainly want to contribute a few observations from my perspective as a cognitive-behavioural therapist and to point out some relevant passages in the ancient Stoic literature that I feel may have been overlooked.
Let’s start with microaggressions. I was a psychotherapist for many years, so this dilemma is pretty familiar to me because it frequently comes up in therapy sessions, particularly in the context of treating social anxiety and providing what therapists call social-skills training. Psychological literature on dealing with insults, or put-downs, goes back, in particular, to the 1970s, the heyday of what used to be called “assertiveness training”. So I feel that when considering some of these issues it’s helpful to bring in elements of that perspective, as well as some of the insights Stoic philosophy has to offer. Psychotherapy, of course, speaks mainly to the psychological issues at stake in these debates, but it also has something to say about the ethical and political dimension because those are dilemmas that any therapist working in this area, over the last forty or fifty years, will have had to wrestle with in discussions with their clients, as well as in clinical supervision.
William Irvine’s article cites a recent article, which quotes, Sheree Marlowe, the chief diversity officer at Clark University, giving the following advice to incoming students in her presentation on microaggressions:
Don’t ask an Asian student you don’t know for help on your math homework or randomly ask a black student if he plays basketball. Both questions make assumptions based on stereotypes. And don’t say “you guys.” It could be interpreted as leaving out women, said Ms. Marlowe, who realized it was offensive only when someone confronted her for saying it during a presentation.
Irvine claims that much of this advice is further sensitizing students to insults, whereas the ancient Stoics would have recommended that they be desensitized to them, i.e., that they learn to “shrug off insults”.
The Stoics, after devoting considerable thought to how best to respond to insults, concluded that we would do well to become insult pacifists. When insulted, we should not insult back in return; we should instead carry on as if nothing had happened. It is, I have found, a very effective way to deal with many insults. On failing to provoke a rise in his target, an insulter is likely to feel foolish.
In relation to some of the most serious kinds of insults, “hate speech”, Irvine’s advice is as follows:
What about hate speech, though? Should we remain silent in the face of a racist insult? It depends on the situation. But the one thing we should not do is take the insult personally. We should instead dismiss hate speech, in much the same way as we should dismiss the barking of an angry dog. We should keep in mind that the dog, not being fully rational, cannot help itself. The Stoics would add that if we let ourselves get angered or upset by a barking dog, we have only ourselves to blame.
Eric O. Scott’s response to William Irvine’s book, and his presentation on this subject at Stoicon, raises the concern that Stoicism might be misinterpreted by some as advocating an overly-passive attitude toward social injustices, because of the the emphasis it places on acceptance. He writes:
If people find modern Stoicism’s advice for victims of injustice off-putting, it may have more to do with the choices we make about how to go about presenting that advice than with what the ancients have said. Being resilient to insults and being an active agent for Justice are not inimical objectives, and while I accept Irvine’s call to the former, I would caution him that he has gone too far in his neglect of the latter.
Many people today appear to read the Stoics as advising that we should be in some sense indifferent to the suffering of others. I think Scott does a good job of forcefully arguing against this, putting forward the case that Stoicism has always emphasized the virtue of justice, and an ethical concern for the common welfare of mankind. Irvine then replied to this article, as follows:
But besides being concerned with their own well being, Stoics felt a social duty to make their world a better place. This could be done, they knew, by introducing other people to Stoicism, but it could also involve helping extract non-Stoics from the trouble they got themselves into as a result of their misguided views regarding what in life is valuable. Marcus Aurelius is a prime example of a Stoic who took his social duty very seriously, but despite being the emperor, he failed to bring about a just society. The Rome that he ruled still allowed or even encouraged slavery and acts of human cruelty.
As an aside, we do know that Marcus passed several laws that improved the situation for slaves under his rule. I’ll discuss the notion that he and other Stoics are to blame for failing to openly oppose the institution of slavery in a separate section below. In any case, Irvine agrees with Scott here that Stoics do have a social duty to help others, which must be reconciled with their emotional acceptance of external events.
What the Stoics Really Said
Stoicism differs from its predecessor, Cynicism, which encouraged plain speaking (parrhesia) in a manner that was more indifferent toward the feelings of others. The Stoics also advocated plain speaking, but in a more moderate form that took account of the vulnerabilities and needs of others. I believe there’s a crucial, and actually fairly well-known passage, that may help clarify the psychological aspect of the Stoic position. In the Encheiridion, Epictetus is quoted as teaching his students:
When you see a man shedding tears in sorrow for a child abroad or dead, or for loss of property, beware that you are not carried away by the impression that it is outward ills that make him miserable. Keep this thought by you: ‘What distresses him is not the event, for that does not distress another, but his judgement on the event.’ Therefore do not hesitate to sympathize with him so far as words go, and if it so chance, even to groan with him; but take heed that you do not also groan in your inner being. (Handbook, 17)
Does Epictetus advise his students to ignore the man in distress? Does he suggest that they should simply challenge him for being overly-sensitive or tell him to “suck it up, buttercup”? No. Does he suggest delivering a lecture on Stoic Ethics to the person in distress? No. What Epictetus actually advised his students was that they should express outward sympathy, without hesitation. And to groan along with him, in certain situations, showing commiseration. His only caveat is that we should not ourselves become upset at the same external things: groan along outwardly, by all means, but not inwardly.
Why does Epictetus say this? Well, first of all, it’s clearly an important passage. Arrian selected it for the Handbook, which is a highly condensed summary of Epictetus’ Stoic teachings. So it’s not a throwaway remark. It’s presumably a central component of his teaching, and something it was considered important for all of his students to remember in daily life, hence its inclusion in the Encheiridion. Epictetus must have encountered similar misinterpretations of Stoicism to the ones we hear today: that it encourages us to be callous toward the suffering of others. That’s not consistent with Stoic Ethics, though. We have a duty to care for other rational beings, and to wish them well, Fate permitting.
We should desire to alleviate the suffering of others, where possible, although doing so is outside of our direct control and must therefore be pursued “lightly” as Epictetus put it. That doesn’t mean abandoning the goal of helping other people altogether, though. It means balancing the desire to help others overcome their suffering with acceptance of the fact that they have minds of their own. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. We can and should try to help others, nevertheless.
Sometimes people rightly detect that the Stoics think the best thing we can do for others is to educate them if we believe they’re mistaken, which would include with regard to the things that upset them. Sure. But what people often miss is that the Stoics also recognize that when someone is in the grip of a passion they’re not thinking straight so it’s not the best time to reason with them. Seneca says that if you tell someone who is in the throes of anger to calm down, it will just make them worse. That tends to apply to anxiety and other emotions as well. The Stoics knew that over 2,000 years ago. Cognitive therapists arrived at the same conclusion, based on their experience. People find it difficult to think objectively when they’re upset so there’s no point trying to lecture them. We should treat them with kindness and empathy, wait for their passions to naturally abate, and then perhaps talk to them about things if the opportunity arises, but in a sensitive manner rather than in a hectoring or condescending way.
I think it’s extremely helpful to dwell on the passage above for a moment and consider how it would apply to some of the modern examples being discussed. One of the typical examples of a microaggression given on university campuses is asking foreign students “Where are you from?” It’s considered to be potentially offensive to pose this question. I’m Scottish but I live in Nova Scotia, in Canada. About once a month, I reckon, someone asks me what part of Ireland I’m from — it’s mainly taxi drivers. (I’m totally serious.) Is that a microaggression? I don’t know. It would probably offend some people. It just makes me laugh. I think my Canadian girlfriend gets more annoyed about it than I do. Several British people in Canada have told me that they actually felt quite offended by similar remarks, though.
What advice should a Stoic give to people genuinely offended by these sort of comments? Should we say: “It’s not events that upset us, but our judgement about events.” Should I tell them to cultivate indifference toward external things? No. That would obviously be flippant and insensitive. It wouldn’t normally be very helpful. Why? Precisely because their passions, being external to my volition, are not under my direct control. In other words, merely telling them “what not to think” is unlikely to transform them into Stoic Sages. That’s something that seems trivial when it’s said to me but at which other people do sometimes take offence.
Here’s a more sensitive example… The bars in North America often sell a cocktail called an “Irish car bomb”. The first time I noticed that my jaw hit the floor because it seemed to be making light of atrocities such as the 1998 Omagh bombing, which killed 29 civilians, including several young children and a pregnant woman. It’s a pretty common drink, though. Would a typical Canadian bar serve a cocktail called an “Iraqi car bomb” or one (hypothetically) called an “Ottawa shooter”? Probably not. So that’s technically a double-standard and morally hypocritical, right? Although, notice that some of these are empirical questions… For all I know there are bars in Ontario that do a roaring trade in Ottawa shooters.
What if someone’s maiden aunt lost a close friend in the Omagh bombing and then walked into a bar in Canada to be greeted by a massive blackboard on the wall saying “Irish car bombs half-price on St. Paddy’s Day”? Is it offensive? Yes. Is it worth being upset about. No. Should we be surprised if some people are upset by it? No. Should we tell them to “get over themselves” and not take things so personally. No. What would Epictetus and the other Stoics actually advise us to do? Well, as we’ve just seen, according to Arrian, they’d say that if someone is genuinely upset we should express outward sympathy, and act sensitively. They’d say that we should be more concerned, though, about remaining inwardly detached ourselves and not joining in their distress — not allowing ourselves to be triggered. We should also behave sympathetically, though.
Stoicism is Actually a More Nuanced Philosophy
You see, what Stoicism has to say about this is actually very insightful, complex, and interesting… because it asks us to strike a careful balance. Often people in these debates about political correctness, and so on, go to one extreme or the other. They focus either on the notion that people are emotionally overreacting to things that others see as trivial (“liberal snowflakes”). Or they focus on the fact that people are being insensitive to the inevitable distress caused by certain triggers (“right-wing bigots”). I like to say that Stoicism is all about striking a delicate balance between “acceptance and action” or between emotional indifference and ethical concern. That’s the whole point of the philosophy really.
We all know the Stoic Sage is unperturbed by Irish car bomb cocktails and “sticks and stones may break his bones but words will never hurt him.” Sure but the Sage is a hypothetical ideal: the individual equivalent of a Utopian society. Or at least, he’s as “rare as the Ethiopian phoenix” as the Stoics put it — and that was born every 500 years, according to legend. Most of us — including Zeno, Chrysippus, and Epictetus — are classed as fools by the Stoics. Everyone is flawed. We’re all FINE — fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. It’s unrealistic, un-Stoic, and unphilosophical, to act surprised when other people are upset by external events, as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius repeatedly point out. It would also be morally vicious to completely disregard their distress.
What do therapists who work with clients on a daily basis, dealing with these issues, actually do? Well, they have the whole “armamentarium” of psychological techniques at their disposal. For example, clients may learn to employ cognitive distancing strategies to moderate the distress caused by certain insults. Alternatively, they may employ “fogging”, from assertiveness training, the subtle art of agreeing with someone without really agreeing with them. Or they might employ repeated imaginal exposure to the upsetting event until their anxiety has naturally abated.
But should the therapist be shocked if their client is initially offended by insults? Or should they join with the client in their judgement that the events are “awful”, or offensive enough to be upsetting? Well, modern cognitive therapists face this dilemma every day. They all know that they have to walk a thin line between empathy and agreement. It’s understandable that the client is upset by insults but it’s also true that they don’t really need to feel deeply hurt by words — they could learn to view them in a more detached way.
Trigger Warnings
What about trigger warnings? Massimo Pigliucci has written an excellent article on “trigger warnings” in academia. These are warnings given to students in advance that a lecture may contain material that could be upsetting, especially to sufferers of PTSD. Now, the concern you’ll hear most therapists express about this issue is that the main treatment for anxiety, including PTSD, is repeated exposure to the feared event, and that avoidance is symptomatic and a maintaining factor in anxiety disorders. So the very idea of giving trigger warnings seems to fly completely in the face of what psychological research tells us about best practice in the treatment of PTSD.
If I am “triggered” by conversations about sex then avoiding those conversations is probably not going to help me in the long-term, it will potentially backfire by maintaining or even increasing my sensitivity. That said, exposure in therapy is usually following a graduated hierarchy, prolonged sufficiently for habituation to occur, and carried out in a safe environment under controlled conditions. It may be unhelpful for people to be caught off guard by experiences that trigger their anxiety. However, if we simply eliminated these exposure experiences, by never mentioning sex or whatever triggers are a concern, that would definitely reduce the chances of natural habituation taking place, and the anxiety or distress abating naturally — the vulnerable students would potentially get worse rather than better in the long-run.
For example, in an article entitled “HAZARDS AHEAD: The Problem with Trigger Warnings, According to the Research”, Richard J. McNally, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard, writes:
Trigger warnings are designed to help survivors avoid reminders of their trauma, thereby preventing emotional discomfort. Yet avoidance reinforces PTSD. Conversely, systematic exposure to triggers and the memories they provoke is the most effective means of overcoming the disorder.
Also, warning a group of students about quite specific triggers carries the risk of unintentional disclosure by alerting some students to the fact that others have a specific form of anxiety. The lecturer says, “Oh, by the way, we’re going to be talking about alien abductions today, in case anyone’s concerned by that…” Student x gets up and leaves the room, looking flustered. So everyone else in the class now basically knows that student x has anxiety that’s triggered by discussions of alien abductions. The cat is out of the bag. So that can now be spread around as gossip, etc. (The lecturer could warn students beforehand by email, etc., but the mere absence of particular students would still potentially lead to unintentional disclosure in this way.)
So are philosophers clouding the issue by speaking outside their sphere of competence and trespassing on the professional domain of psychologists? One of the things I notice about these debates is that they often turn on questions that are empirical rather than purely ethical. For example, whether or not we warn students in advance about a possible trigger word is probably going to depend on our appraisal of the probability and severity of the distress caused. That’s not really an ethical question, though. I noticed when reading the arguments around this topic that one side would often focus on examples of obvious overreactions to seemingly trivial triggers — such as someone seemingly choosing to take offence at a particular word — whereas the other side would focus on more serious, pathological, and even dangerous psychological conditions — such as someone with severe PTSD, perhaps a rape victim or war veteran, being re-traumatized.
If I was talking to vulnerable group of female refugees from a war-torn country where sexual abuse is common, I might think that it’s tactless to bring up the subject of rape without some kind of preliminary remark. Most of us would probably agree on that, probably even Epictetus. At the other end of the scale, some people have clown or belly-button phobias but they’re not so common that you’d expect to find one in every lecture room, and they’re not usually severe enough that they induce full-blown panic attacks at the mere mention of the word. (Although there’s always the exception that proves the rule.)
So if the majority of us, even the Stoics, agree that sometimes it makes sense to warn people in advance then the disagreement seems mainly to be over where to draw the line. Again, that seems to be an empirical question for psychology, not a purely philosophical question. We might want to consider what the actual prevalence of sexual trauma or other potential issues is among the population we’re addressing, for example. We should also distinguish between different forms of anxiety. Phobic anxiety can be severe but isn’t usually overwhelming or traumatizing unless it’s accompanied by what psychologists technically refer to as “panic attacks”, a term that has a very specific meaning in psychopathology. PTSD, by contrast, is often more severe and frequently accompanied by panic attacks, in which anxiety feels completely overwhelming. That can lead to a phenomenon called re-traumatization, in which anxiety being triggered can cause a relapse into PTSD symptoms, especially if experienced in a public setting, such as a lecture theatre. Once again, though, these are empirical questions about psychopathology.
We all agree (or most of us do) that we shouldn’t knowingly harm other people, which is the ethical component. The disagreements often turn on where the line should be drawn dividing acceptable from unacceptable levels of risk. Perhaps that’s really a question for psychologists, though, which would help explain why philosophers have struggled to agree on an answer, especially if they’re just engaged in armchair speculation without reference to scientific data. Perhaps they’re simply not the best people to answer the question.
Some Comments on Stoicism and Slavery
Perhaps this is a little bit of a digression but I think it may be of interest… In his article, Scott writes:
Moreover, there are well-founded reasons for being concerned that the ancients themselves failed to emphasize Justice as much as they should have. “About the institution of slavery,” say the authors of the introduction to the Chicago University Press’s series of Seneca translations, “there is silence, and worse than silence: Seneca argues that true freedom is internal freedom, so the external sort does not really matter.”
I agree with the fundamental point he is making here. However, I feel that the quote about Seneca is misleading, if it implies that Stoicism in general didn’t question the institution of slavery.
For a while, I did assume that the Stoics said virtually nothing about the institution slavery. In many ways, it would be unrealistic to have expected them to condemn it very forcefully or openly. It may even be that they simply thought it would be unrealistic to try to oppose it. Marcus Aurelius’ armies, for example, probably captured hundreds of thousands of barbarians during the major wars of his reign. Should they have been executed? Released to regroup and attack again? In fact, Marcus tried to resettle many inside the empire, in Italy, although I think some then engaged in an uprising. So apart from the fact that the Roman economy was entirely dependant on slavery, in the ancient world abolition perhaps posed other problems, such as what else could be done with hundreds of thousands of hostile foreign captives. That’s not a “justification” of slavery, just an attempt to explain why the Stoics may not have been in a position to speak out effectively against the entire institution.
However, I feel it’s only fair to say that, contrary to the book cited above, Seneca did go a little further than mere silence on the matter. In fact, he dedicated the whole of letter 47 to the topic of a master’s relationship with his slaves. There he argues that a master has a duty to treat his slaves with respect and affection, as fellow human beings, and friends. Although he certainly doesn’t question the institution of slavery as a whole, Seneca does forcefully argue that slaves should be treated with equal respect to free men: “Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies.” He condemns those who abuse their slaves or see them as inferiors. The kernel of his advice, as he puts it, is this: “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.”
Nevertheless, Seneca does not go so far as to say that people should cease to own other people, as their slaves. I used to think that’s as far as the Stoic critique of slavery went but then I noticed the following passage in Diogenes Laertius’ overview of early Stoic philosophy, part of his chapter on Zeno of Citium:
They [the Stoics] declare that he [the Sage] alone is free and bad men are slaves, freedom being power of independent action, whereas slavery is privation of the same; though indeed there is also a second form of slavery consisting in subordination, and a third which implies possession of the slave as well as his subordination; the correlative of such servitude being slave-ownership; and this too is evil.
According to Diogenes Laertius, therefore, it appears that the early Stoics did indeed condemn the institution of slavery as evil.
I suspect he is probably referring either to Zeno’s Republic or to one of the many writings of Chrysippus. It’s not surprising that the Stoics may have said this, of course, because as many people today note their concept of brotherly-love for the rest of mankind on the basis of us all being citizens of the same cosmos, appears very much at odds with the notion of slave-ownership. Moreover, Zeno’s Republic, perhaps the founding text of Stoicism, apparently portrayed a Utopian vision of the ideal Stoic society, in which all men and women were wise and equal. It’s therefore difficult to imagine how the institution of slavery could possibly be part of the ideal Stoic society- a sage would have to own another sage but, in any case, we’re told all property is to be held in common. So slavery must surely have also been abolished, along with law-courts, property, currency, etc., in Zeno’s Republic.
Rational Techniques of Emotional Therapy in Spinoza and the Stoics
Rational Techniques of Emotional Therapy in Spinoza and the Stoics
All things come from One, and are resolved into One. – A precept of the Orphic Mysteries, c. 6th Century BC.
NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her… – Goethe, Aphorisms on Nature
Who Was Spinoza?
During his lifetime, and for many years after his demise, he was one of the most controversial philosophers in Europe but he is now seen as an intellectual hero of the Enlightenment. Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677) was a Jewish philosopher who lived in the Netherlands where, refusing the offer of a prestigious university professorship, he earned his living as a lens-grinder until his untimely death from a lung condition. In his writings, particularly The Ethics or Ethica, Spinoza developed an impressive and visionary metaphysical system, written in technical Latin and drawing together many themes from classical philosophy, which climaxed in a rational psychotherapy and method of personal philosophical enlightenment.
Spinoza is generally considered to be one of the most influential figures in the history of Western philosophy and, along with Descartes and Leibniz, one of the three great “rationalist” philosophers of the European enlightenment period. His work is perhaps the most imposing example of classical philosophical therapy and preempts modern psychotherapy, especially cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), in many important respects. Bertrand Russell called Spinoza, ‘the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers’ (1946: 552), and conceded that his grand theory, ‘was magnificent, and rouses admiration even in those who do not think it successful.’ (Russell, 1946: 553). Even someone who cannot accept the whole of Spinoza’s metaphysic, will often feel that his moral and psychological conclusions remain deeply profound, and that includes his psychotherapy as we shall see.
Spinoza was driven to develop a system of therapeutic self-help because of his own “existential” crisis. Though he considered himself Jewish, he had been excommunicated from the faith over his liberal interpretation of scripture, ritually cursed and cut adrift from his community. His published works were condemned as ‘forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil’, and banned from certain Jewish and Christian communities. In an unfinished manuscript on his method of self-improvement, Spinoza refers to his early uncertainty and craving for happiness, hinting at darker experiences of ‘extreme melancholy’, and his inner quest to procure philosophical balm for his troubled mind:
I thus perceived that I was in a state of great peril, and I compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a remedy [or “therapy”], however uncertain it might be; as a sick man struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death will surely be upon him […] is compelled to seek such a remedy with all his strength, inasmuch as his whole hope lies therein. (De Intellectus Emendatione, 4–5)
Ironically, this document, like Spinoza’s most important work, The Ethics, was hidden until after his death because of the same threat of religious persecution which forced him to develop his “emotional remedies” in the first place.
Spinoza’s Relevance to Modern Psychotherapy
Human impotence in moderating and controlling the emotions I call slavery. For a man who is enslaved by passions is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune such that he is often forced, though he may see what is better for him, to follow what is worse. (E4, Preface, my translation)
The main reason why Spinoza’s psychotherapy is not currently more popular is probably because modern readers have difficulty with his terminology. For instance, classical philosophers included what we now call “psychotherapy” or “self-help” under the broad heading of “ethics.” Spinoza’s Ethica has little to do with “morality” in the modern sense; it really describes a self-help method, a system of therapy for overcoming negative emotions and cultivating personal enlightenment. As one commentator writes, ‘It picks up ancient debates, where questions about the nature of knowledge and of the ultimate nature of things were integrated with reflection on the mental attitudes required for a well-lived life.’ (Lloyd, 1996: 141).
Those taught that psychotherapy began with Freud are therefore surprised to discover that a definite therapeutic tradition can be traced back through the great Stoic and Epicurean schools to the very ancient teachings of Socrates, and perhaps even Pythagoras (fl. 6th century BC). I will pass over these issues, though, sadly, modern therapists are not usually taught the history of their own field and its close-knit connection with Western philosophy (See my ‘Stoicism as Philosophical Psychotherapy’, Therapy Today, 2005). Suffice to say that Spinoza provides one of the most sophisticated models of philosophical psychotherapy, though he seems heavily indebted to Hellenistic philosophy.
Leibniz dubbed Spinoza as pioneering ‘the sect of the new Stoics’. His personal library contained not only the works of Cicero and Seneca, but also those of Arrian containing the Stoic Handbook and Discourses of Epictetus. Indeed, many have seen Spinoza as a “Neostoic” in disguise, but I think there is also evidence of Epicureanism in his writings. It is perhaps better to consider the possibility that Spinoza was weaving together various influences from ancient and medieval thought into a new philosophical whole. It is no coincidence that he was one of the last great philosophers to write mainly in Latin, and the language itself may be considered a major influence upon his philosophy.
A further obstacle to the modern reader lies in Spinoza’s use of the word “God” to denote the logico-metaphysical absolute from which his system is deduced. Again, brevity forces me to say only that Spinoza’s “God” is very much a philosopher’s God, a pure metaphysical concept, and not at all the insidious anthropomorphism which bewitches the popular imagination. Einstein once said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” (Quoted in Einstein: Science and Religion, Arnold V. Lesikar)
For Spinoza, the whole of existence is, without exception, sacred and divine when considered in its entirety, a position known as “pantheism.” Not surprisingly, his philosophy struck a chord with mystically-inclined poets including Goethe and Wordsworth; and it stoked the ire of frightened, religious bigots who condemned him, somewhat self-contradictorily, as an atheist, heretic, Satanist, and pagan (q.v., Letter LXXIII). He caused an ongoing storm in Europe by referring to Deus sive Natura, ‘God aka Nature’, and indeed his metaphysic can be more credibly presented nowadays by substituting “Nature” for “God.” The fact that I have done so is only likely to offend people ignorant of Spinoza’s professed meaning.
Spinoza’s Philosophy & Psychology
I am fascinated by Spinoza’s pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things. (Albert Einstein, quoted in Glimpses of the Great (1930) by G. S. Viereck)
Monism & Pantheism (The Bigger Picture)
Metaphysical Nature (Natura) is the concept of something which exists necessarily, by definition (causa sui). It is absolutely infinite, without borders or limitations in any dimension or sphere of being. It precedes, encompasses and pervades everything. Everything that exists does so by reference to it, and within it. It is the cloth from which everything is cut, the solitary metaphysical ground or substance of all that exists. It is the essence of everything, and all things conceived as a unified whole. When perceived accurately, it is accepted with absolute certainty as perfectly real, a necessary and eternal truth, because, ex hypothesi, its very existence is part of its essence.
By [Nature] I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence. (E1, Definition 6)
If we were to view it as conscious, we would probably want to call it “God”, though doing so may be more trouble than it’s worth. People have therefore vacillated between dubbing Spinoza as “god-intoxicated” on one hand, and an irredeemable atheist on the other: he is, of course, both and neither.
My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety toward the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. (George Santayana, Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922: 246)
Spinoza’s metaphysical “Nature” exceeds the vastness of space and time, and the depth of the human imagination. Your body is a tiny, wandering cell within its vast body, your mind a slender and shadowy thought within its cosmic mind. This is Spinoza’s main premise.
For Spinoza, contemplation of the essence of Nature as an “absolutely infinite” metaphysical substance, is the highest philosophical and therapeutic method. The Nobel-prize winning writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story, The Spinoza of Market Street, an otherwise flawed effort, describes the euphoric vision of a Spinozist thus:
Yes, the divine substance was extended and had neither beginning nor end; it was absolute, indivisible, eternal, without duration, infinite in its attributes. Its waves and bubbles danced in the universal cauldron, seething with change, following the unbroken chain of causes and effects, and he, Dr. Fischelson, with his unavoidable fate, was part of this. (Singer, 1962: 25)
When asked why he doesn’t attend synagogue, the old scholar replies, “God is everywhere […] In the synagogue. In the marketplace. In this very room. We ourselves are parts of God.” (Singer, 1962: 21).
Pantheism is a philosophy favoured by mystics and ancient religions. Indeed, nowadays, it is tempting to compare Spinoza’s nameless, faceless, infinite God with the Brahman of Hindu vedanta, or the Sunyata of Buddhist metaphysics. Spinoza has therefore been taken as representative of a “perennial philosophy” (philosophia perennis). Aldous Huxley, who wrote a book on the subject, defines the perennial philosophy as, ‘the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being.’ (Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 1946: 9).
To understand ourselves, transient things, and the individual events in life in relation to the whole in this way is to see things, in Spinoza’s celebrated phrase, sub specie aeternitatis; a vision of everything that happens as an aspect of the same timeless essence of Nature. All this heady stuff is probably too much for the purposes of practical psychotherapy, nevertheless it is important to grasp the theoretical context of Spinoza’s techniques, albeit in broad strokes, before proceeding to discuss them — it would be folly to pretend that none of this matters. If I remember rightly, it was upon hearing a reading of Goethe’s beautiful poem Nature, which paints the material world itself in godlike hues à la Spinoza, that the young Sigmund Freud was inspired to dedicate his life to plumbing the depths of human nature.
Double-Aspect Psychology (Mind-Body Unity)
The philosopher Rene Descartes developed the modern world’s most influential philosophy of psychology, which postulates that mind and matter are two completely distinct substances. In a sense, the theory of “Cartesian dualism” merely confirms a latent tendency in folk-psychology to regard the mind and body as separate objects. Indeed, the same presupposition, deeply ingrained in our language, still pervades contemporary psychology and psychotherapy.
However, mind-body dualism was seen as an incoherent theory by almost everyone who stopped to consider its implications in any detail. In the 20th Century, it was fiercely attacked both by existentialists and behaviourists, but it seems to keep boomeranging back into our collective consciousness. The Cambridge philosopher Gilbert Ryle famously dubbed it the “ghost in the machine”, the philosophy of mind received by default in modern society. However, Spinoza studied Descartes closely and was hot on his heels with a counter-argument.
Mind and body are one and the same individual which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, and now under the attribute of [physical] extension. (E2, 21, n.)
I cannot engage further with metaphysics here. I hope it will suffice to say that Spinoza argued, very convincingly, that mind and matter are two side of the same coin. He replaced Descartes’ dual-substance theory of mind with what became known as a dual-aspect theory. Putting things back together is often a wiser strategy than breaking them asunder, especially with regard to the human sense of self.
Modern psychotherapy, CBT in particular, is wont to speak of a cause-effect connection between the body and mind. For instance, that negative cognitions “cause” negative feelings and behaviour. The ghost of Spinoza would object that this seems to be a throwback to Cartesian dualism; there can be no “causal” relationship between body and mind because they are the same thing viewed from two different angles. The relationship between them is “closer than close”, it is one of total union. Hence, it makes no more sense to say that thoughts “cause” emotions and behaviour, or vice versa, than it does to say that the circumference of a circle causes its diameter. You might say that a person worries and gives himself an ulcer, an example of cause-effect between the mind and body. However, I would rather say that his worried brain caused the ulcer, one part of his body causing damage to another, and that his worried mind was just another aspect of the same event.
Spinoza’s Philosophy of Love (Positive Psychology)
Spinoza famously labels the fundamental emotion, which man experiences when he accurately perceives the essence of universal Nature, Amor Dei Intellectualis, the “intellectual love of God.” Given my reservations about Spinoza being pigeon-holed as a theologian, I would paraphrase this, in line with his writings, as “the rational, or philosophical, love of Nature.” This is the feeling Einstein claimed motivated most great scientists, a quasi-religious devotion to understanding and contemplating the essence of life and the universe. Moreover, its connection to therapy is that it is both the key to emotional insight and its conclusion, ‘he who understands himself and his emotions loves [Nature], and the more so the more he understands himself and his emotions.’ (E5, 15).
I cannot emphasize enough that contrary also to those who would miscast Spinoza, and philosophy in general, as arid intellectualism, Spinoza’s therapy is essentially founded upon a philosophy of love, one of the dominant themes in the Ethica. Spinoza argues that the ultimate human emotion is an active, rational, love of existence itself and from this descend in turn all other human emotions in fragmentary form. This is the true meaning of “Platonic love” as expressed by Socrates in The Symposium, and the meaning of the very word “philosophy”, which most have forgotten means “love of wisdom.” Philosophers are essentially lovers of contemplation and the classical quest for enlightenment is a labour of love toward apprehension of absolute Nature. Hence, the appeal of Spinoza’s philosophy to great poets becomes most apparent.
The Essence of Psychotherapy
Modern readers of Spinoza must first come to terms with the fact that he envisages a “deductive” model of psychotherapy, in which its essence is inferred from a handful of metaphysical axioms by a process of pure reasoning, i.e., a priori and without experiment or observation; ‘we shall determine solely by the knowledge of the mind the therapies for the emotions.’ (E5, Preface, my translation).
This method proceeds logically but not empirically, so many find it hard to decide whether they consider it “scientific” or not. Deductive arguments of this kind are traditionally considered legitimate proof in mathematics and formal logic, etc. Indeed, the Ethica is styled on the format of Euclid’s Elements, the ancient textbook of geometry, and Spinoza even claims to treat ‘human actions and desires precisely as though I were dealing with lines, planes and bodies.’ (E3, Preface). Nevertheless, it seems peculiar nowadays to contemplate a psychotherapy that has more in common with math than experimental psychology. Nietzsche, otherwise an admirer, was forced to bewail, ‘that hocus-pocus of mathematical form with which Spinoza encased his philosophy as if in brass.’ (Beyond Good & Evil, §5). In Spinoza’s defence, however, his method seems less absurd to most academic philosophers and many people, including some great scientists, feel it to have borne impressive fruit. As one contemporary philosopher writes:
The style of these works is sparse, unadorned, and yet solemn and imposing; the occasional aphorisms jump from the page with all the greater force, in that they appear as the surprising but necessary consequences of arguments presented with mathematical exactitude. (Scruton, 1986: 19)
Another remarkable consequence of this method is that it entails the assumption that we already possess an innate knowledge of the essence of psychotherapy, albeit in a confused form. Spinoza writes of the therapy of emotions ‘which I think every one experiences, but does not accurately observe nor distinctly see’ (E5, preface). However, Spinoza is a realist in this respect and keen to emphasize that he sees our ability for self-mastery as fairly limited; he only wishes to illustrate the extent to which it is possible, under the right circumstances, to achieve some degree of enlightenment and peace of mind.
The last section of the Ethica, on ‘Human Freedom’, introduces his proof of ‘the path or lifestyle which leads to freedom.’ Spinoza sets out to demonstrate ‘the power of the mind, or of reason’, and ‘the extent and nature of its dominion over the emotions, for their control and moderation.’ (E5, Preface). Believing that he has exposed the essence of philosophical therapy with mathematical certainty, he goes so far as to write:
I have now gone through all the therapies for the emotions, or all that the mind, considered in itself alone, can do against them. (E5, 20 n., my italics)
Spinoza therefore proceeds to summarize the five essential processes in which philosophical psychotherapy consists. These can only be properly understood by reference to Spinoza’s philosophy as a whole but I will attempt a brief outline before proceeding to discuss his more empirical therapy.
Spinoza’s Therapeutic Armamentarium
1. Cognitive Insight into the Emotions. (Cognitive Restructuring)
[Therapy consists in] the actual knowledge [or “cognition”] of the emotions.
The essence of Spinoza’s psychotherapy is the idea that cognitive insight into the nature of desire and emotion is necessarily therapeutic. Spinoza carefully defines what he means by such knowledge in the Ethica and provides schematic examples. For instance, when specific emotions are understood in the light of his theory of mind, of pain and pleasure, and “active” and “passive” emotion, a cognitive transformation occurs in our experience of them. When we realize that our thinking shapes our emotion we can learn to actively choose rational emotions, rather than being passively swept along by emotions which impose themselves upon us. True knowledge of the emotions also entails an understanding of the extent to which they are founded upon confused (irrational) cognitions and their purification in terms of accurate ideas. This resembles the “cognitive restructuring” of emotion in CBT.
Spinoza defines accurate cognition as occurring, ‘when a thing is perceived solely through its essence, or through the knowledge of its proximate cause [causa proxima]‘ (De Intellectus Emendatione, 8). Some modern philosophers, notably Sir Stuart Hampshire, have argued that this kind of insight prefigures Freud’s development psychoanalytic interpretation. However, Spinoza himself provides many examples of what he means by the essence of emotion and these clearly show that he is referring to insight based on the current cognitive structure of emotion, similar to modern cognitive therapy, and not repressed childhood libidinal attachments, etc., as postulated by psychodynamic therapy. I think Spinoza would say that the childhood antecedents of an adult emotion are no longer part of its essence, but merely its “remote cause”, and therefore understanding them does not constitute the kind of accurate cognition referred to in his therapy; there is, of course, no trace of anything even loosely resembling Freudian interpretation to be found anywhere in his writings.
The feeling that an interpretation is correct, or the supposed recovery of a repressed memory, would be classed by Spinoza as inadequate (hypothetical) knowledge, based upon sensation and imagination, rather than deductive reasoning. Spinoza would also seem to imply that recollection of the historical origin of an emotion provides unreliable knowledge unless we already accurately perceive the essence of the emotion as it exists in the present (q.v., De Intellectus Emendatione, pp. 10–11). As an advocate of the cognitive-behavioural tradition, I would concur. According to a well-known legend, Guatama Buddha said that if we find a man wounded by an archer, there’s no point debating who made the arrow or where it came from, we should set to work immediately removing the arrowhead and repairing the wound. It’s knowledge of the proximate (“maintaining”) causes of suffering that Spinoza thinks we should be concerned about.
2. Separation of Rational Emotion from Imaginary Causes. (ABC Model)
[Therapy consists in] the [mental] separation of the emotions from the idea [“cognition”] of an external cause, which we imagine confusedly.
Spinoza argues that when emotions are accurately understood we perceive them as determined primarily by our own internal images and ideas rather than by the external “triggers” which we naturally tend to blame them upon. We say “He made me angry”, but it would be more accurate to say, “I made myself angry toward him.” When we stop blaming our feelings on others and take responsibility for them ourselves, we become fundamentally empowered. This is strikingly similar to the idea of ‘cognitive mediation’, or the ABC model, in modern CBT. Indeed, Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, quotes the following passage from Spinoza as one of the chapter mottoes in his seminal Cognitive Therapy & the Emotional Disorders (1976).
I saw that all the things I feared, and which feared me had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them. (Spinoza, quoted in Beck, 1976:156)
Spinoza also writes:
Wherefore the reality of true thought must exist in the thought itself, without reference to other thoughts; it does not acknowledge the object as its cause, but must depend on the actual power and nature of the understanding. […] Thus that which constitutes the reality of a true thought must be sought in the thought itself, and deduced from the nature of the understanding. (De Intellectus Emendatione, 26)
By which I take him to mean that a rational belief is necessarily derived from some active proof and insofar as an idea is experienced as being triggered passively by external events it is irrational. There is no causal relationship between body and mind. Therefore, when we assume that a physical event, including another person’s actions toward us, causes our emotional response we are necessarily in contradiction.
3. The Necessary & Eternal Basis of Rational Emotions.
[Therapy consists in the perception of] time, whereby emotions referring to [timeless] things which we distinctly understand overpower those which refer to [transient] things perceived in a confused and fragmentary manner.
When we accurately understand the essence of a thing we perceive what is constant and unchangeable in it. The truth that the angles of a triangle add up to two right angles is timeless; though triangular shaped things in nature may come and go the concept remains eternally the same. Because reason perceives things in relation to essential truths it gives rise to emotions which are more rational, stable, and powerful.
The more we truly understand people, for example, the less our feelings are swayed by individual appearances and the more rational and constant they become because they are determined by general principles of our philosophy. If I conclude, with Spinoza and Socrates, that people essentially desire happiness that will become a constant factor in my emotional responses, if I have no philosophy of human nature I will respond to each event according to the vagaries of habit and irrational association.
A famous example, but one likely to provoke much misunderstanding: The Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger is reputed to have handled his own execution in this way. His former student the emperor Nero — who became a political tyrant and persecutor of philosophers — forced Seneca to fall on his sword, or rather to swallow poison and cut his wrists. Seneca, one of the most reasonable men in the world, reputedly calmed his frantic supporters by observing that everyone already knew Nero was a murderer, therefore it should come as no surprise when the time comes for him to murder his opponents. In doing so, however, he was utilizing an ancient therapeutic formula derived from philosophy and rhetoric. The same technique is rehearsed by Marcus Aurelius in his journal of meditations,
When you run up against someone else’s shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shameless people possible?
No.
Then don’t ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them.
The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy, or with any other defect. Remembering that the whole class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members. […]
Yes, boorish people do boorish things. What’s strange or unheard-of about that? Isn’t it yourself that you should reproach for not anticipating that they’d act this way? (Meditations, 9: 42, Hays)
For Seneca, there could be no anxiety in the face of the inevitable. He knew what to expect from life and from mad emperors, and when Nero’s hired thugs came to put him to death he was serene because he was prepared to meet his fate. (Of course, if there had been an escape route, no doubt Seneca would have taken it.)
For the Stoics, irrational anxiety was always accompanied by a kind of feigned surprise and naive indignation incompatible with reason and common sense. On the day of his death, Seneca felt the same way about his murderers that he had always felt, because his emotions were based on a long-standing perception of the general situation and not a superficial gut-reaction to the heavy knock on the door of Nero’s guards. If we all know that we must necessarily die, why should death frighten us any more when it is close than when it is far away? This is the “constancy” of the ideal Sage who “never changes his mind”, because his deepest layer of emotion is rooted in a clear and distinct perception of the timeless essence of Nature.
4. The Multiple Causes of Rational Emotion. (Determinism & Empathy)
[Therapy consists in] the multitude of causes whereby emotions are fostered which refer to the common properties of things or to [the essence of Nature itself, which Spinoza calls “God”].
To understand things rationally is to do so by reference to philosophical principles, and ultimately the essential idea of Nature itself. Instead of responding to individual “triggers” in our environment, which send us hither and thither, our emotions are shaped by the whole structure of our rational world-view. When we see the common properties of things we respond to things in context rather than in isolation and our feelings become balanced and rational. Under this heading, presumably, fall the therapeutic effects of determinism so fundamental to both Spinozism and Stoicism. The last of Spinoza’s example rules of life states,
[…] in so far as we understand, we can desire nothing save that which is necessary, nor can we absolutely be contented with anything save what is true: and therefore insofar as we understand this rightly, the endeavour of the best part of us is in harmony with the order of the whole of nature. (E4, Appendix XXXII)
The more we understand, the more we experience external events as causally determined, and the actions of ourselves and other people as determined by various motives and causes. To understand all is to forgive all. Einstein puts Spinoza’s theory of empathic understanding very neatly in a letter, discussing the Christian rule of life, “love thine enemy”.
I agree with your remark about loving your enemy as far as actions are concerned. But for me the cognitive basis is the trust in an unrestricted causality. ‘I cannot hate him, because he must do what he does.’ That means for me more Spinoza than the prophets. (Einstein, in a letter to Michele Besso (6 January 1948))
Like the Stoics before him, Spinoza believed in absolute determinism, and that this assumption in itself conveyed a sense of contentment in lieu of specific causal knowledge. The philosophical Sage’s determinism about life and other people is meant to generate rational equanimity similar to the “unconditional acceptance” of REBT. Therapists may be surprised to find a similar premise in the canon of behaviour therapy but, to some extent, behaviourism and Spinozism are natural allies.
Objectivity, empathy, and sensitivity to suffering are intrinsic to the behaviour therapist’s approach to his patients. The objectivity follows from the knowledge that all behaviour, including cognitive behaviour, is subject to causal determination no less than is the behaviour of falling bodies or magnetic fields. […] To explain how the patient’s neurosis arose out of a combination or chain of particular events helps [empathic] understanding. (Wolpe, 1990: 59)
5. Rational Conditioning of Emotion.
Finally, [therapy consists] in the capacity for mental self-regulation of the emotions, whereby they are organised and mutually associated with each other. (E5, 20, n., my translations )
I have translated this passage to highlight the notion of “emotional self-regulation”, or the rational organisation of one’s thoughts and feelings. The previous methods were techniques of “pure reason” which followed necessarily from cognitive insight into the emotions. Spinoza seems here to acknowledge a range of empirical techniques, whereby the mind can also engineer its habits of thinking so that emotions are conditioned to be associated with each other in a rational and constructive manner. ‘By this power of rightly organizing and associating the modifications of the body we can bring out about that we are not easily affected by bad emotions.’ (E5, 10, n.)
This more “empirical” mode of philosophical therapy bears obvious resemblance to techniques and principles found in modern cognitive and behavioural therapies, which we shall now consider.
Empirical Techniques of Philosophical Psychotherapy
5.1 Ordering of Contrary Associations (Reciprocal Inhibition)
Joseph Wolpe adapted Sherrington’s theory of “reciprocal inhibition” in neurology, making it the core mechanism of the Behaviour Therapy developed in the 1960s. As the name indicates, when two mutually exclusive neurological states coincide the most powerful will inhibit the weaker, a phenomenon variously known as “counter-conditioning” or “response competition.” This basic mechanism has many therapy applications, the most typical being the use of physical relaxation to systematically extinguish nervous anxiety.
If a response antagonistic to anxiety can be made to occur in the presence of anxiety-evoking stimuli so that it is accompanied by a complete or partial suppression of the anxiety responses, the bond between these stimuli and the anxiety responses will be weakened. (Wolpe, Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition, 1958: 71)
Although this concept was preempted by earlier behaviourists and hypnotherapists, Wolpe believed himself to be the first to make it a central and explicit principle of psychotherapy. Nevertheless, three hundred years before Wolpe, Spinoza made it one of the axioms (E5, A1) underlying his psychotherapy. He concludes that a powerful emotion will suppress a weaker contrary one, including the suppression of fear by mental calm (animi acquiescentia).
An emotion can neither be hindered nor removed save by a contrary emotion and one stronger than the emotion which is to be checked. (E, 4, Prop VII)
However, Spinoza’s “dual-aspect” psychology attempts to resolve the opposition between cognitive and behavioural theories, three hundred years before it became a bone of contention in modern psychotherapy.
5.2 Contemplation of Virtue & the Sage (Covert Modelling)
An ancient philosophical technique consists in contemplating the character of an imaginary wise man, a perfectly enlightened and self-possessed philosopher, the ideal of the Sage. As one modern commentator phrases it,
The Ethics describes the free man, who has risen to the higher levels of cognition, mastered his passions, and reached understanding of himself and the world. (Scruton, 1986: 95).
The Sage is not a real man, of course, nobody is perfect. However, the concept of the Sage is the concept of man-made-perfect and the clear and distinct perception of this goal acts as the moral compass of the philosopher. Spinoza claims that the moral terms “good” and “bad” only have meaning in a relative sense, insofar as ‘we want to form for ourselves an idea of man upon which we may look as a model of human nature’, and we may refer to things which are good or bad at helping us to approach this ideal. (E4, Preface). We may meditate upon the strengths of an ideal Sage, of a real-life hero or role-model, or any strengths manifested by ourselves or others. Contemplation of the Sage resembles, e.g., Cautela’s Behaviour Therapy technique of “covert modelling.”
Though nobody can attain perfect wisdom, ‘meanwhile man conceives a human character much more stable than his own, and sees that there is no reason why he should not himself acquire such a character.’ This character consists in rational love and ‘the knowledge of the union existing between the mind and the whole of nature.’ (De Intellectus Emendatione, 6). Spinoza refers to the work of approaching this ideal as a “purification” of the intellect, the original philosophical meaning of katharsis, the effect of which is supreme peace of mind.
[…] the Sage, insofar as he is considered as such, is scarcely disturbed in mind: but being conscious of himself, of [Nature], and of things, by a certain eternal necessity, he never ceases to be, but possesses eternally true peace of mind (acquiescentia). (E5, 47, Note)
In relation to this, Spinoza observes that in conditioning the mind by means of mental imagery, the focus of our attention should always be upon the pleasant qualities we wish to cultivate and not the unpleasant ones we seek to avoid.
But we must note, that in arranging our thoughts and conceptions we should always bear in mind that which is good in every individual thing, in order that we may always be determined to action by an emotion of pleasure. (E5 P10, Note)
This conclusion follows from Spinoza’s observation that we cannot imagine something as absent without imagining its presence unless we focus our mind on a contrary idea with which it is mutually exclusive. This is a basic axiom of modern hypnotherapy. The clichéd example being the obvious difficulty in obeying the command “Don’t imagine an elephant!” in response to which most people will do just the opposite and picture one. More importantly, if we focus on problems, we risk becoming engrossed in them.
For instance, if a man sees that he is too keen in the pursuit of honour, let him think over its right use, the end for which it should be pursued, and the means whereby he may attain it. Let him not think of its misuse, and its emptiness, and the fickleness of mankind, and the like, whereof no man thinks except through a morbidness of disposition; with thoughts like these do the most ambitious most torment themselves, when they despair of gaining the distinctions they hanker after, and in thus giving vent to their anger would fain appear wise. Wherefore it is certain that those who cry out the loudest against the misuse of honour and the vanity of the world, are those who most greedily covet it. (E5 P10, Note)
The inability of the senses to represent absence (or “non-being”) without imagining presence also explains the importance of reciprocal inhibition in psychotherapy. To remove anxiety, we imagine the presence of calm and relaxation, a positive and contrary state, rather than merely trying to imagine the absence of fear.
Thus he who would govern his emotions and appetite solely by the love of freedom strives, as far as he can, to gain a knowledge of the virtues and their causes, and to fill his spirit with the joy which arises from the true knowledge of them: he will in no wise desire to dwell on men’s faults, or to carp at his fellows, or to revel in a false show of freedom. (E5 P10, Note)
This is undoubtedly related to Spinoza’s striking rejection of the Socratic meditation upon death (melete thanatou): ‘A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.’ (E4, 17).
The contemplation of virtue in general, whether that means seeing the best in others or visualizing the ideal Sage, prepares us with a repertoire of vivid and lively images which are ready-to-hand and can be used counteract negative emotions in the future by “reciprocal inhibition.”
5.3 Mental Fortitude (Ego-Strength)
Spinoza famously argues that the desire for self-preservation (conatus) is the very essence of man. (Another point best understood by reference to his writings.) The power of the mind to act freely and autonomously in accord with reason, love, and self-interest is therefore the essence of human excellence. In this respect, Spinoza appears to follow the connotation of the Latin word for virtue (virtus) which can also mean strength, courage, or vitality, ‘by virtue and power I understand the same thing.’ (E4, D8). He therefore argues that “strength of mind” (animi fortitudo), a kind of basic strength of character closely-knitted to the rational love of existence, is the primary human “virtue.” (We still speak today of someone’s “strengths” or their forte.) For Spinoza, virtue in this (pre-Christian) sense cannot logically co-exist with suffering (pathos); as the ancient saying goes: “The good man is always happy.” Indeed, he is happy, healthy, loving, rational, and empowered. Spinoza’s ideal of mental fortitude is obviously comparable to concepts such as “self-efficacy” or “ego-strength” in modern psychotherapy and with certain concepts in the field of Positive Psychology.
He also divides mental strength, or virtue, into two principal modes of active and rational emotion: animositas et generositas. The technical meaning is difficult to translate, but it is clear from his comments that animositas (“love of life”?) denotes the virtue of rational self-interest or egotism, and generositas (“love of mankind”?) that of rational social-interest or altruism. For Spinoza, seen through the lens of his philosophy, these two basic drives are not in conflict but complementary; they can therefore easily be compared to the notions of rational self-interest and social-interest in Ellis’ REBT.
5.4 The Rules of Life (Coping Statements)
In common with the Stoics and other ancient therapeutic schools, Spinoza recommends that simple philosophical principles, the “rules of living” (vitædogmata), should be internalized by repeated memorization.
The best thing then we can bring about, as long as we have no perfect knowledge of our emotions is to conceive some right manner of living or certain rules of life, to commit them to memory, and to apply them continuously to the particular things which come in our way frequently in life, so that our imagination may be extensively affected by them and they may be always at hand for us. (Spinoza, Ethics, V.10.n.)
Of course, they are also comparable to the positive cognitions, coping statements, self-statements, etc., of modern CBT, or to the affirmations and autosuggestions of the hypnotherapists.
In Graeco-Roman philosophical therapy such maxims seem to have been designed to function as an aide memoire or mnemonic. They often take the form of a short, pithy sentence of which the famous inscriptions (“Know thyself”, “Nothing in excess”) at the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi were perhaps the most famous. Spinoza gives the following example. One of the rules of life suggested by the Ethica is that hatred is best met with love and the virtue of social-interest (generositas) and not requited with hatred. Spinoza recommends that we meditate on philosophical “rules” that say,
• Our true advantage lies in cultivating love not hatred within ourselves.
• Mutual friendship is a valuable good in life.
• True peace of mind results from the rational way of life.
• Men act by the necessity of their nature in causing offence, just like any force of nature. (E5, P10, Note)
When these ideas and their implications are borne in mind they counteract, or at least weaken, excessive anger associated with the perceived offence by determining our emotions rationally, through a complex of positive and empowering mental associations.
5.5 The Premeditation of Misfortunes (Imaginal Exposure)
Spinoza preempts several key notions found in Behaviour Therapy. Perhaps most fundamentally, he clearly identifies, under another name, the role of classical (Pavlovian) conditioning principles in psychotherapy,
If the human body has once been affected by two or more bodies [i.e., physical stimuli] at the same time, when the mind afterwards imagines any of them, it will straightway remember the others also. (E2, P6)
One of the cardinal techniques both of ancient and modern psychotherapy is that in which a person visualizes distressing events, usually one’s to be faced in the near future, while mentally rehearsing more positive and rational beliefs and the emotions and actions that accompany them. The Stoics called this premeditatio malorum, preparing the mind in advance, by contemplative meditation, to cope well with misfortune. The Stoic writings of Seneca, e.g., provide many examples of the therapeutic use of premeditation. In modern CBT many variations of the same basic concept are found and referred to as imaginal exposure, covert rehearsal, rational-emotive imagery, etc.
Hence, Spinoza suggests that we mentally prepare for the typical problems that people are likely to encounter in life by rehearsing belief in our philosophical and therapeutic “rules of life.” Spinoza uses the two cardinal virtues of his philosophy, self-interest and social-interest, as examples. First he explains how social-interest (generositas) can be developed by rehearsing the relevant philosophical maxims in the Ethica,
For example, we stated among the rules of life that hatred must be overcome by love or [compassion and social-interest], not requited by reciprocated hatred. But in order that this rule may be always at hand for us when we need it, we must often think of and meditate on the common types of harm done to men, and in what manner and according to what method they may best be avoided through [compassionate social-interest]. For thus we unite the image of the harm done to the imagination of this rule, and it will always be at hand when harm is done to us. (Ethics, V.10.n.)
Spinoza adds “if the anger which arises from the greatest injuries is not easily overcome, it will nevertheless be overcome, although not without a wavering of the mind, in a far less space of time than if we had not previously meditated on these things.” From anger he proceeds to discuss the conquest of fear by means of the cardinal virtue of self-interest (animositas),
We must think of [courage and self-interest] in the same manner in order to lay aside fear, that is, we must enumerate and often imagine the common perils of life and in what manner they may best be avoided and overcome by mindfulness (animi præsentia) and [courageous self-interest]. (Ethics, V.10.n.)
In other words, Spinoza recognizes a kind of classical conditioning in the memorization of positive beliefs and their repeated association with the mental image of challenging situations in a way that anticipates the use of Systematic Desensitization and mental rehearsal in modern research-based cognitive and behavioural therapies.
Conclusions
It behooves a simple introduction of this kind to end by citing Spinoza’s famous and oft-quoted conclusion to the Ethica,
If the road I have shown to lead to this is very difficult, it can yet be discovered. And clearly it must be hard when it is so seldom found. For how could it be that if salvation were close at hand and could be found without difficulty it should be neglected by almost all? But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. (E5, Prop 42 n.)
The way of the Spinozistic Sage is indeed a road less travelled. However, the earlier section on emotional therapy concludes on a more encouraging note; if the path is difficult, the steps are not.
Whosoever will diligently observe and practise these precepts (which indeed are not difficult) will verily, in a short space of time, be able, for the most part, to direct his actions according to the commandments of reason. (E5, 10, n.)
I have presented Spinoza’s conclusions only, in very summary form, and not his deductive “proofs.” I strongly encourage readers to study the Ethica for themselves. As he himself implores his readers, ‘not to reject as false any paradoxes he may find here, but to take the trouble to reflect on the chain of reasoning by which they are supported.’ (De Intellectus Emendatione, 17). In a sense, as I hope you will see, the process of grappling with Spinoza’s ideas, is itself the fundamental technique of his psychotherapy. Nevertheless, I hope that I have shown something of the relevance of Spinoza to modern therapists and whet their appetite for his philosophy.
References
Damasio, Antonio (2004). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, & the Feeling Brain. Vintage Books.
Deleuze, Gilles (1970). Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. San Francisco: City Light Books
Hampshire, Stuart (2005). Spinoza & Spinozism. Oxford: OUP
Lloyd, Genevieve (1996). Spinoza & the Ethics. Oxford: Routledge.
Robertson, Donald (2005). ‘Stoicism as Philosophical Psychotherapy’, Therapy Today, July, 2005.
Scruton, Roger (1986). Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP
Singer, Isaac Bashevis (1962). The Spinoza of Market Street. Middlesex: Penguin.
What the philosopher Marcus Aurelius believed about masculinity
What the philosopher Marcus Aurelius believed about masculinity
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Just be one!
— Meditations, 10.16
Over the past few decades, there’s been a resurgence of interest in Stoicism. People often confuse stoicism (lower-case), a coping style that involves suppressing or concealing emotions, also called having a “stiff upper-lip,” with Stoicism (capitalized), the ancient Graeco-Roman school of philosophy. Some crudely equate “manliness” with being tough and unemotional (lower-case “stoicism”). I think there’s a more nuanced way to understand how Stoic philosophy might inform a modern man’s conception of his role in society.
The most famous ancient Stoic is Marcus Aurelius, who was emperor of Rome during the height of its power. (I wrote about his use of Stoicism in my book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.) Marcus was the closest thing the world has ever witnessed to Plato’s ancient ideal of the philosopher-king. Indeed, we’re told that he frequently quoted Plato: “that those states prospered where the philosophers were kings or the kings philosophers.”
He did have enemies, though. In 175 AD, toward the end of his reign, Marcus faced a civil war when the governor-general of the eastern provinces, Avidius Cassius, had himself acclaimed as a rival emperor by the Egyptian legion. Cassius was a cruel general, known to torture his prisoners of war and deserters alike. He criticized Marcus for being a weak and unmanly ruler, calling him “a philosophical old woman.” After only three months, however, Marcus won the civil war when Cassius’ own officers ambushed and beheaded him. No statues of Cassius survive today and his name is all but forgotten. It would seem that Cassius’s brutal brand of masculinity was not in fact a more efficient leadership style than Marcus’ philosopher-king approach.
Marcus actually tackles the question of masculinity head-on in his personal notes on Stoic philosophy as a way of life, known today as Meditations. Here’s what we can learn from the ancient text.
Manliness and fatherhood
My impression is that Marcus inherited certain old-fashioned Roman values from his immediate family, particularly his mother, Domitia Lucilla. Despite being an immensely wealthy and highly educated Roman noblewoman, she preferred a simple way of life “far removed from that of the rich” (Meditations, 1.3). She seems to have been good friends with Junius Rusticus, who became Marcus’ main Stoic tutor. I sometimes wonder whether it could have been Marcus’ mother who first introduced him to the study of Stoic philosophy, which came to shape his concept of what it means to be a man.
Tragically, his father died when Marcus was a child, perhaps as young as three years old. We don’t know the circumstances. Marcus only knew him through early childhood memories and what he learned from family and friends about his father’s reputation, which he sums up in just two words: “modesty and manliness” (Meditations, 1.2). Other Roman nobles would have regarded “modesty” as evidence of weakness. Marcus, on the contrary, saw the modesty for which his father was known as a sign of his manliness and strength of character.
For Marcus, the ability to show kindness and compassion toward others, rather than wallowing in anger, was one of the most important signs of true inner strength and manhood.
Although he lost his father before he even had a chance to know him, Marcus was fortunate to be adopted as a teen by a Roman noble destined to become the emperor known as Antoninus Pius. Marcus made Antoninus Pius his role model in life and decades after his adoptive father’s death Marcus would still describe himself as a “disciple of Antoninus.” Meditations lists in great detail the qualities Marcus most admired in his adoptive father and sought to emulate. The first thing he mentions is that Antoninus was “gentle.” He was “never harsh, or implacable, or overbearing,” and never worked himself up into a lather over anything (Meditations, 1.16). For Marcus, the ability to show kindness and compassion toward others, rather than wallowing in anger, was one of the most important signs of true inner strength and manhood.
Manliness and mastering anger
In Meditations, Marcus goes into detail about Stoic strategies for mastering our feelings of anger. He concludes by saying something remarkably ahead of its time:
And when you do become angry, be ready to apply this thought, that to fly into a passion is not a sign of manliness, but rather, to be kind and gentle. For insofar as these qualities are more human, they are also more manly. It is the man who possesses such virtues who has strength, nerve, and fortitude, and not one who is ill-humoured and discontented. Indeed, the nearer a man comes in his mind to freedom from unhealthy passions [apatheia], the nearer he comes to strength. Just as grief is a mark of weakness, so is anger too, for those who yield to either have been wounded and have surrendered to the enemy. — Meditations, 11.18
Marcus, like other Stoics, didn’t believe that all feelings of anger and grief are signs of weakness. The Stoics accepted that there is a type of emotional reaction that’s inevitable in certain situations. Here, he’s talking about what they called the unhealthy passions, feelings such as fear or grief that someone indulges in and magnifies beyond the bounds set by nature. The wise man, by contrast, doesn’t add to this initial spark of anger or perpetuate it any further. To do so, according to Marcus, is a sign of true weakness. Although he seemed like a powerful figure, the cruel usurper Avidius Cassius was, in this sense, actually a very weak man. He lacked the strength of character and freedom from passionate grief and anger (apatheia) exhibited by Marcus’ birth father and role models such as his adoptive father, Antoninus.
To be more manly, you must first be more human
One of the pitfalls of defining manliness is the potential implication that women don’t possess the qualities you’re describing. The Stoics avoided that by insisting that the virtues are fundamentally the same in men and women. However, they manifest in superficially different ways in each of us, depending on our nature and circumstances. It would be more accurate to say that Marcus is describing prerequisites for manliness, required for humans to fulfill their nature properly — “insofar as these qualities are more human,” as he puts it, “they are also more manly.” Stoics believed that anyone, whether male or female, required this moral and practical wisdom in order to reach their potential in life.
Elsewhere, Marcus affirms his desire to live up to Antoninus’ example and become “one who is manly and mature, a statesman, a Roman, and a ruler” (Meditations, 3.5). To him this means being able to perform his duties, and even face death, in good cheer, without being dependent upon support from others. He sums it up in the maxim: “you must stand upright, not be held upright.” Marcus repeated this striking expression of self-reliance three or four times in Meditations. Finally, he condensed it into just three Greek words:
Ὀρθός, μὴ ὀρθούμενος
“Upright, not righted (by others)” (Meditations, 7.12). That’s the sort of man he admired and wanted to become. Someone with the strength of character to stand on his own two feet and, like his adoptive father Antoninus before him, to repay even anger with unshakeable wisdom, patience, and kindness.
The Roman emperor, and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his personal notes on Stoic philosophy:
A fine reflection from Plato. One who would converse about human beings should look on all things earthly as though from some point far above, upon herds, armies, and agriculture, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, the clamour of law courts, deserted wastes, alien peoples of every kind, festivals, lamentations, and markets [agoras], this intermixture of everything and ordered combination of opposites. — Meditations, 7. 48
This looks like it’s intended as a quote from Socrates in Plato’s writings but, incidentally, it doesn’t appear in any of the surviving Platonic dialogues.
In this and other passages, it’s clear that Marcus is describing a mental exercise — he tells himself to regularly picture such scenes. The French scholar Pierre Hadot coined the name the “View from Above” for this sort of contemplative practice, which appears in many ancient sources — not only the Stoics.
Sometimes it’s tempting to imagine that what’s being described is like the viewpoint of Zeus, or the other gods, atop Mount Olympus, as they look down on mortal affairs below. Indeed, the practice of trying to expand one’s mind by imagining the perspective of a god was a common contemplative exercise in the ancient world and could take several other forms. However, one day a more obvious analogy dawned on me.
I was reading this passage from The Meditations on the Pnyx hill, wondering whether it truly came from Plato or even Socrates. I looked up for a moment at the Acropolis in front of me and suddenly realized that I could almost be reading a description of the view from the Acropolis, where the ruins of the Parthenon, an ancient temple to Athena is located. The word “Acropolis”, in ancient Greek, literally meant “highest part of the city”. It refers to the hill in the centre of Athens that overlooks the ancient agora, the city centre and marketplace. (Indeed, in the passage above, Marcus uses the word agora, translated “marketplace”.)
There are several other passages in The Meditations that appear to relate to the same contemplative practice. For example:
You should always keep these three thoughts at hand… if you were suddenly raised aloft and looked on human affairs from above in all their diversity, with what contempt [or rather indifference] you would view them, seeing at the same time what a host of beings live all around in the air and the ether, and that however often you were raised aloft, you would behold the same things, ever unvarying, ever as short-lived — and it is in these that you set your pride! — Meditations, 12.24
However, in another well-known passage, Marcus actually employs the word acropolis:
Remember that your ruling centre becomes invincible when it withdraws into itself and rests content with itself, doing nothing other than what it wishes, even where its refusal to act is not reasonably based; and how much more contented it will be, then, when it founds its decision on reason and careful reflection. By virtue of this, an intelligence free from passions is a mighty citadel [acropolis]; for man has no stronghold more secure to which he can retreat to remain unassailable from that time onward. One who has failed to see this is merely ignorant, but one who has seen it and fails to take refuge there is beyond the aid of fortune. — Meditations, 8.48
Typical translations of akropolis as “citadel”, etc., obscure the fact that the original Greek implies a high-up place, akin to the “some point far above” mentioned by Marcus in passage 7.48, quoted earlier .
Combining these passages, therefore, a description emerges of the ideal Stoic mind-set as resembling, in Marcus’ own words, an acropolis, high above, looking down on the hustle and bustle of an agora.
Neostoicism
In the sixteenth century, the Neostoic Justus Lipsius actually told the following story about Solon, one of the “seven sages”, which is set in a high tower, presumably on one of the hills, overlooking Athens, quite possibly the Acropolis.
Solon, seeing a very friend of his at Athens mourning piteously, brought him into a high tower and showed him underneath all the houses in that great city, saying to him “Think with yourself how many sundry mournings in times past have been in all these houses, how many at this present are, and in time to come shall be; and leave off to bewail the miseries of mortal folk, as if they were your own.”
Lipsius’ friend advises him to imagine a similarly broad perspective on events, not by literally climbing a hill but by using his imagination to place himself atop Mount Olympus.
I would wish you, Lipsius, to do the like in this wide world. But because you cannot in deed and fact go to, do it a little while in conceit and imagination. Suppose, if it please, that you are with me on the top of that high hill Olympus; behold from there all towns, provinces, and kingdoms of the world, and think that you see even so many enclosures full of human calamities. These are but only theatres and places for the purpose prepared, in which Fortune plays her bloody tragedies.
He is to continually remind himself of the “View from Above” in order to alleviate his distress, but also to remind himself of his own mortality.
Which things think well upon, Lipsius, and by this communication or participation of miseries, lighten your own. And like they [Roman generals] which rode gloriously in triumph, had a servant behind their backs who in the midst of all their triumphant jollity cried out often times “you are a man” [and “remember you must die”], so let this be ever as a prompter by your side, that these things are human, or appertaining to men. For as labour being divided between many is easy, even so likewise is sorrow.
The “View from Above” was a particularly familiar concept to ancient Athenians. This elevated, serene, and somewhat detached perspective on the agora where goods were sold and other important business conducted was the view from the sacred Acropolis in the middle of their city, and from other nearby vantage points on high ground.
