History of Ancient Philosophy

Mariam Aisset
May 10,2016

Living in Agreement with Nature

The early Stoics have a tremendous influence on ethical thought by initiating

ethical doctrines that has even drawn harsh criticisms. The Stoics explained
their goal for those to follow; the ultimate goal in life was to live in agreement
with nature. They believed that humans, unlike animals, had the unique ability
to reason. This helps humans transform their ability to understand themselves
and their own true good. Stoics were fond of dichotomies-if you were not wise,
you are a fool, if you are not living in virtue, you are vicious, etc. It was not until
the later Stoics that grounded the idea that instead of a fool and a wise man,
there are those who are in progress of achieving a living that was in agreement
with their idea of nature. In order to begin this progress, it is important to
understand what both the later and early Stoics meant by nature. The first
sense of what it is meant by nature, is the idea that we are living in accordance
with an ordered universe. This is the same, if not, an analogous term that
is used in mathematics. An ordered universe, or the cosmos, is a field in which
there is no room for chance. There exists an ordered sequence of events in
which they are fated to occur in the constituted universe. Although the Stoics
believed that this is in the will of the interpersonal God, Zeus, the orderliness of
the universe is still a popular opinion today. And so, what does that matter to
living in agreement with the universe? Since the universe fits within a coherent
manner, there is no room for chance, thus our cosmic Nature is identical to fate.
So, living in agreement with nature, means that we must conform our will to
the sequence of events that are fated to occur whether an individual favors the
situation or not. The stoics believe that this is upon the will of Zeus, but whether
one believes in entropy and the chaos of the universe, or an well-structured
scheme does not really matter, because it is already happening. The second
sense of nature is the essence of nature itself. By that, we mean the manner
by which things are, how they change, and how nonliving and living things
distinguish themselves. For example, the nature of plants are different from the
nature of rocks or water. This is basically characterizing how living things are
meant to be. We fit in accordance with nature because this is our innate impulse.
Stoics want us to allow things to be natural, in its purest sense. By nature we
are meant to take in nutrients, expel waste, and procreate. Each living thing
has its own sense of perception, each animal and plant knows its place in the
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world, and so we should take into account our own metabolic function. These
functions lead us to the third sense of nature by introducing the very trait that
distinguishes humans from other creatures: the unique capacity for humans
to reason. Animals have the capacities of self-perception, their own impulses
and desires. One of the animals innate impulse is to care for their offspring.
Thus living in agreement in the perspective of an animal differs from living in
agreement for a plant. This is due to their different complex behaviors. For an
animal to neglect its own offspring or for a plant not to produce carbon dioxide
is contrary to its own nature. The stoics believed that what differentiates us
from animals is our distinct and unique capability to reason. For humans, living
in agreement with nature means accepting our innate endowment- the ability to
reason. Aside from the uncompromising dichotomies, the Stoics restored these
statements to include those who are aiming to achieve this goal and those who
are not. The wise man is thus the prescriptive ideal in which we all can hope to
aim. As humans, we have the resources to persevere and direct ourselves to this
ideal. Stoics believed everyone can employ the idea of living in agreement with
nature in order to exert constant efforts to improve themselves. With that, we
should exert efforts to refrain from lapsing into bad habits and irrationality. The
stoics were convinced that if an individual approached this goal and equipped
that with the practice of virtue, they are closer to real and certain happiness.

Expect Nothing and Fear Nothing

Stoicism and emotions seem like contradictory terms. However. this is a mere
misconception about how Stoics regarded the role of emotions to be, and how
emotions actually played in the role of a Stoic. Stoics believed that we must
change our judgments on matters and evaluate situations through rationality.
Stoics do not repress emotions, but simply do not have them in the first place.
Stoicism serves to teach the development of self-control and to train the individual to be a clear and unbiased thinker. This is an attempt to overcome
destructive emotions that may decrease our quality of life. The stoics believed
that the role of emotions was to project our judgements. Through this we can
be free from anger, jealousy and envy emotions that Marcus Aurelius discusses
in his Meditations. In Meditations, we are taught why and how we should
regulate our emotions. In addition, we are taught why regulating our emotions
is important to our happiness and why we must be free from judgement in order
to do so. The role of emotions in the life of the Stoics serves to project our judgements. From our emotions, we can understand what our current judgements are
because of how we feel. The Stoics did not seek to extinguish emotions, but to
transform them in order that it enables the person to develop clear judgement
and experience serenity. The Stoics believed that destructive emotions such
as fear, envy, anger, etc., resulted from errors in judgement that hinders the
individual in achieving peace with oneself. These errors in judgement is, for
example, thinking that something is good or bad is happening or is about to
happen. However, the role of emotions is to project our judgements, but be-

cause they are due to our judgements, they are within our control. The Stoic
would rather us embrace correct, positive emotions. The emotions that are permissible to the Stoics are positive ones. The Stoics believe that we can replace
anger with joy. We can do this through logic, reflection and concentration which
are methods of self-discipline. The Stoics borrowed a lot from the Cynics, by
stating that the good lies in the state of the soul. If negative emotions are being
experienced, the soul is not in a positive, happy state. That individual may be
apprehensive about something in the future, or feeling angry about a situation
that is probably not even worth being angry about. This is through wisdom
and self-control, only. The wise man is the happiest man. An individual who
is feeling immense passion, would be doing themselves a disservice. The Stoics
stressed the importance of the strive to be free of passions. The feeling of passion might allow us to one day become disappointed when it does not work out
as we hoped it would. Stoics want us to passively react to situations. Overall,
we should not be apprehensive nor should we get our hopes up too fast. Marcus
Aurelius writes to himself stating that he should not be too apprehensive, fearful of the future. Aurelius knows that he is making a judgement based on no
evidence whatsoever. Aurelius understands that what he is feeling is illogical
and that he is being irrational. I think a lot of people do this, and this may stem
from our nature going back to the caveman days. When our first worry is how
we were going to eat, how we are going to survive. However, those days are over
and we are equipped with this rationality and the ability to use propositional
logic to diffuse our mistaken judgements and thus, become happier. Aurelius
main point is that we should think and reason through our situations and not
dwell on anything. Instead we should dwell on other things that make us happy
and we should appreciate in life. Overall, the Stoics do not aim to completely
abolish emotions altogether, but rather to give us a way to understand what
judgements we have made. The role of emotions is to merely project our judgements in order to understand whether we are making any errors. The only
emotions that are permissible are those that are justified and that are positive.
Those emotions that originate from mistaken judgements can be transformed
easily through self-discipline. The Stoics state that logic, reflection and concentration are the methods of self-discipline. This is also exemplified by Marcus
Aurelius in his series of passages in the Meditations. Aurelius states that we
should expect nothing and fear nothing.