2020 Book StoicPhilosophyAndSocialTheory

Stoic Philosophy
and Social Theory

Will Johncock
Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory
Will Johncock
Stoic Philosophy
and Social Theory
Will Johncock
http://willjohncock.com
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-3-030-43152-5 ISBN 978-3-030-43153-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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Acknowledgments
To everyone I have informally discussed this book with since conceiving of

it in mid-2016, thank you. My formal appreciation to Palgrave’s Philip
Getz for having confidence in this project and to Amy Invernizzi for pro-
viding a seamless later experience. To my parents, thank you for being
curious about my research interests and to mum particularly for your
expert grammar insights. To my friend Dr. Scott McBride, thank you for
reading an early draft of the Introduction chapter and for providing valu-
able feedback.
v
Contents
1 Introduction: Essential Versus External Social Being 1
Part I Subjectivity 15
2 Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus and Émile

Durkheim on Mental Structure 17
3 When Are You Present? Chrysippus and Henri Bergson

on Continuous Time 43
4 Why Do You Care About Yourself? The Early Stoics and

Herbert Spencer on Self-Preservation 71
Part II Knowledges and Epistemologies 97
5 Do Preconceptions Determine New Knowledge? Epictetus

and Max Weber on Truth 99
6 Do People Know Why They Travel? Seneca and Anthony

Giddens on Ignorance119
vii
viii Contents
Part III Physical Conditions 141
7 Is Climate Change Natural? Marcus Aurelius and Barbara

Adam on Death143
8 What Causes Your Behaviors? Zeno and Pierre Bourdieu

on the Body173
Part IV Collective Ethics 191
9 How Do We Regulate Our Affection for Others?

Hierocles and Claude Lévi-Strauss on Kinship Circles193
10 Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia

Kristeva on Gendered Labor213
11 Is It Natural to Be Social? Marcus Aurelius and George

Herbert Mead on Socialization233
Part V Emotions 251
12 Is Reason External to Passion? Posidonius, Ann Game,

and Andrew Metcalfe on Self-Division253
13 Who Benefits from the Management of Feelings?

Epictetus and Arlie Hochschild on Emotional Labor279
14 How Individual Is Happiness? Chrysippus and Harriet

Martineau on the Universal End299
References321
Index341
About the Author
Will Johncock researches social theory, continental philosophy, and Stoic

philosophy, with a particular interest in themes concerning time. He is the
author of Naturally Late: Synchronization in Socially Constructed Times
(2019) which studies how philosophy and social science differentiate nat-
ural time from human time structures. He has lectured at the University
of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) and often publishes on current
social issues related to time.
ix
Abbreviations
I&G Inwood, Brad, and Lloyd Gerson. 2008. The Stoics Reader: Selected
Writings and Testimonia.
L&S Long, Anthony, and David Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers:
Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical
Commentary.
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Essential Versus External

Social Being
What Does This Book Contribute? Why Now?

Ancient Stoic philosophy evaluates the socialized aspects of our lives in
two ways. The Stoics emphasize the importance of a cohesive social fabric.
Integral to this belief is the Stoic prioritization of the role that each of us
should play in that cohesion. We will indeed see throughout this book that
for the ancient Stoics, particularly of the later Roman eras, we are born for
community.
Alongside this focus on how embedded we are in social life however,
Stoic philosophies order us to be indifferent to many features of our social
existence. These features typically comprise what the Stoics believe is out-
side our individual control. Examples of socialized phenomena considered
by the Stoics to be outside our control include the class into which we are
born, our reputation, and numerous aspects of our interpersonal relation-
ships. The imperative to be indifferent to certain socialized elements of
our lives targets what the Stoics categorize as external not only to our
control but also to our entire subjectivity. An orthodox ancient Stoic view
is that what occurs socially is often estranged from our internal nature and
who we each really are.
Many of the Stoics implore us to be more attentive to this division of
internal self from external socializing factors. Given this mandate we might
presume that ancient Stoic figures from the founding era of Zeno to the
final days of Marcus Aurelius could be concerned about this book. I say
this because in this work we will study ancient Stoic positions in tandem
© The Author(s) 2020 1

W. Johncock, Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_1
2 W. JOHNCOCK
with modern social and sociological theories. The notable point here is
that these social and sociological perspectives conceive of socialized ele-
ments of the self as pivotal rather than external to who we really are.
By involving these perspectives my intention is not to characterize
Stoicism as comparatively demanding a turning away from our “social-
ized” selves. As I have indicated at the outset, there is a crucial Stoic
appreciation of how we are inherently social and communal. Through
integrating social and sociological theory into discussions with Stoic
impressions of subjectivity and sociality, I instead want to consider how
separated our individuality actually ever is from our social environment for
the Stoics. The modern social and sociological theories incorporated into
this work provide an ideal counterpoint to Stoic notions of what is internal
and external to the self. This is due to the receptivity of modern theories
of socialization to the possibility that what we consider to be essentially
individual is always already social constituted.
I do not only direct this work toward interrogating Stoic positions
though. Complementarily we will consider how elements of Stoic subjec-
tivity lurk in what modern social theories determine is collectively com-
mon about our individual selves. For certain chapters this engages the
subtle differences between ancient Stoic and conventional modern under-
standings of what appears to be the same concept. Take for example Chap.
14 where “happiness” is the focus. Happiness for the Stoics is not reduc-
ible to what in the present-day we might conceive as a pleasurable emotion
that can reflect our experiences with an external world. Consistent with
their belief in a truly internal rational self, Stoic happiness instead develops
the ancient notion of eudaimonia.1 A happy life in this context is our living
in accordance with universally rational activity. We can weave this Stoic
impression of universally rationalized happiness through a sociological
sense of how universally our societies produce us as rational agents. It is
from this kind of comparison in this book that certain perspectives in
modern social and sociological theory start to look remarkably Stoic.
This dual orientation conditions this work’s originality and the new
perspectives it generates. A comparative study between ancient Stoic phi-
losophy and modern social or sociological theory has not previously
occurred to this scale. With the prospect of new perspectives though
comes the requirement to explain their necessity and timing. What does
this interdisciplinary project contribute? Why is now a good time for it?
In answering the second part of this question first, the timeliness of this
project can be situated by acknowledging the general resurgence of
1 INTRODUCTION: ESSENTIAL VERSUS EXTERNAL SOCIAL BEING 3
interest in Stoicism. This resurgence is evident in both public and aca-

demic spheres. Stoic perspectives have driven bestseller books,2 been the
subject of mass media attention,3 and filled numerous academic commen-
taries. Organizations such as Modern Stoicism continue to grow, conduct-
ing international “Stoicon” conferences and publishing anthologies on
“Stoicism Today” (Ussher 2014, 2016). Not only is Stoic philosophy’s
popularity increasing, but the sense of a new collegiality around it has
emerged. This community combines voices of theoretical expertise with
those of the general public in spaces (online and offline) which authorize
the participation of anyone who might have practical questions about
Stoicism. The revival of public interest in Stoicism has possibly developed
on the back of a greater intellectual and academic interest over the preced-
ing three or four decades. As Gisela Striker notes in her 1996 volume of
essays on Stoic epistemology and ethics, “a collection of this kind would
hardly make sense were it not for the remarkable revival of interest in
Hellenistic philosophy inaugurated” in the late 1970s (Striker 1996, ix).
My intention is to participate in the spirit of Stoicism’s reanimation via
engagements with its primary ancient sources. I complement this direc-
tion with secondary sources which have established Stoicism as a field of
scholarly study (e.g. Lawrence Becker, Christopher Gill, Brad Inwood,
Anthony Long, Martha Nussbaum, Gretchen Reydams-Schils, David
Sedley, John Sellars, and William Stephens). There is a specific justification
for rooting this approach in rigorous scholarship. The current public
attention given to Stoicism has at times inspired a streamlining of its prin-
ciples in order to develop a modern “guide to better living.” One of the
main proponents of this approach, Ryan Holiday, states that “Stoicism is
a philosophy designed for the masses, and if it has to be simplified a bit to
reach the masses, so be it” (Alter 2016; my emphasis). Holiday has a
proven comprehension of Stoic philosophy and an ability to create and
connect with an audience. Rather than seeking to simplify Stoicism’s core
principles however, I wish to adopt a method that embraces the intricacies
of Stoicism’s intellectual relevance and coherence. This will avoid aspects
of contemporary discussion which use Stoic philosophies as a “bag of
tricks” to produce “life hacks,” as Massimo Pigliucci also observes
(Pigliucci 2018).
I can instead best discuss the objectives of my approach via two
responses to the earlier question which asks what this project contributes.
The first contribution in this regard expands upon the opening consider-
ations. This work participates in a heritage of thought which reconfigures
4 W. JOHNCOCK
conceptions of what is internal versus external to our nature or self. Where

are the boundaries regarding what you believe to be essentially you, versus
contingently you, when considering the effects your social context or envi-
ronment has on you? Our socialization seems inescapable. Is there though
a separate internality to ourselves over which we each have a mastery and
that is resilient to socialized influences?
We will see that the Stoics doggedly distinguish one’s internal nature
from what they believe to be externally and often socially enacted. There
is for the Stoics a philosophically oriented internality for each of us that
regularly requires training or development after socialized elements have
misdirected us. As Anthony Long notes:
Modern anthropologists have accustomed us to think of selves and their

interests and needs as largely social constructs. It is clear that the Hellenistic
philosophers understood this notion inasmuch as Cynics, Epicureans, and
Stoics require their adherents to treat their pre-philosophical selves as sifted
out of dominant social values to the detriment of what human nature actu-
ally requires of them. (Long 2006, 13)
This posits a distinction between a true Stoic individual nature and a

socially constructed self. I have noted that there are nevertheless impor-
tant aspects within Stoicism which positively characterize how our subjec-
tive internal nature expresses what is communal or collegial about
existence. As we will see though there is a crucial difference between the
Stoic worldview regarding our communal composition and what Long
describes as the “anthropologist’s view” on the social construction of the
self. This difference concerns how a Stoic collegiality is a necessarily uni-
versal phenomenon, whereas the social scientist is concerned with contin-
gently socialized figurations.
Despite this difference, the complex fabric of the commonalities and
limits between self and society for the Stoics is part of what motivates my
combined inquiry of Stoicism with social and sociological theory. I find it
fascinating that Stoic philosophy represents each of us not only as a self-
contained master but also as a site where our internal selves express a
universal beyond. Comparisons emerge here with my impression of mod-
ern theses of sociality. Sociology in particular explores the common con-
stitution of an individual self with a broader (collective) world beyond the
individual.
There is a second contribution that I anticipate this project will make.

Students and scholars familiar with either Stoic philosophy, or with social
and sociological theory, will find this book grounded in conventional per-
spectives. I regularly explain, for example, the influence of Plato and
Aristotle in Stoic thought. As discussed, I also engage many influential
contemporary secondary sources in order to establish how classical posi-
tions are currently situated. Part of the broader promise of this project
though is that by being the first collection of studies of its kind, its work
intersects established readings with new ideas on the limits of subjectivity
and social existence. These are perspectives that would not have emerged
without the incursions facilitated by interdisciplinarity. This originality
means that this project offers something different for all readers, from
experienced scholars to the uninitiated. By reanimating works from either
era through newly identified intersections, these fields might even become
more accessible or inviting to those outside it.
A chapter’s theoretical pairings might seem unusual. An example is
Chap. 9’s analysis of Hierocles’ and Lévi-Strauss’ quite differently directed
positions regarding circles of kinship and affection. As we open a dialogue
between them, so we destabilize something that was seemingly separately
essential to each. This reorients theses with which we are otherwise famil-
iar and is an appealing purpose of this project. From a personal point of
view, when developing these interdisciplinary deliberations new transtem-
poral ways of considering thinkers that I have been reading for years have
manifested.
There are obviously blunt differences not only between contempora-
neous fields of study but also between the past and present objectives that
comprise ancient Stoicism versus modern social or sociological theory. As
hinted in the preceding discussion however, certain concerns pervade all
these eras and their consequent forms of inquiry. These concerns include
what it means to be civil or discourteous, good or bad, pious or impious,
democratic or totalitarian, rational or emotional, and so on. Considerations
of the human interest in any theme over time actually often harbor coun-
terintuitive implications regarding timelessness. Timelessness is a relatively
typical feature of enquiries into subjects and topics that transcend a par-
ticular period. Proclamations about whether a tennis player is the greatest
ever seem to require somewhat of an eradication of time. In order to facili-
tate a comparison between all players in history, we negate the temporal
distance between them. This allows us to conceive of them playing con-
currently against or under the same conditions. By removing or softening
6 W. JOHNCOCK
the “then versus now” separation we can conceive of what is common or

communicable between eras.
This insight informs the content of this book. When integrating ancient
Greek and Roman philosophies with modern social theories from the last
one or two centuries4 (and often from the last few decades), a necessary
timelessness contradicts temporal dislocation. We must maintain a recep-
tivity to how certain themes appear to be timelessly relevant to humans if
we are to develop dialogues between generationally disconnected genres
of theory. Highlighting commonalities between Stoic philosophy and
social or sociological theory that have not received dedicated attention
elsewhere marks a unique signature of this work.
Original Theoretical Intersections

on Relatable Themes
With this notion of transgenerational relations in mind, this book’s focus

on Stoic philosophy must be qualified by recognizing Stoicism’s connec-
tions to its neighboring ancient philosophical epochs. As indicated in the
previous section, I intend to fulfill the standard practice in Stoic scholar-
ship of highlighting the heritage of certain Stoic principles in the Platonic
and Aristotelian schools (Bonazzi 2017; Gill 2007a, b; Reydams-Schils
1997; Sedley 1999a, b). I will duly now flag that during the coming chap-
ters I regularly indicate where Stoic thinkers either perpetuate or contra-
dict relevant positions that philosophically precede them. Let me be clear
though that the emphasis of this book is not a comparative analysis of
ancient Greek and Roman philosophies and literatures. There are already
libraries of works dedicated to this area of research. Indeed I draw upon
many such texts for supporting commentary. Rather than such a focus, the
hallmark of this book is how it brings Stoic positions into discussion with
concepts found in relatively modern theories of sociality.
I have declared the theoretical orientations that dominate this book. As
will become evident, however, I open all chapters briefly through relatable
themes. This occurs by integrating questions or curiosities that speak to
everyday experience. Such an approach frames with a practical voice the
theoretical rigor of the analysis that follows. Beginning with a relatable
question is intended to encourage us to consider how in day-to-day life we
might ask the same kinds of questions that are apparent in the theory. Any
sharp distinction between theory and daily practice hopefully becomes
destabilized accordingly. Evidencing the practicality of theory in fact ful-

fills a key mandate of the Stoic school.
Incorporating relatable everyday themes evokes something of how the
term “stoic” permeates not only academic discussion but also survives in
modern parlance. To be described as “stoic” indicates one’s capacity to
endure an adverse experience, often without succumbing to emotional
distress or complaining. If you have a “stoic personality” in the twenty-
first century, it in many contexts recognizes your capability to withstand
misfortune and to get on with your life undramatically. Pigliucci indeed
describes how until his involvement with Stoicism’s intellectual resurgence
a few years ago, the word “Stoicism only brought to mind Mr. Spock from
Star Trek” (Pigliucci 2016, viii). Tad Brennan also observes the usual cur-
rency a term such as stoic holds, in that “we all know roughly what it
means to be stoical or stoic—they are English words, fully naturalized
from the Greek. Being stoic means being unemotional, indifferent to plea-
sure and pain, resigned to fate” (Brennan 2005, 3). Brennan is correct
that the term stoic has these everyday connotations. As we will see in this
book though, for the ancient Stoics the priority was less about being
unemotional and more about being indifferent to emotional pleasure and
pain. To be stoic requires not an absence of feeling (as I am sure a scholar
of Brennan’s pedigree appreciates) but a resilience to externally contin-
gent sources of one’s felt self.
In the modern era, Stoicism’s prioritization on internal governance
often features in characterizations of entities beyond individual humans.
Corporations, cities, countries, devices, technologies, and entire human
populations, not to mention collective human ideologies, can all be con-
ceived as stoic. “Stoicism” could indeed be a defining parameter of the
longevity and survival of the school of Stoic philosophy itself.5 This is
particularly relevant to how in academic environments economic pressures
have restricted the variety of areas of philosophy that can be comprehen-
sively offered to students.6 This has typically made it difficult for genres
such as Stoicism to be extensively accommodated within modern philoso-
phy syllabuses. For Stoic philosophy to perpetuate in a manner that fulfills
its own principles there must be something about its collective response to
these circumstances that remains unperturbed whenever it is institution-
ally marginalized.
The differentiation of this book from established scholarship possibly
gives it the potential to participate infinitesimally in reconfiguring how
Stoic philosophy is situated in the academic landscape. The point is not
8 W. JOHNCOCK
that Stoic philosophy can gain a greater prominence in tertiary education

protocols if I can show how it applies to fields of inquiry outside the
humanities (such as sociology). This might be a disciplinarily self-defeating
outlook. The suggestion rather is that this book can contribute to an
appreciation of Stoicism’s relevance to any current positions concerned
with sociality and vice versa. This in turn could invite new readers and
student interest.
A qualification is necessary regarding the preceding discussion if I am at
all at risk of presenting Stoicism as a singular ideology. It would be naive
to reduce all generations of Stoic thought to an identical belief structure.
As with any school, subsequent thinkers bring new perspectives. This is
true of Stoicism both in the introduction of new ideas as well as in the
revision of existing ideas.7 With that having been noted, the claim that I
will substantialize throughout this book is that one conception which is
near-ubiquitous in the Stoic school is of our implication in a universal
Nature. The Stoic subject asks not what they do or think in terms of the
presumption of an autonomously originated and regulated individuality.
Conversely the Stoic impression is that we act and think in accordance
with what it means to be an expression of a universal nature. Individuation
for the Stoics is the manifestation of something more all-encompassing.
This expands upon the earlier detailed second objective or reason for
this project. Through the social and sociological theories integrated into
these coming investigations, I explore how we might find a comparable
modern claim regarding the systemic production of the subject. This claim
is that what is individual or subjective is not an atomic invention with a
separate constitution. As with the Stoic impression of a universality that
encompasses and inaugurates individuality, social/sociological theory’s
belief in a systemic production of individuality contextualizes subjectifica-
tion. The difference between the production of individuation for Stoic
philosophy versus the sense of that process for social/sociological theory
is the difference between universality and sociality. This is not an insignifi-
cant difference. The opening nonetheless of a dialogue between the two
realms is possible according to the consistencies in how each view the
origination and ongoing inclinations of individuation. Intersections and
tensions manifest from this regarding their respective impressions of the
conditions for individual citizenship and collective social unity.8
The relatability of what it means to be both an individual being and a
collective being invites a readership for this book beyond the already
reviewed relevance to students and scholars. In rudimentary discussions
about this book, I have noticed an interest from potential readers who are
entirely outside the featured academic fields. Given the comprehensive
way that the key elements of any chapter are unpacked, I anticipate that
even if you lack a thorough background in Stoic, social, or sociological
theory you will feel accommodated by this book’s method.
Method
What then is this method? After a few chapters, you might notice similari-
ties in each chapter’s structure. I have standardized the structure to help
emphasize the timing of the paired theoretical components which com-
prise the following sequence.
I open the discussion through an accessible topic or question. This sets
the scene for the introduction of an ancient Stoic perspective that speaks
to this topic or question. Having established the Stoic perspective, I then
integrate a related social or sociological theory.9 The tandem analysis that
manifests ultimately comprises the bulk of the chapter and is where this
project’s originality becomes most prominent.
Comprehensively engaging the Stoic component before integrating the
social or sociological theory allows this structure to establish a foundation
from which we can develop close readings of precise points that are com-
municable between the paired theorists. Close textual analysis, not inci-
dentally, is a relatively pragmatic approach where the early Greek Stoics are
concerned. For the thinkers of this epoch, there can unfortunately be a
relative paucity of surviving literature. This reflects how chapters which
feature Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes of Assos, and Chrysippus of Soli are
dependent upon translations of sometimes meager fragments. Our sources
of such fragments are Roman Stoics such as Seneca, ancient commentators
such as Cicero, Diogenes Laërtius, and Stobaeus, and modern translators
of the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (SVF) (Von Arnim 2016). As schol-
ars would be aware, the SVF comprises passages in Greek and Latin from
the early Stoics and their followers.10 I regularly defer for modern transla-
tions of these early fragments to Anthony Long and David Sedley (1987)
(to be cited as “in L&S, page number”). Long and Sedley’s text has indeed
become an ever-present reference for modern Stoic scholarship.
In the chapters engaging Hierocles and Posidonius I complement my
use of translators such as Long and Sedley, as well as Brad Inwood and
Lloyd Gerson (2008) (to be cited as “in I&G, page number”), with the
more dedicated attention given to these two ancients by other recent
10 W. JOHNCOCK
translators. For Hierocles’ works and fragments I often turn to the transla-
tions offered by Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan (Hierocles 2009).
Where Posidonius is concerned I.G. Kidd translates the fragments
(Posidonius 1999) that he and L. Edelstein collected in earlier volumes.
For the chapters focused on later Roman Stoics such as Seneca, Musonius
Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, we have translations of what we
believe to be entire or near-entire texts. We will in fact be working with
more than one translation of texts such as Epictetus’ Discourses and Marcus
Aurelius’ Meditations. From this approach comes the advantage of being
able to evaluate different translators’ interpretations of key terms. In com-
parison to all these considerations, our access to the sources of modern
social and sociological theory is of course much more straightforward.
As a final note on method, I will briefly indicate how you might choose
to read this book. You do not absolutely have to read its chapters sequen-
tially. Chapter 14 does not assume knowledge acquired from all previous
13 chapters. While I encourage readers to be aware of the interrelations
between chapters and associated theorists, the method outlined earlier
means that each chapter has its own self-contained scope.
Having said that, a sequential reading of the chapters would potentially
better acquaint a reader with the category under which it and its neighbor-
ing chapters are grouped. If furthermore you are new to Stoic philosophy,
there are basic elements of Stoicism that are unpacked in the first few
chapters that will aid in your general comprehension. Despite these cau-
tionary tones, neither reading approach will prevent you from appreciat-
ing the relations that are opened in any given chapter between Stoic
philosophies and modern theories of socialized life and identity. Perhaps
the best advice therefore, heralding the Stoic mantra that we are about to
encounter, is to adopt the approach that you believe is in accordance with
your nature.
Notes
1. In The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues that eudaimonia, which we
typically translate as happiness and well-being, refers to an activity rather
than to an emotional state. This activity is a rational and virtuous existence
(Aristotle 2004, 1.7). Socratic and Platonic conceptions of eudaimonia
precede and shape Aristotle’s position. The Stoic development of this focus
on the “activity of happiness” is a topic for the coming chapters (in particu-
lar, Chaps. 4 and 14). We will see that emotion is not negated from Stoic
life (Sellars 2016a) but is reconfigured in accordance with rational activity.

Also of interest will be how Aristotle accommodates, whereas the Stoics
marginalize, external goods in relation to subjective happiness.
2. Ryan Holiday (2014) simplifies some of Stoicism’s central principles to
show their applications to daily life. Alexandra Alter (2016) of the New
York Times reports that this book has sold over 230,000 copies. Donald
Robertson’s books (2010, 2013, and 2018) which discuss Stoic philoso-
phy through the perspectives of cognitive behavioral therapy have equally
brought a greater current awareness to the practical benefits of Stoic the-
ory. Tim LeBon (2014) has also commercially popularized a blend of psy-
chology and Stoic philosophy. Piotr Stankiewicz attributes the appeal of
such works to their focus on “the ‘philosophy of life’ aspect of” Stoicism
(Stankiewicz 2017, 55).
3. Recent mass media articles discussing the increasing popularity of applying
Stoic principles to modern life include Matthew Sharpe (2017) in The
Conversation, Elif Batuman (2016) in The New Yorker, Sarah Berry (2016)
in The Sydney Morning Herald, Massimo Pigliucci (2015) in the New York
Times, and William Irvine for the BBC (2015). Olivia Goldhill also
describes in Quartz magazine how “silicon valley tech workers are using an
ancient philosophy [Stoicism] designed for Greek slaves as a life hack,”
whereby it must be said that “Stoicism is having a moment” (Goldhill 2016).
4. The “modern” era of scholarship to which I refer begins in the mid-
eighteenth century. Historians regularly further refine the definition of this
period to the “late modern era.” The division of the modern era into ear-
lier and later stages tends to either subsume the eighteenth century within
a longer modern period argued to begin around 1450, or in Peter Wilson’s
estimation push “the start of later modernity back to around 1750”
(Wilson 2014, 4). See Cameron on the relation of this definition to the
industrial revolution (Cameron 1999, xvii).
5. We can use this point to illustrate the distinction between (1) the adjective
form of “stoicism” which qualifies the subject or object with which it is
associated and that begins with a lower case “s” (unless found at the start
of a sentence) and (2) the noun form of “Stoicism” which refers to the
ancient school of philosophy and that begins with an upper case “S.”
6. Pam Papadelos reports that in a world “where universities are run akin to
commercial enterprises, there is a concern that philosophy will be further
relegated into the marginal and obsolete” (Papadelos 2010, 158). On a
similar theme, see Yamada (2010, 95) and Connell (2014).
7. See, for example, Annas (1993, 162).
8. David Inglis also exhibits an interest in a common terrain between ancient
Stoicism and modern sociology. Inglis attends to the traces of Stoic
cosmopolitanism that are present in the objects of analysis of Auguste
Comte’s sociology (Inglis 2014, 79–80).
12 W. JOHNCOCK
9. The exception to this rule is Chap. 7 which inverts this structure. In this
chapter, I introduce the sociological theory before the Stoic philosophy.
10. John Sellars contextualizes the publication of von Arnim’s collection by
providing an outline of the discovery of Stoic texts and fragments which
preceded and proceeded this work (Sellars 2016b, 1–14).
References
Alter, Alexandra. 2016. Ryan Holiday Sells Stoicism as a Life Hack, Without
Apology. The New York Times, December 6. https://www.nytimes.
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PART I
Subjectivity
CHAPTER 2
Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus

and Émile Durkheim on Mental Structure
You Are Part of a Rational and Ordered Universe

The introductory first chapter presents Stoic philosophy’s dual positions
regarding our social existence that we will begin to address in this chapter.
For the Stoics, we have a responsibility to contribute to collective life given
how embedded we are from birth in community. We must also however
for Stoicism remain indifferent to numerous features of social existence. In
this latter regard, the Stoics maintain that there is an internalized nature
to each of us that defies external influence and comprises our rational ways
of thinking and being.
Via a structuralist theory of socialization, we will in this chapter con-
sider though whether anything about these ways of thinking and being is
entirely internal to the self. This will ask to what extent any of us control
what we think. As a preliminary note, beyond these scholarly contexts, we
might recognize that contemporary self-help mantras believe that there
are aspects of our mental orientations over which we do have total control.
Such strategies abound with messages encouraging individuals to only
concern themselves with what is “in their control.”1 The directive to “let
something go” complementarily emphasizes relinquishing the investment
in anything beyond our control that is unsettling. What is outside your
governance might refer to another person’s opinion of you or the poten-
tial loss of your job due to a company takeover. In either situation, the
advice could be to focus on your own sense of self or work performance
rather than on what external parameters dictate. But this begs the

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18 W. JOHNCOCK
question; what or where is the division of the mental self from these
externalities?
Stoic philosophy and sociological theory each investigate the question
of our internal control over our mind. Moreover for the Stoics as we will
encounter repeatedly in this book, a concern about one’s mental gover-
nance exemplifies how philosophy practically contributes to a person’s
day-to-day life.2 This theme of internal mental control manifests exten-
sively in the later era work of the Roman Stoic, Epictetus (55–135 A.C.E.).
To understand how Epictetus conceives of this control, we must first
unpack his Stoic appreciation of the rationality of humans as found in
Book One of his Discourses.3 Robert Dobbin’s translation of Epictetus’
Discourses (2008) drives our engagement with it in this book. Such analy-
sis regularly occurs in tandem though with translations by Percy Matheson
(1916), William Oldfather (1961), and Robin Hard (2014), in order to
evaluate different readings of Epictetus’ vernacular.
Epictetus connects our control of mental phenomena to the prioritiza-
tion of rationality. This position perpetuates the early Stoic definition4 of
humans as rational beings—the “rational animal” (Epictetus 2008, 1.2,
1). Such a characterization is especially interesting for our concerns in this
chapter regarding the internality versus externality of the human mind.
This is because for Epictetus our rational nature is what concurrently dis-
tinguishes us from other less-rational creatures in the world and yet also
binds us to the world. The binding occurs because we exist in a universe
that for the Stoics is also rational.
Before we get to the counterintuitive notion of a rational universe, we
must firstly discuss how rationality for the Stoics distinguishes us from
aspects of the world. William Stephens observes that for Epictetus human
beings straightforwardly begin where non-rational nonhuman animals
also begin “by eating, drinking, resting, procreating, using sense-
impressions, and the like” (Stephens 2014, 214). These appear to be nec-
essarily material features of our being for Epictetus. In Discourses he states
that “since we are on earth” we are “bound to a material body and mate-
rial things” (Epictetus 2008, 1.1, 9). Nevertheless, our animal-body-ness
is a concern for Epictetus when we overly “incline” toward or identify
with it. An over-identification with our bodies involves unregulated indul-
gences in sensory pleasures. In this mode Epictetus laments that we “sink
to the level of wolves” and other base animals (1.3, 7).
Epictetus portrays how human thinking and reasoning capacities condi-
tion our divergence from this mode. Here he posits that only humans have
2 WHO CONTROLS YOUR THOUGHTS? EPICTETUS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM… 19
an understanding of these sense-impressions and of our broader nature

(1.6, 2.10–14).5 Anthony Long grounds what this “understanding”
means for Epictetus by describing it as a “reflexive capacity” (Long 2002,
131). Epictetus exemplifies Long’s point when claiming that it is a dis-
tinctly human characteristic to know not only that we are a “part” of a
“whole” world but also what sort of part we are. This includes appreciat-
ing our servitude to the whole. Sometimes this servitude even involves
sacrificing ourselves for the sake of the whole, meaning that it can be
proper as Robin Hard translates for “parts to yield to the whole” (Epictetus
2014, 4.7, 7). The rationality required in self-sacrificing for the ongoing
prosperity of the whole is a topic for a later chapter (where the theme
ironically is self-preservation). For now, though, we acknowledge Long’s
review of Epictetus’ position that self-awareness ranks humans on a scale
of nature somewhere below God at the highest extreme but well above
nonhuman animals (Long 2002, 157).
Alongside this awareness of our distinction from other parts of the
world, Epictetus nevertheless posits our inherent connection to the
whole/world. In assuming that all things have a common and connected
physical constitution, Epictetus rhetorically asks why the same would not
also be true of mental phenomena; “if plants and our bodies are so inti-
mately linked to the world and its rhythms, won’t the same be true of our
minds—only more so?” (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 5). This belief in a con-
nected universality of the mind takes Epictetus into the realm of rational-
ity. In particular, for the Stoics it is God’s reason that entirely permeates a
universe of which we and our minds are parts. This divine rationality con-
ditions as Epictetus describes the “first, all-inclusive state … composed of
God and man,” whereby via a universally common reason we find the
“source of the seeds of being” (1.9, 4). The earlier notion that rationality
characterizes our capacities as a species distinct from others would not be
unfamiliar. The claim however that the universe is itself rational seems less
easy to substantiate. How then does Epictetus come to such an assertion?6
Here I direct us to how Stoic rationality requires observably ordered
behavioral patterns. In an everyday regard the consistency of decisions and
actions evidences what we often refer to as rationality. If we observe some-
one walk quickly when crossing the street in order to avoid the oncoming
traffic, we might typically describe their behavior as rational. The sense is
that from their previous street-crossing experiences they rationalize how
quickly the traffic is moving and how quickly to move to avoid being
struck by a vehicle. This kind of rationality involves an interpretation of
20 W. JOHNCOCK
phenomenal patterns. We all draw generalized rules from localized sce-

narios and behave in a reliably patterned way in response. If conversely
one day we saw this person walking quickly across the street to avoid the
traffic but the next day observed them to be crawling slowly across it
despite similar traffic conditions, the inconsistency would probably engen-
der a characterization of them as “irrational.” This discussion is not a
definitive appraisal of how rationality seems to manifest.7 It is specifically
intended rather to note the common correlation of rationality with pre-
dictability and order.
Reliable causal patterns also underpin the connection between reason
and order that is integral to Epictetus’ appreciation of not just our experi-
ence of the world but of the world itself. We can find in Diogenes Laërtius’
recounting of Chrysippean philosophy the ancient principles on which
Epictetus could be relying here.8 Chrysippus attributes how “our indi-
vidual natures are all parts of universal nature” to a “right reason which
pervades everything.” This all-pervasive reason or rationality divinely
orders everything according to Chrysippus in reflecting the “will of the
orderer of the universe” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). For Epictetus
this ordering omnipresence is exhibited in the regular arrangements found
in the world that a rational God impels:
How else, after all, could things take place with such regularity, as if God
were issuing orders. When he tells plants to bloom, they bloom, when he
tells them to bear fruits, they bear fruit, when he tells them to ripen, they
ripen. (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 3)
Epictetus argues that these omnipresent and regularized connections are

overtly apparent between celestial bodies and our planet. Celestial rela-
tions reveal the universality of order and explain how “the waxing and the
waning of the moon, and the coming and going of the sun, coincide with
such obvious changes and fluctuations here on earth” (1.14, 4). Through
this unison we witness for Epictetus the universe’s rational production, for
“this design, so big, so beautiful and so well planned” does not run “hap-
hazardly” (2.14, 26). From this recognizable universal rationality, the par-
ticularity of the human rational animal manifests. Epictetus locates the seat
of this human rationality in the reliably “wonderful fruit in a human mind”
(1.4, 32). This is because the evidence of this rationality emerges not sim-
ply in our behavioral orderings but more intrinsically in our mental control.
Things over Which You Have Control

A primary characteristic of human rationality for Epictetus is our ability to
control our thoughts and perspectives.9 These controllable functions of
the self are entirely internal to each of us in this portrayal. Given that it is
from our mentality and our will that our attitudes and judgments addi-
tionally take shape, Epictetus posits in the Enchiridion that such modes
must also be “within our control” (Epictetus 2004, 1). The internality and
therefore controllability of these aspects of the self is distinguished by
Epictetus from what is external to oneself. Epictetus defines externalities
as physical phenomena such as our body and our possessions, as well as
social phenomena like our reputation. We should avoid emotional invest-
ments in external phenomena, Epictetus advises. In the aforementioned
scenario of crossing the street, it would be Epictetus’ estimation that we
have no control over the traffic itself or of drivers’ evaluations of how
adequately we crossed the street. We do however have control over any
fear we might feel regarding the speeding traffic. It is likewise up to us
whether we are bothered by what the drivers might think of our attempts
to avoid their cars:
Some things are within our control, and some things are not. Things in our
control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are
our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation,
command, and whatever are not our own actions. (1)
It is probable that Epictetus developed this conception of the control that

each of us has over our mind as a result of his early life as a slave. Physically
controlled by a master with few possessions or liberties we can imagine
Epictetus taking solace from the notion that he had the freedom to think
whatever he chose. His master could regulate his movements. His poverty
might prevent his physical comfort. He was however internally free to
hold whichever opinion or judgment he wished about his life and the
people in it.
Despite being born a slave, Epictetus had permission to study philoso-
phy under the Stoic tutelage of Musonius Rufus.10 From these beginnings
Epictetus developed his own writing focus on themes of integrity, self-
responsibility, and personal freedom. The consensus among commenta-
tors is that Epictetus intends his consequent philosophy to be more than a
collection of mere theoretical considerations (Long 2002, 181; Seddon
22 W. JOHNCOCK
2005, 9; Stephens 2007, xiv).11 The contrary motivation is that people

apply his insights to day-to-day life. Epictetus demands that the point of
any philosophy should be its practical use (Epictetus 2014, 2.16, 1–47).
In this regard his philosophy directly responds to his concern expressed in
Discourses that “we fail to practise the application of our judgements about
things that are good and bad” (2.16). By utilizing a philosophical outlook
in everyday experience Stoic thought here literally becomes a guide to bet-
ter living. The practical advantage for Epictetus of distinguishing between
internal control and external lack-of-control is that appreciating what we
can control will help in avoiding frustration and suffering. What occurs
physically or socially does so externally to us beyond our personal jurisdic-
tion. Epictetus hence warns that it is dangerous to entrust our sense of self
to such aspects of life for if we do “we fall prey to fear, or fall prey to anxi-
ety” (2.16, 11). We should instead concern ourselves only with what the
mind internally controls.
Epictetus’ demand to avoid needlessly concerning oneself with things
that are beyond our control seems to be relatively reasonable. The ques-
tion lurks within this assertion though of whether such insulation or isola-
tion of the mind from its “external” environment is actually possible. Is
there really an internally sheltered self over which you have a total control
while you are concurrently immersed in socialized and externalized envi-
ronments? To explore this question Émile Durkheim’s (1887–1917) soci-
ological conception of a socially constituted self or subjectivity can provide
an interesting counter-perspective. Durkheim is useful because of the
reflection he offers on portrayals of purely internal or external constitu-
tions regarding one’s subjectivity and mind.
The Social Role in Individual Consciousness

Often identified as one of the founders of sociology,12 Durkheim’s work is
concerned with how societies maintain cohesion in an era where tradi-
tional religious and other bonds were changing. Within this theme
Durkheim explores whether an individual’s thoughts and behaviors are
socially predictable and patterned and if so what this says about the source
or origination of those thoughts and behaviors. Through various studies
on faith and ritual, suicide, and labor,13 Durkheim questions to what
extent the individual mind authors one’s orientations. What he proposes
instead is that populations pass on templates for how to think and act from
generation to generation. We are all for Durkheim inescapably receptive to
these socially developed templates, a point which reflects how humans are
socially educated from birth. Our social environment shapes to various
extents the ways we talk, walk, think, and behave. Durkheim duly explains
in The Rules of Sociological Method that as a population’s collective con-
sciousness of these ways of being becomes instilled over time, we each
inherit a sense of what seems to be objectively true about society and our
role in it (Durkheim 1938 (1895), 1). Without realizing it, we simply
perpetuate these established orderings of how to think and act.
Via this aspect of Durkheimian sociology, we can frame our analysis of
the internality versus externality of the individual mind. There is a notice-
able difference between Durkheim’s and Epictetus’ contexts regarding
ordering. Ordered causes and tendencies exhibit a timeless quality of a
rational universe for Epictetus. With Durkheim instead we are ordered
contextually over sequential social generations. Despite this difference,
there is the common notion of an omnipresent ordering to the worlds into
which Epictetus’ Stoic subject and Durkheim’s socialized subject are
born. This commonality opens a mutual consideration about who or what
authors an individual’s thoughts in either.
Durkheim’s thesis is that we each inherit a consciousness of how to
think and act. This collectively constructed consciousness exists prior to us
and yet is also present when we exist (2). By embodying this conscious-
ness, we are socially constituted because we perpetuate what a society
already thinks. These conditions are a result of and beneficial to social
cohesion, Durkheim noting that “each individual drinks, sleeps, eats, rea-
sons; and it is to society’s interest that these functions be exercised in an
orderly manner” (1, my emphasis). Durkheim uses the term “coerced” (2)
to emphasize how socially normative modes of thinking and doing “impose
themselves upon” each person “independent of their individual will” (2).
This independence of a collective consciousness from each individual
consciousnesses that it shapes informs how Durkheim describes all socially
ordered orientations in terms of facts; “social facts.” From this indepen-
dence we should start to see traces emerging of the relevance of
Durkheimian sociology to questions of an individual mind’s internal ver-
sus external prompts. The factual nature of what occurs socially is attribut-
able for Durkheim to its reiteration from generation to generation. This
reiteration instills each way of thinking or acting with the character of
being something durably “true” about the social world in question. It is
indeed because of this reiteration that Durkheim believes that social facts
become concrete enough for social science to analyze them (4).
24 W. JOHNCOCK
Durkheim presents a thought-based description of what is collectively

factual about patterns of behaviors in The Elementary Forms of Religious
Thought. Social facts are communally and historically developed, and these
developments are “products of collective thought” (Durkheim 1995
(1912), 9). Speaking directly to questions about the site of origination of
mental phenomena, while individuals’ minds perpetuate the thought con-
tent of social facts this does not mean that they internally author these
ways of thinking. Part of the reason that these inherited templates are
externally independent from individual minds is that they pre-exist each
generation of individuals who reiterate them. As we see in The Rules of
Sociological Method Durkheim explicitly defines the source of social facts as
a result as external to individuals (Durkheim 1938, 2).
This externality has implications for the correlation of the social sci-
ences with the physical sciences. The rate of acceleration of gravity is a
physical fact of the world that externally precedes a scientist’s discovery
of it. Likewise, Durkheim’s thesis posits that the social fact of the rate
of any human behavior will externally precede a social scientist’s study
of it. In this regard, the physical fact and the social fact for Durkheim
each has a source that is objectively external to the subjectivities of the
investigator.
What is becoming apparent in a way that will inform how we relay Stoic
philosophy through sociology and vice versa is the primacy of the param-
eter of externality. Durkheim is emphatic that the conditions of what is
socially factual mean that the source of the socially structured coercion of
thought and behavior will always be external to the will of every individual
(xiii). We might feel that our thoughts or behaviors express our own
motives by conforming to our “own sentiments and subjectivities” (1).
Durkheim cautions though that such reality is still a fact of externally his-
torical social coercion and therefore “does not cease to be objective” (1).
Given that we learn to think socially, how we think even of our own indi-
viduality will for Durkheim also be socially conditioned. Ironically, there-
fore it is through sociality that we come to conceive of individuality. This
also means that it is through what is externally socially objective that we
develop a sense of what it is to be internally particularly subjective.
We have established the basis of Durkheim’s thesis. From this, we can
observe the first intersection between the arguments presented by
Durkheim and Epictetus. Both position what is “socially causal” as exter-
nal to the individual mind and consciousness. This externality of course
leads Epictetus to warn us about the effect of social conditionings on our
state of mind. The social’s externality marks for Epictetus its consequent
uncontrollability for any of us. As a relatable example, he considers what
occurs when you “enter into social relations” with people who enjoy “gos-
siping about shared acquaintances” (Epictetus 2008, 3.16, 4). If such
experiences condition your outlook then you are for Epictetus harmed by
a socially external shaping of yourself (3.16, 4).
Because of Epictetus’ concern about these effects of socialized phe-
nomena, we must seriously qualify the proposed coherence between him
and Durkheim on the theme of externality. Given the uncontrollability of
socially causal conditions, we should for Epictetus be indifferent to such
phenomena. He instead encourages us to prioritize what is within our
control—the internal machinations of our mind. Epictetus presents some-
what of a combative relationship between the subjective mind and the
socially external causes that might influence us to think in particular ways.
He suggests that we should all be “careful about fraternizing with non-
philosophers” entirely in order to protect the integrity of our own con-
sciousness (3.16, 3).
Durkheim’s view is also that the socially composed effects on our con-
sciousness derive from an objectively external source. For his sociology
though these are not combative relations against which we can remain
resilient. Epictetus asserts in the Enchiridion that a control of oneself via a
focus on what is internal to consciousness is possible, to the exclusion of
socialized phenomena (Epictetus 2004, 1). For Durkheim, however, self-
consciousness, and indeed subjectivity, is always already a socially struc-
tured and ordered phenomenon. The permeation of our individual
consciousness by what is socialized about consciousness is inescapable.
I have deliberately described Durkheim’s position concerning the indi-
vidual consciousness as socially “structured” rather than deterministically
“controlled.” This is because in Suicide: A Study in Sociology Durkheim
recognizes that when individual minds become collectively oriented by the
social world, the social world in turn “becomes different.” This notes the
uniqueness of the grouping of individuals that comprises any social gen-
eration. As the social world continually produces a collective conscious-
ness that generations of individuals animate, the newness of that grouping
simultaneously reproduces the social world. Both the social world and the
collective consciousness of that world consequently share novel relations.
For Durkheim this indicates how any social change is the product of a col-
lective rather than an individual consciousness, for “when the conscious-
ness of individuals, instead of remaining isolated, becomes grouped and
26 W. JOHNCOCK
combined, something in the world has been altered” (Durkheim 1952

(1897), 275).
The Durkheimian position is that the social shaping of the individual
mind does not negate nor distort the will of the individual as Epictetus
would assert. Social shaping is rather the inherent condition of an indi-
vidual will which, when structured as will, renavigates something about its
social conditions. It is on these grounds that Durkheim is confident that
social facts do not “determine” individuals. In coercing “certain kinds of
actions,” social structures are involved in a dispersed production which
does not demand that such actions “will be performed by this or that per-
son” (290). All that instead occurs is that a significant enough proportion
of the population actualizes these actions to render them socially factual.
Durkheim even accommodates for actions which comprise a resistance to
social facts in that “some people resist the force and that it has its way with
others” (290). Resistances are as much facts of social structure as is obedi-
ence in this context. The source of resistive (re-)action is not inaugurated
by an atomically autonomous mind that is controlled by an individual who
transcends social influence. From the social world into which we are born,
we instead learn what it means to resist coercion and how to make con-
trary decisions. This positions normative and non-normative behaviors as
sharing reliably ordered rather than unreliably haphazard relations. The
mind that non-normatively resists is duly patterned collectively along with
normalizing compulsions.
This kind of complete immersion in socialized orientations no matter
which way we turn is something about which Epictetus expresses great
apprehension. In Discourses14 he criticizes our “admiration” of external
and contingent aspects of social life, describing how “earnest” we are
about them (Epictetus 1961, 2.16, 11–12). Robin Hard’s more recent
translation of this passage similarly interprets Epictetus’ alarm that exter-
nals are “the prime object of our concern” (Epictetus 2014, 2.16, 11; my
emphasis). Epictetus’ converse assertion is that our existence does not
comprise this kind of complete socialized immersion. We can extract our-
selves from socialized states of subjectivity according to what is in our
individual control. For Durkheim though, such earnestness would not be
of external socialized objects from which we can detach our investment
but rather a socially objectified earnestness that each of us is.
We should return to first Durkheimian principles to appreciate this
nuance. Our earnestness about aspects of social life is a consciousness that
derives from an external collective consciousness. Because however we are
inescapably socially embedded, whether we “admire” or reject social phe-

nomena we are always doing so as a socially structured expression. Our
mind cannot stand outside society and earnestly admire it (erroneously for
Epictetus) from afar. Nor does our mind have a harbored nature that
socialization cannot affect. It is important that we appreciate therefore
that for Durkheim’s structuralist outlook one’s “internal” constitution is
also simultaneously its social externality. The individual is a systemic node
whose particularity enacts the rationale which pervades the whole.
Epictetus’ sense of subjective internality that is resilient to socialized con-
textualities seems to rely on a more impregnable border between internal
individual and external social than Durkheim’s model.
Despite or perhaps because of this feature, Durkheim’s appreciation of
a socially radiated site of an individual’s agency has faced numerous well-
reasoned criticisms. Anthony Giddens (1984) offers one of the most nota-
ble of these. As we will comprehensively review in a later chapter’s
discussion on the topic of an individual’s ignorance, Giddens’ concern is
that structuralisms such as Durkheim’s assert that we act unknowingly and
automatically. Durkheim’s sociology for Giddens creates situations “of
which agents are ignorant” and which cause individuals to behave in ways
that are actually “independent of whatever the agents may believe they are
up to” (Giddens 1984, xix). More recently Douglas Porpora has also
observed that in Durkheim’s definition of suicide the difference between
intended and unintended death is seemingly negated. For Porpora, this
should concern us because “we cannot explain or even identify individual
action without appeal to actors’ intentions” (Porpora 2015, 22).
We have noted that Durkheim’s view does not negate intention. Its
source instead is ambiguous given that it is resituated beyond the indi-
viduals who enact it. Taking into account this ambiguity, I encourage
readers to remain open to concerns such as Giddens’ and Porpora’s when
approaching Durkheim’s rather counterintuitive perspective. This is con-
sistent with my earlier call regarding what might be open to interrogation
about Epictetus’ sense of mind over which we have mastery or control.
Giddens’ critique of Durkheim indeed requires us to confront the sticky
topic of personal freedom. We have reviewed how for Durkheim an indi-
vidual mind concurrently has collectively structured and yet particularly
novel origins. The Durkheimian sense of our mind is that it is collective
because it is always already socially structured. Our mind is nonetheless
novel because of its role in the grouping of individuals which restructures
the social that structures it. This element of Durkheim’s thesis presents
28 W. JOHNCOCK
interesting ramifications for Epictetus’ claims regarding the freedom of

control that we have over our own opinions, desires, and actions. Durkheim
would argue against assumptions of pure, individualized control. We can
however ask whether Durkheim’s blurring of what is socially external and
what is individually internal entirely negates the possibility of personal or
subjective freedom. Epictetus’ sense of freedom leads this comparison.
Subjective Freedom
Subjective control and freedom are definitively correlated for Epictetus.
This refers to our unimpeded control over our thoughts and associated
feelings and behaviors. The Enchiridion presents a primary condition for
this relation between control and freedom as its internal production to the
self. Because our control of our mind is separate from the physical and
social realms of external causation, we are each “by nature free, unre-
strained, unhindered” (Epictetus 2004, 1). Epictetus defines this freedom
in terms of our authority over those things “which depend on us.” He has
a precise understanding of the things which depend on us. Briefly review-
ing Chrysippus’ conception of dependence will help to contextualize
Epictetus’ view.
A conception of a link between freedom and what depends on us is
apparent in Cicero’s recounting in De Fato (On Fate) of Chrysippus’
interpretation of causation. For Chrysippus things depend on us only if we
have responsibility for them being or not being in different states (Cicero
1942, 42–43). Cicero describes how Chrysippus uses as examples our
roles as the antecedent cause which pushes a roller to roll or a spinning top
to spin. A direct link between dependency and causation is here estab-
lished as Susanne Bobzien explains, in that by “that which depends on
us … Chrysippus seems to have understood simply the things (mainly
actions) of which we, qua rational beings, are the possible or actual cause”
(Bobzien 1998, 330). That our rational assent to be such causes is “nei-
ther forced nor fully externally determined” (330) defines for Chrysippus
the link between our freedom and what depends on us.15
Causation is not a pivotal factor in Epictetus’ definition of dependence
however. For Epictetus your rational freedom refers only to things which
depend on yourself because they are entirely in your internal control.
Bobzien observes that dependent things in Epictetus’ view belong exclu-
sively “to a class of things that cannot be externally hindered or forced”
(332; author’s original emphasis). This restricts the category of things that
depend on us to what we have complete internal control over; our impres-

sions. We will discuss in the epistemology section of this book what terms
like “assent” and “impression” specifically mean for the Stoics. For now,
though, we should appreciate that for Epictetus an individual is free
according to what we have already seen him define as internal to us
(thoughts and judgments).
Durkheim’s sociology does not suggest there is an individual control
that is separate from social force. He does not nevertheless relinquish a
sense of individual freedom either. As Durkheim states in a generally over-
looked footnote in Suicide, the structural socialization of the individual
consciousness “leaves the question of free will much more untouched than
if one made the individual the source of social phenomena” (Durkheim
1952, 289). This speaks to the earlier point raised that no individual is
“determined” by social force. The social fact “exacts a definite number of
certain kinds of actions” (289–290) among a population group. What
remains open though in a manner that maintains the Durkheimian defini-
tion of freedom is which individuals will be those who enact such actions
and how the particularity of this grouping will re-enact the social fact of
those actions.
Epictetus might respond to this observation by also identifying the
concurrent enacting of subject and social environment. This would not be
something to celebrate in his view. He indeed laments how various rou-
tines and habits shape us along with society (Epictetus 2008, 3.16, 7–16).
Contrary to Durkheim furthermore, for Epictetus individuals with socially
shaped subjectivities are not the result of an inescapable social production.
Stoic philosophy instead provides an opportunity through which such
individuals can reflect upon and hopefully defy their external fabrication.
If we cannot develop this self-control and resilience to our current social
environment, Epictetus even suggests that we should “leave our native
land, since old habits pull us back,” in order to find somewhere we can
internally develop “new habits” (3.16, 13).
Whether Durkheim’s outlook fulfills the requirements of “freedom” is
open to interpretation. What we can take from his sociology either way is
that the individual-social or internal-external relationship is not reducible
to oppositional or combative terms. For Durkheimian structuralism what
is socially or collectively external is also mentally internalized. Given how
the collective consciousness reproduces the social structures that have pro-
duced it, our internality or own consciousness that is a part of that collec-
tive consciousness is simultaneously outside or external to oneself. Self/
30 W. JOHNCOCK
internal consciousness is present in the social structures that structure

self/internal consciousness. This has quite sensitive ramifications for our
impression of individual motivations. As a prominent example, Durkheim’s
view is that the thought and act of suicide transcend personal conscious-
ness to symbolize a causally impersonal transmission of consciousness
(Durkheim 1952, xxxiv).
Despite the ominous topic of suicide, the social here presents not sim-
ply as an external cause that threatens and warps an individual’s mind (as
per Epictetus’ Stoicism). The social is instead always already a site of indi-
vidual internality. This dispersal of the self defines sociality as a process that
is more complex than the process of individuals becoming different ver-
sions of themselves through interaction with others. Subjectivity occurs
socially because the social structure is where one meets oneself through an
originary and unavoidable collective otherness.
This interpretation of subjectivity requires a certain humility when con-
sidering what constitutes the control of your mind. Epictetus negates con-
trol where external influence “infiltrates.” It is not that control or freedom
is discounted in Durkheim’s structuralist impression of the externality of
our internality though. What we might appreciate instead is that both
parameters (control and freedom) of the self are collective phenomena
that manifest differently to how we usually understand a subject’s atomic
possession of them. Your mind in such a model becomes a phenomenon
in which a collective population always already participates. This unsettles
the Stoic-like borderlines of a combat with external, encroaching, and
socialized forces.
I am fond of the practicalities of Epictetus’ perspectives on our control
of mental phenomena. Nevertheless, I also find myself asking whether
Durkheim’s dispersal of the individual mind makes a certain mundane
sense. In positing a control or ownership of our thoughts, have not those
thoughts as well as our capacity to compare thoughts originated from
something “beyond” our individual self? Do not all of us establish our
sense of thinking through thinking with others and established structures
(of thought)? Neatly distinguishing the point at which our thoughts begin
and another person’s or institution’s or culture’s thoughts end seems dif-
ficult to say the least. Advocates of Durkheim’s theory of a collective con-
sciousness would not necessarily have to discount Epictetus’ claim that we
can only control what is internal to each of us. Accommodating Epictetus’
emphasis on internal control requires though a reconfiguration of the
notion that what is external to subjectivity is harmful to it. What instead
has emerged is a potential destabilization of the entombed separability of

internality and a subjective nature.
As initially outlined, contemporary self-help mantras typically appropri-
ate Epictetus’ idea of only being concerned with what is under our own
mental control. This advice seems to be pragmatically sound. Why should
we needlessly concern ourselves with the affairs of others or with adverse
occurrences that we cannot change? Might we question now however
whether alienating internal properties from an external world is an appro-
priate perspective? Especially when considering that this advice often goes
to people already feeling vulnerable in relation to their surrounding envi-
ronment? Sociological structuralism might contrarily offer the realistic and
practical advice to embrace our inescapable porosity to an external world
rather than to devise strategies via which we each defend our turf.
While Epictetus appears to present this clear division between internal
and external there is an important nuance of his impression of the mind
which is not so straightforward. Indeed we touched on this nuance at the
outset of this discussion. This concerns his conception of a supposedly
unified rather than an oppositional relation between individual and uni-
versal minds (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 5). With this conception of the mind
comes an insight into what could be internal about the Stoic subject’s
self-consciousness that is concurrently also beyond that internality. We
have covered how socialized phenomena are external to the essential self
for Epictetus. However just as for Durkheim the internality of the indi-
vidual consciousness manifests an externally collectively rationale, likewise
through Epictetus’ sense of the daimon we can find a receptivity to the
idea that the internality of the mind expresses a rationality that is not
restricted to this internality.
A Universally Dispersed Internality

Epictetus’ position on the daimon gains significance by firstly contextual-
izing it via the positions of other Stoics as well as of Socrates. In the
Apology Plato reports that Socrates speaks of a “divine or spiritual sign”
that guides him. This divine “voice” prevents Socrates from participating
in unnecessary public affairs for “whenever it speaks it turns me away from
something I am about to do” (Plato 2002, 31d). We will see throughout
this book that social participation and fulfilling our civic responsibilities
are important pillars of Stoicism. Nevertheless, this notion that Plato
32 W. JOHNCOCK
touches upon of avoiding frivolous social activity is also important to

Stoicism as we have reviewed in this chapter.
That the daimon as a divine voice can guide individuals means various
aspects of Stoicism interpret it as a guardian. Diogenes Laërtius reports
that for the Stoics “there are some Daemones, who have a sympathy with
mankind, being surveyors of all human affairs” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853,
7.79). The most influential Stoic impression of the overseeing function of
the daimon seems to have derived from Posidonius. Cicero’s De
Divinatione (On Divination) informs that for Posidonius this overseeing
role steers us toward what is true, where “the air is full of immortal souls
on which the marks of truth are clear” (Cicero 2006, 1.64). In a way that
serves our interest in the question of what is internal versus external to the
self, Ian Kidd clarifies how “immortal souls” refer for Posidonius to
“daimones, divine go-betweens between gods and men” (Kidd in
Posidonius 1999, 166; author’s original emphasis).
This should interest us because it indicates a link beyond the human self
for an internal aspect of the self. We can explain this in terms of the divine
source of the daimon for Posidonius. If the daimon is divine, it occurs
within us only in our rational faculty. For the Stoics as we have seen divin-
ity and rationality are correlated. God causes a rational universe. Given this
rationality, the daimon for Posidonius is not only internal to us but is dis-
tinct from the cause of our emotional impulses. Posidonius here separates
the daimon as our real nature from how emotions often externally mis-
guide us, for anyone “who lives by emotion does not live in harmony with
nature” (Posidonius 1999, Fragment 187). The emotional impulse is for
Posidonius “inconsistent” and the cause of an “unhappy life” which con-
flicts with what is internal about “the daimon in oneself” (Fragment 187).
We will see in more detail elsewhere in this book (such as Chaps. 4 and 14
and, to a certain extent, Chap. 13) that happiness for the Stoics refers to
more than a conventional understanding of feeling good. Instead Stoic
happiness comprises states that occur in accordance with being rational
and virtuous.
This distinction between reason and emotion exemplifies Posidonian
impressions of the composition of our internal “soul” or nature. We will
more comprehensively engage this topic in Chap. 12. For now, though,
we can observe that Posidonius follows Plato in conceiving of a multi-
component soul comprising separate faculties of reason, spirit, and appe-
tite. In Book IV of The Republic Plato proposes that reason has reign or
“rule … having the wisdom and foresight to act for the whole” (Plato
2012, 4.436a–b, 4.441e). Plato alternatively associates emotion with spirit
and appetite, which are conceived to be separate from and subservient to
reason (4.441e–442b).16 Galen reports repeatedly that it is through this
Platonic perspective that Posidonius views the soul as being composed of
an authoritarian rational faculty to which the emotional faculty is “con-
formable” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 148). The daimon for
Posidonius is in our rational faculty.
Let us then get to Epictetus’ sense of the daimon and how this speaks
to the internal and external aspects of the self. Epictetus’ interest in the
daimon does not contribute to Posidonius’ conception of the separation
of the rational faculty from the other features of one’s internal soul. Instead
via Epictetus we get an appreciation of the daimon’s concurrent internality
to the self and divine distinction from the self. You are not identical to
God. Because however the daimon is “a fragment of God,” for Epictetus
it indicates how you are composed by or “have in yourself a part of Him”
(Epictetus 1916, 2.8). You are essentially a fragment of God. A ramifica-
tion of this for Henry Dyson is that for Epictetus the daimon is not simply
reducible to the self’s rationality. The daimon is rather for Epictetus both
the self and outside the self, “a guardian and a guide which seems to dis-
tinguish it from the self” (Dyson 2009, 241). We can also find this dual
impression of the daimon as both internal to subjectivity and as an external
navigator in Marcus Aurelius (1964, 5.27) and Seneca (1969, 41.1).
Marcus Aurelius (as translated by Maxwell Staniforth), for example,
describes of the individual that:
He dwells with the gods who at all times exhibits to them a soul satisfied
with its apportioned lot, a soul which in its actions follows the commands of
the inner daimon, that fragment of himself which Zeus has given to every
person as a protector (prostates) and guide (hegemon). This is the intellect
(nous) and reason (logos) of every person. (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.27)
Dyson identifies an influence here in Epictetus’ chronologically preceding

demand in Discourses for individuals to swear an oath to God (Epictetus
2008, 1.14, 11–17). This responsibility that the individual feels is not just
a reference to an external governor. Instead Dyson explains that an oath to
honor God simultaneously represents for Epictetus a self-oriented ratio-
nalization and directive because:
34 W. JOHNCOCK
… in Stoic theology, each person’s reason (logos) is literally a portion of

Zeus’ divine mind (koinos logos). Epictetus is pointing out that in swearing
allegiance to Zeus, one is pledging to honor one’s own rationality and vice
versa. (Dyson 2009, 237)
I agree with Dyson that the daimon for Epictetus marks how one’s inter-
nal rational self shares a constitution with a divinely rational realm that is
not restricted to oneself. I am more inclined to read this feature through
the text in Discourses cited earlier. There Epictetus rhetorically asks if our
bodies are bound up with the universe, then why would our minds not be
also? With either Dyson’s approach or mine though, we can appreciate
that for Epictetus our mental phenomena are bound up in a universal
divine mind:
And if our minds are so intimately connected with God as to be divine sparks
of his being, is he not going to perceive their every movement, since the
parts in motion participate in his nature? (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 6)
Epictetus’ daimon is not straightforwardly representative of either an

external protector or a self-restricted rationale. This means that our appre-
ciation of the ambiguous duality of this role is probably better served by
Matheson’s translation of the daimon as a “genius” than by more recent
translations of the daimon as a “guardian spirit” (Epictetus 2014, 1.14,
12) or a “guardian deity” (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 12). While Zeus has “set
by each man his genius to guard him, and committed each man to his
genius to watch over” (Epictetus 1916, 1.14), this genius is also within
each human. Our rational orientations are after all internal to us for
Epictetus. That what is seemingly beyond the self is also internal to the self
indeed rationalizes for Epictetus the reassurance that “when you close
your doors and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are
alone: you are not alone, God is within, and your genius” (1.14). Percy
Matheson further emphasizes from this kind of point that for the Stoics in
general and for Epictetus in particular, the daimon-as-genius is an internal
rationalization sourced from beyond the self:
‘Genius’ … used by the Stoics not in its popular sense of an external spirit
intermediate between gods and men, but as identical with man’s reason or
higher nature, his conscience, the voice of God within him. (Matheson in
Epictetus 1916, 243)
Does this conception which does not restrict our rational and conscious
compass to a source that is entirely inside the self mean that we see a
strange coherence between Epictetus and Durkheim? For Epictetus the
individual mind is to a degree directed by what is objectively and separately
different from them—Zeus. We can evidence this objective differentiation
between an individual and Zeus in how an individual can cease to exist
while Zeus cannot. Epictetus notes that if we were going to die in a sink-
ing ship we should not cry “out at heaven” but recognize that unlike God
we will “perish. For I am not immortal, but a man; a part of the universe”
that will “pass away” (Epictetus 1916, 2.5). The source of our daimon-
rationality does not pass even if we as a particular daimon-rationality do
pass. As we have similarly reviewed for Durkheim, the collective structures
of consciousness from which an individual consciousness manifests are
objectively durable in a way that our individual consciousness is not. Such
consciousness exists long before and after we do, in his words.
That one’s internal daimon is constituted by a universal mind for
Epictetus means that what seems to be personally motivated actually fol-
lows the tracks of a universally kindred rationality. Epictetus affirms that
“if you will, you are free,” however that this subjective will is “in accor-
dance with what is not merely your own will, but at the same time the will
of God” (Epictetus 1961, 1.17, 25; my emphasis). This simultaneous self
and beyond-self situatedness of the will should remind us of Durkheim’s
sense of individual compulsion. For Durkheim even when our motivations
feel entirely subjectively oriented they are the “internalization” of a more
broadly omnipresent consciousness and motivation (Durkheim 1938, 1).
That Epictetus recognizes the daimon as a universal orientation that is
concurrently an individual’s orientation motivates Donna Orange to
describe a Stoic “kind of selfhood” for each of us that is “neither subjec-
tive nor objective” (Orange 2013, 492).17
In expanding upon this point, it is appropriate to integrate a further
insight from Marcus Aurelius. As we touched upon in Dyson’s commen-
tary, Epictetus famously inspires Marcus as a young student.18 Consistent
with the Stoic perspective engaged earlier, Marcus asserts that we should
only be invested in what we can internally control in our mind. He never-
theless also reiterates Epictetus’ belief that there are kindred conditions
between one’s own mind and the whole of Nature. This latter form of
mind that Epictetus and Marcus describe is a universally collective phe-
nomenon.19 Given this universality, it is readily distinguishable from
Durkheim’s exclusively human collective consciousness. Despite this,
36 W. JOHNCOCK
Epictetus and Marcus, and Durkheim, exhibit a common belief in a part-

whole constitution of consciousness. Marcus expresses this in his
Meditations when discussing a universal kinship:
Hurry to your own directing mind, to the mind of the Whole, and to the
mind of this particular man. To your own mind, to make its understanding
just; to the mind of the Whole, to recall what you are part of; to this man’s
mind … and at the same time to reflect that his is a kindred mind. (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 9.22)
This representation of the individual as sharing an intimate relationship

with the rest of universal being surfaces in various contexts in other chap-
ters. For this final consideration in this chapter though, Marcus’ terminol-
ogy is pertinent for any lingering curiosities regarding the topic of the
control of the mind. We have initially encountered Epictetus’ focus on
individual mental control and subsequently engaged Durkheim’s socially
dispersed characterization of any individual. In recognizing a social consti-
tution for subjectivity, we have considered whether this results in losing a
control of our mind. The relation between the mind and control shifts in
this regard from something about ourselves that we possess autonomously,
to something bigger than ourselves in which we participate. From this, we
have reviewed the dual composition of a subjective and divine/universal
mind for Epictetus.
Marcus’ expansion of Epictetus’ definition of the mind emphatically
directs us to understand part and whole in universally kindred terms. The
mind of the directing individual is the mind of the whole. We do not lose
a distinction between internality and externality as a result of this. The
respectively ordered and patterned distinctions of particular and whole
instead could remind us of the internality of each to the other. This evokes
Marcus’ just encountered demand that we should mindfully “reflect” on
our presence in what seems to be external to our individuality. Such a
point furthermore coheres with the opening insights from Epictetus on a
mind unified with world and his later impression of the daimon. Individual
minds and whole mind share a consubstantial fullness and likewise a con-
substantial control. If we were to answer the title question of this chapter
in a manner that is consistent with this reading, we could still say that an
individual compels their thoughts and controls their mind. Such compul-
sion or control however seems to reflect something universally destabi-
lized about the borders between individual internalities and externalities.
Notes
1. Shad Helmstetter (1982) exemplifies the everyday advice to only concern
yourself with “what is in your control.” Helmstetter distinguishes between
what is in your control and deserves your focus, versus what is beyond your
control and you should forget; “I am in control of my feelings, my emo-
tions, my attitudes, and my needs” (181). We can match this terminology
to Epictetus’ conception of the jurisdiction of control that we are about to
explore.
2. In A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, William Irvine
describes Stoicism as a philosophy for life (Irvine 2008, 4). See similarly
Robertson (2013) and Ussher (2014, 2016), as well as Pigliucci (2017a,
b), for discussions of Stoic philosophy’s practical relevance to daily
existence.
3. Epictetus’ Discourses is an account of his lectures provided by his student,
Arrian of Nicomedia. Arrian’s retelling of Epictetus’ work occurs without
any input from Arrian himself, M.C. Howatson reporting that Epictetus’
“oral teachings he [Arrian] later published verbatim” (Howatson 2013,
73). I will duly refer to Epictetus as the author of Discourses as is conven-
tional. For a detailed breakdown of the relationship between Epictetus and
Arrian refer to Brunt (1977).
4. Diogenes Laërtius reports in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
the foundational Stoic belief that distinguishes human impressions as those
“of rational animals … rational impressions are thought processes; irratio-
nal ones are nameless” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.52,55,61, in L&S,
337). See also Becker (2004, 41–44) in which Chrysippus’ early Stoic con-
ception of the rational animal is discussed.
5. While nonhuman animals “lack logos” William Stephens notes the curiosity
that for Epictetus certain animals should be revered as “paragons of free-
dom.” This is not an incidental point given that freedom is a “supreme
goal of Epictetus’s philosophy” (Stephens 2014, 228). By exploring
Epictetus’ belief that human and nonhuman animal existences involve
vices and virtues, Stephens posits certain commonalities between all crea-
tures that modern Stoic scholarship often overlooks.
6. As with themes developed in other chapters, Stoic thinkers often arrive at
their positions by continuing or deviating from preceding Socratic,
Platonic, or Aristotelian positions. In The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle
defines rationality in specifically human terms. Humans for Aristotle have
this rational component (Aristotle 2004, 1.13.1102a.30–1103a.10) as
well as a component that because it is “vegetative has no association at all
with reason” (1.13.1102b.30). Humans share this vegetative component
with less-rational entities such as flora, fauna, and nonhuman animals. The
38 W. JOHNCOCK
vegetative component for all is “the cause of nutrition and growth”

(1.13.1102a.30). Humans though rationally transcend such functions in
ways that other entities do not.
7. While rationality can be associated with ordered thinking processes, René
Descartes denies that this also provides the conditions to define the think-
ing human as rational; “what is a man? Might I not say a rational animal?
No, because then I would have to inquire what ‘animal’ and ‘rational’
mean. And thus from one question I would slide into many more difficult
ones” (Descartes 1993 (1641), 2.26). Descartes’ concerns regard the
regressive rabbit hole involved in trying to define rationality. Bertrand
Russell also sees ongoing contradictions in defining ourselves as rational.
This however is because for Russell our actions apparently contradict ratio-
nal inclinations; “man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told”
(Russell 1943, 5). Russell refers here as much to the question of what
rationality means as he does to the question of whether humans fulfill such
requirements.
8. These Stoic principles are likely drawn from Socratic impressions of a ratio-
nally ordered universe. Gisela Striker (1996, 217–218) discusses the con-
nections between Socratic and Stoic theories of a perfect rational order.
Anthony Long indeed generally observes of the Socratic influence in
Epictetus’ thought that no “other philosopher, not even Zeno or Diogenes,
is named nearly so frequently” in Discourses as is Socrates (Long 2004, 10).
Beyond Socrates, an Aristotelian impression is also possibly apparent
regarding an ordered world. In “On the Cosmos” Aristotle describes the
universe as deriving from a “single power” which “concords” that every-
thing in the world “is well-arranged; for it is called ‘well ordered’ after this
‘universal order.’ What particular detail could be compared to the arrange-
ment of the heavens and the movement of the stars and the sun and moon”
(Aristotle 1955, 5.297a.10).
9. In Descartes’ Discourse on Method we find a literal example of inspiration
provided by Epictetus’ focus on self-control. As Descartes writes, in
approaching philosophy he sought “to conquer myself rather than fortune,
to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to
accustom myself to believing that there is nothing that is completely within
our power except our thoughts” (Descartes 1998 (1637), 3.25).
10. An awareness of this relationship helps contextualize Epictetus’ Stoic
development. Commentators including Chester Starr have noted the con-
sensus among “students of Stoic philosophy” that not only did Epictetus
study under Musonius but furthermore that “he followed closely his
teacher” in developing the “tripartite division … all things are good, evil,
or else indifferent” (Starr 1949, 22).
11. Matthew Sharpe interprets that the Enchiridion is directed by Epictetus

urgently to “‘beginners’ to the philosophical school: people potentially
interested in Stoicism as a possible way of life” (Sharpe 2014, 379–380).
12. Durkheim is typically positioned as such alongside Karl Marx and Auguste
Comte (Moore 1966; Shils 1970; Thomassen 2012). Anthony Giddens
though counters characterizations of a distinguishable point of birth of any
intellectual discipline, arguing that “the idea that there was a certain
Archimedean point at which a discipline became founded—begotten by its
fathers—does not stand up to scrutiny” (Giddens 1995, 4–5). By instead
arguing that sociology has a progressively constructed identity, Giddens
dismisses the claims of a series of thinkers who believe that they have insti-
tuted a new science of society (5).
13. The themes of faith and ritual and suicide will be apparent in the texts that
are engaged in this chapter. Durkheim’s work on the final theme listed
here—labor—can be most notably located in his The Division of Labour in
Society (1997 (1893)).
14. As translated by William Oldfather. In the Robert Dobbin translation with
which we have been previously working the phrase “what are we in earnest
about” is instead translated as “what do we look after” (Epictetus 2008,
2.16, 11).
15. See also Eliasson (2008, 84–95) for a discussion of what the phrase
“depends on us” means for Chrysippus. Eliasson additionally incorporates
an extended commentary of Bobzien’s reading of the Chrysippean position.
16. Rationality’s authority over the other two faculties of the soul is also
famously evoked in Plato’s metaphor in Phaedrus of the charioteer, as rea-
son, driving two horses (Plato 1995)
17. This not-isolated sense of subjectivity perhaps lurks in what Anthony Long
describes as the “normative” constitution of the daimon. The daimon
divinely perpetuates the proper criteria for how to live in accordance with
universal nature. This for Long means that the daimon is “every person’s
normative self, the voice of correct reason that is available to everyone
because it is, at the same time, reason as such and fully equivalent to God”
(Long 2002, 166).
18. In “The Cosmopolitan Ideas of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius,”
G.R. Stanton explores the ideological similarities between these two Stoic
thinkers. In particular, this outlines why “Epictetus had an immense influ-
ence on the whole philosophy of Marcus Aurelius” (Stanton 1968, 1).
19. This is even when taking into consideration as Gretchen Reydams-Schils
observes that for Epictetus “[q]uestions about nature as a whole are
beyond our grasp.” It is nonetheless through inquiring into how we are
naturally inclined and appreciating our common, universal conditions, that
such questions “help us realize that Nature also made humans intrinsically
social beings” (Reydams-Schils 2005, 38).
40 W. JOHNCOCK
References
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and Passing-Away. On the Cosmos, ed. T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post,
and E. Warmington, 344–409. Translated by David Furley. London and
Cambridge: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.
———. 2004. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. Thompson. London and
New York: Penguin.
Becker, Lawrence. 2004. Stoic Emotion. In Stoicism: Traditions and
Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 250–276. Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Brunt, P.A. 1977. From Epictetus to Arrian. Athenaeum 55: 19–48.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1942. De Oratore Book III. De Fato. Paradoxa Stoicorum.
De Partitione Oratoria. Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and
London: Harvard University Press.
———. 2006. De Divinatione (On Divination). Translated by David Wardle.
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Descartes, René. 1993 (1641). Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the
Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated.
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———. 1998 (1637). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy.
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Diogenes Laërtius. 1853. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.
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Durkheim, Émile. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by
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———. 1952 (1897). Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Edited by George Simpson.
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———. 1995 (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen
Fields. New York: Simon and Schuster.
———. 1997 (1893). The Division of Labour in Society. Translated by Lewis Coser.
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Dyson, Henry. 2009. The God Within: The Normative Self in Epictetus. History
of Philosophy Quarterly 26 (3): 235–253.
Eliasson, Erik. 2008. The Notion of That Which Depends on Us in Plotinus and Its
Background. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Epictetus. 1916. The Discourses and the Manual: Together with His Writings.
Translated by Percy Ewing Matheson. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 1961. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments.
Edited by T. Page, E. Capps, W. Rouse, L. Post, and E. Warmington. Translated
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———. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New York: Dover
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———. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin.
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———. 2014. Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard.
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Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of
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———. 1995. Politics, Sociology and Social Theory: Encounters with Classical and
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———. 2004. The Socratic Imprint on Epictetus’ Philosophy. In Stoicism:
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———. 2017b. What Do I Disagree about with the Ancient Stoics? How to Be a
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what-do-i-disagree-about-with-the-ancient-stoics/.
42 W. JOHNCOCK
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———. 2002. Apology. In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno,
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———. 2012. Republic. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London and New York:
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Gennep: Founding Moments of Sociology and Anthropology. Social
Anthropology 20 (3): 231–249.
CHAPTER 3
When Are You Present? Chrysippus

and Henri Bergson on Continuous Time
Are You Present?
Being present in an everyday regard refers to giving our thorough atten-
tion to what is currently happening. Consider when a friend wants your
focus on a topic they are discussing with you. It is likely that if during this
conversation they ask whether you are present, what is implied is that con-
trarily you seem distracted and not present. If your concentration diverts
to neighboring events outside the conversation, the impression will fur-
thermore be that you lack presentness not only with the conversation but
also with the people involved in it.
Besides environmental distractions, your compromised presentness
could also be a result of your mind’s focus on other points in time. Think
of how distracting memories or expectations can be. You might not be
fully engaged with the conversation with your friend because you were
remembering something that has happened or thinking about what could
happen soon. It is this sense that time’s sequential states contextualize
presentness that will be our concern in this chapter.
“Being present” here incorporates interpretations of the conceptual
division of time into past, present, and future states. When we demand
that someone is fully present, to some extent we believe that they have the
capacity to experience time’s flow from the perspective of what is immedi-
ately occurring. Being present requires a focus either exclusively or pri-
marily on the “right here, right now.” If we are present we remain
undistracted by a past that is already what it unchangeably is.1 When truly

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_3
44 W. JOHNCOCK
present we are also not overly occupied with possible future events (that
might not even happen).
Suppositions of this sequential arrangement of time prompt related
queries about whether such states replicate the apparent separation of spa-
tial states or bodies. Are there separate instants of time that line up like
distinct physical bodies? The idea of separation in this context is conten-
tious. Even with differentiated past, present, and future states, there seem-
ingly must still be a continuous connection between them. How else
would such states flow?
In considering this flow, what we typically assume of course is that
time’s states are not entirely separate. A temporal continuity seems only to
occur because states are conjoined. We readily interpret that in a future
state you find traces of previous presents. Where time is a series of trace-
able relations its constitution manifests as sequentially co-implicated
moments.
If this kind of continuity underpins how we conceive of time though
there must be ramifications for our opening considerations around when
or whether someone is “present.” We can note that self-help doctrines
seek to facilitate our attainment of a total or primary presentness. This
speaks to the aspirations and expectations built into the phrase “living in
the moment.” The advice to a grief-stricken individual is often to not
worry about the past (that they cannot change) or a future (that might not
even eventuate).
The acknowledgment in the previous paragraphs however is that pasts,
presents, and futures might not be entirely separate if time is continuous.
In this context, evaluations of “being present” surely require certain quali-
fications. To what degree can we be present or commit to presentness if
time’s continuity means that it is difficult to distinguish where that present
begins and ends?
Seemingly all of us furthermore regularly fail at being exclusively or
primarily present. We are often mentally occupied with what has occurred
in the past or what could possibly occur next. What are the ramifications
of this seemingly compromised experience with presentness? Are we at
fault when we do this? Is it disrespectful to others and detrimental to our-
selves to not be fully present?2 Are we even able to be present?
These kinds of curiosities inspire this chapter. Equally I am motivated
by the possible responses that we can develop around such themes with
the assistance of one of the earliest Stoics, Chrysippus of Soli (279–206
BCE). Chrysippus does not strictly forward a theory of our consciousness
3 WHEN ARE YOU PRESENT? CHRYSIPPUS AND HENRI BERGSON… 45
of time. I believe that his views on the present can help us, however, to
respond to questions about when or whether we are occupied with the
present state of time. My further hope is that Chrysippus contributes to a
discussion about whether presentness as it is conventionally defined is
actually possible.
Chrysippus is one of the more pedigreed Hellenistic philosophers, hav-
ing studied under Cleanthes3 who himself had succeeded the founder of
the Stoic school, Zeno.4 I raise this progression given that even our
impression of such a lineage speaks to the just reviewed general assump-
tions regarding continuous time. Firstly, there was Zeno. Subsequently
there was Cleanthes. Then after Cleanthes came Chrysippus. Each Stoic
represents something akin to a present era and yet each of these presents
participates in relations with the other eras. Indeed regarding consider-
ations of the continuities of ideology, in approaching Chrysippus’ concep-
tion of presentness we must appreciate the relations of his perspectives
with preceding ancient beliefs. This particularly refers to Aristotle’s theory
of time.5
Situating Chrysippus
The Aristotelian view itself exhibits a Platonic heritage in asserting a rela-
tion between time and motion. We can trace Plato’s impression of this
relation to his associated account of God’s creation of the universe. Plato
explains in the Timaeus that the universe exists and occurs according to
God’s supremely good, intelligent “model.” This model comprises the
celestial bodies that move around the universe. Time comes into being
with these celestial motions (Plato 2008a, 38d). Plato indeed discerns that
it was the “shared task” of these bodies to “produce time” (38e).
This “task” these bodies “share” is twofold. Firstly, such bodies are
heavenly bodies that circle the universe with an apparently endless regular-
ity. For Plato these never-ending characteristics mean that the associated
time which manifests from these bodies’ revolutions provides us with an
image of God’s eternal perfection. This time “imitates” (as an image of)
eternity given that these bodies ceaselessly circulate along the same posi-
tions. The ongoing sameness of celestial motions exhibits how “this uni-
verse of ours might, by imitating the eternity of the perfect, intelligible
living being, be as similar as possible to it” (39d3e).6 As transient and
finite humans, we cannot truly comprehend eternity. We can however
appreciate it to the extent that these perpetual planetary timings mimic the
46 W. JOHNCOCK
self-sameness of a divine eternity. This speaks to the second task of such

bodies in producing time. The revolutions or “orbits” of these bodies
distinguish “circuits,” as Plato describes them, such as “night and day.”
These circuits duly make time and its quantifiable periods apparent to us
in that they “enable all suitably endowed creatures to become numerate
by studying the revolution[s]” (39b).
The motion of heavenly bodies is time for Plato. Time is a compre-
hendible moving image of what is otherwise perfectly eternal. While
Aristotle agrees with Plato that time and motion intimately correspond,
Aristotle will differ in terms of the nature of this connection. Aristotle’s
thesis diverges from Plato’s notion that time is a moving image of God to
instead focus on time’s distinctly numbered conditions.
Book IV of Physics is where Aristotle’s conceptual differentiation from
Plato most emphatically unfolds. The basis of this difference is that for
Aristotle time is “everywhere.” Motion conversely is only in the things
that are changing via moving and “where that changing thing happens to
be” (Aristotle 1996, 4.10.218b13). In Aristotelian theory, a thing’s
change in terms of spatial displacement marks this motion. A displacement
is a change from what Aristotle describes as a “starting-point to an end-
point” (4.11.219a10). The particular starting points and ending points of
things’ precise locations differentiate these changes-as-motions from the
“everywhere” of time.
While this makes motion and time distinct for Aristotle, change is also
important to how motion and time connect. We can understand this con-
nection in how motion signifies the before and after states for any chang-
ing thing (4.11.219a10–21). Aristotle asserts that the change in a thing’s
before and after states is “magnitudinal.” Such change can be counted and
numbered. The numbering of this change is time. So reliant in fact is time
on change that for Aristotle time “does not exist without change”
(4.11.219a10). The correspondence between time and motion is reflec-
tive then of a fundamental correspondence between time and change.
Time manifests, and it manifests as a number, because motion-as-change
is magnitudinal. Or in Aristotle’s words, “change follows magnitude, and
time follows change” (4.11.219b16).
It is through the moving thing that we know change as magnitude for
Aristotle and time as number of that change. Just as time is not identical
to motion though, likewise time is not change itself, but it is only change
“in so far as it [time] admits of enumeration” (4.11.219b1–3). If such
motion or change was straightforwardly time, then time, which is the
enumeration of motion or change, would be the tautological definition of

itself (4.10.218b9–20).
Instead of time and change being an identical worldly function,
Aristotelian time manifests as the numbered associate of change, the “fea-
ture of change that makes number applicable to it” (4.11.219b2). This
concept of the numbering of time requires clarification. Rather than time
being within change, time occurs as a distinct counting of change. From
where or from what, we should therefore ask, does this counting occur?
Aristotle responds that it is the “soul” that does this counting. So inte-
gral is the soul to the counting of time that without the soul there would
be no time. Aristotle asserts this dependency of time on the soul in that “if
there cannot be some one to count there cannot be anything that can be
counted” (4.14.223a20–25). Time is the soul’s numbering of change.
This marks a novel divergence from Plato’s thesis. Certainly, Plato
incorporates enumerated themes into his conception of time. We have
seen that he describes the planetary motions and consequent revolutions
as a moving image that enables us to become “numerate” regarding time.
In the Timaeus he duly describes how the orbits of the planets operate as
the “numbers of time” (Plato 2008a, 38d). Via the planets, we can even
appreciate the “perfect number of time” in the way that their “most intel-
ligent revolutions” imitate the eternity of God (39d). Having said that,
Plato emphasizes that it is this moving imitation, this “wandering” of
planetary bodies, that constitutes time. The numerical counting of move-
ments in the universe is not time for Plato, as it is for Aristotle.
Chrysippus’ reported perspective exhibits influences from both
Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions of the relation between time and
motion. As we will indeed see, there are important consistencies between
Chrysippean and Aristotelian conceptions of time, some of which derive
from Platonic roots. Chrysippus’ Stoic theory departs considerably how-
ever from Aristotle’s position regarding there being a distinct soul that
counts time.
We can contextualize the Stoic departure by firstly complementing our
appreciation of Aristotle’s counter of time with an understanding of his
associated interpretation of what initiates the changes that time counts.
The world is always changing. Any change furthermore is the cause of
subsequent changes. Beyond these causal connections however, Aristotle
believes that something must have impelled change to begin generally.
This he calls a “first agent of change” (Aristotle 1996, 8.6.258b10).
48 W. JOHNCOCK
Such an agent cannot be changing itself. As the initial condition of

change, if it also changed this would mean it contradictorily required
another cause for its change. The first agent of change is thus outside
change. Given how intimately change and time are related, for Aristotle
being outside change demands that this first agent of change is also out-
side time. This agent is God. Because God as a metaphysical entity is out-
side time, this coheres with Aristotle’s philosophy of time belonging to his
physics rather than to his metaphysics. God as an “eternal and unchanging
agent” (8.6.258b10), the “unmoved mover” (8.5-6), is timeless.
We can differently situate Chrysippus’ definitions of time generally, and
of the present specifically, from the eternally timeless underpinnings of
Aristotelian and Platonic time. Fundamentally, all three schools posit inti-
mate connections between time and motion. We have covered how this
occurs for Plato and Aristotle. A source of the Stoic belief in this position
is Simplicius of Cilicia, a later Neoplatonist and crucial Aristotelian com-
mentator. In his On Aristotle’s Categories, Simplicius’ account is of a Stoic
thesis that Zeno authors and Chrysippus perpetuates concerning time
being “a dimension of the world’s motion” (Simplicius, SVF, 2.510, in
L&S, 304). Time is not in itself motion/movement. As Sextus Empiricus
clarifies in Against the Professors, time for the Stoics is in fact an “incorpo-
real” (meaning an unbodied) feature of a bodily moving world (Sextus
Empiricus 1949, 10.218). In thereby attending to what kind of “dimen-
sion” time is of the world’s motion, we find that Chrysippus defines it as a
“measured dimension” (Simplicius, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). This mea-
sured portrayal evokes Aristotle’s description of time as the enumeration
of changes from motions. It also seems not too unlike Plato’s assertion
that heavenly orbits that exhibit time can be “measured in numerical
terms” (Plato 2008a, 39d).
We must be careful though when comparing the measurement or enu-
meration of time between Chrysippean, Aristotelian, and Platonic per-
spectives. For Aristotle the numbered enactment of time occurs via a soul
that counts motions and changes that are distinct from it. Chrysippus
associates time and change more monistically than this. Time in his model
requires no separate counter of changing phenomena. Stoic time instead
straightforwardly “accompanies the world’s motion” (Stobaeus, SVF,
2.509, in L&S, 304).
Rudimentarily this might instead appear to present a stronger coher-
ence between the Stoic and the Platonic positions. Both correlate time
with motion without the necessity for an abstract counting function. We
must be cautious here too though. The Platonic impression is that time is
a moving image of a divine eternity (Plato 2008a, 39d). This gives time a
theological ontology. While theological conditions are also true of time
and the entire universe for the Stoics, where the two schools differ is in the
unavoidably metaphysical constitution of Platonic time’s reality. Platonic
time is an image of a transcendent divine realm.
Contrarily the relation between time and physical change requires no
transcendent creation or backdrop for the early Stoics. This less qualified
interpretation of time concerns how Stoicism positions God internally to
a changing, temporal universe. If we involve Aristotle’s position in this
comparison, we can recall how in his view God is timelessly outside a
changing universe that God has caused to change—the “unmoved
mover.”7 Stobaeus reports that conversely for Stoics such as Chrysippus,
everything not only moves in time but exists in time, whereby “every
single thing moves and exists in accordance with time” (Stobaeus, SVF,
2.509, in L&S, 304). As we will see, this “every single thing” includes God.
It is through this all-encompassing sense of time that we can counter
arguments that time has a greater reality for Plato than its incorporeal
status means it can have in the Stoic world. In On Plato’s Timaeus the
Neoplatonist Proclus provides one such argument that “Plato had a quite
different view of time from the Stoics” because, for the Stoics, time is “one
of the incorporeals … and non-existent” (Proclus, SVF, 2.521, in L&S,
305). Plutarch similarly posits in his Quaestiones Platonicae that “time for
the Stoics is an incorporeal ‘extension of bodily motion’ and therefore an
accident without substance or potency” (Plutarch in Plêse 2010, 98).
In response we should note that the Stoics’ conception of time as an
incorporeal does not deny time a reality. It is true that incorporeals for the
Stoics do not bodily exist in the world. The Stoic incorporeals do never-
theless “subsist” in a bodily world. We will unpack the notion of subsis-
tence shortly. For now though, we need to observe that while time itself is
incorporeal for the Stoics, their view is also that time as the earlier consid-
ered “dimension of motion” is not straightforwardly incorporeal. As
Anthony Long and David Sedley observe, time might not itself be a body
but “Chrysippus was prepared to treat day and night and longer durations
of time as bodies” (Long and Sedley 1987, 308). Given that a really exist-
ing body such as the sun that dictates such durations is God for Chrysippus,
we can further interpret that the Stoics’ pantheist orientations confirm
rather than deny the reality of time.
50 W. JOHNCOCK
We will explore Stoic pantheism more heavily in later chapters of this

book. It suffices to know now though that in all eras of Stoic thought we
find pantheistic descriptions of God as present everywhere in the universe
rather than as transcendently overseeing it. Regarding Chrysippus specifi-
cally, Cicero informs us in his On the Nature of the Gods of these kinds of
pantheistic beliefs within Chrysippean philosophy. In Cicero’s account,
Chrysippus calls “the world itself god” and implicates God’s divine ration
in and as the “water, earth, air, the sun, moon and stars, and the all-
embracing unity of things” (Cicero 1997, 1.39). The Stoic God here is
self-moving as the universe. This differs from Aristotle’s God, which is the
unmoved mover of the universe. It also diverges from Plato’s God of
whose eternal perfection our universe offers an image.8
I agree accordingly with the analysis provided by Panayiotis Tzamalikos
that the “Stoic definition should not be associated with either the Platonic
or the Aristotelian one” (Tzamalikos 2006, 187).9 Tzamalikos instead
determines that early Stoicism “is clearly a third view” in that their “time
is neither something related to the Beyond or to metaphysics in any
respect … nor is it an intellectual mathematical perception, namely a num-
ber or measure” (187). What is unique about the Stoic position is that
time in their view invokes nothing other than the associated worldly
motion. This is the earlier encountered Chrysippean “measured dimen-
sion” of motion, or what Tzamalikos translates via Zeno and Chrysippus
as motion’s “natural extension” (187).
That all things move and exist in accordance with time for Chrysippus’
Stoicism reflects one aspect of time’s universally pervasive, “infinite” con-
stitution (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). Stobaeus reports that
Chrysippus explains time’s infiniteness in terms of its extension. Both the
past time and future time for Chrysippus extend continuously and infi-
nitely. Because in Chrysippus’ view time in its totality is an infinite conti-
nuity, then time must be “infinite on either side. For both the past and the
future are infinite” (2.509, in L&S, 304). We can pay particular attention
to the wording here that time extends infinitely “on either side.” This
refers specifically to either side of the present. By reviewing how time
extends infinitely on either side of the present, we will now see how a
belief in time’s infiniteness shapes the Chrysippean impression of the con-
versely finite present.
The Inexact Present Now

Attending to the Chrysippean present requires appreciating another aspect
of time’s infiniteness according to his perspective. This concerns how time
is divided. Chrysippus’ logic is that if time is infinitely continuous, and it
can be divided into parts (pasts, presents, and futures), then there must be
an infinite number of these parts. Infinite time’s divisibility marks time’s
infinite divisibility, for “since continuous things are infinitely divisible, on
the basis of this division every time too is infinitely divisible” (Stobaeus,
SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304).10 The notion of time’s infinite divisibility seem-
ingly comes from the identical idea presented in Aristotle’s Physics regard-
ing continuous time (Aristotle 1996, 4.10.218b20–21).
We should not interpret from this argument that each part of time is
simply infinite. If parts were infinite, they would not be distinguishable as
individual parts of time. Instead, through Stobaeus’ presentation of the
Stoic Posidonius’ definition of time, we get an insight into how for
Chrysippus the present limits past and future parts of time. Posidonius
guides us in reporting a Stoic definition of time from a voice that, we can
interpret, belongs to Chrysippus.11 Here Chrysippus expresses a present-
centric limiting of time’s flow of states in that “the past and future … they
are each limited only in respect of the present” (Posidonius 1999,
Fragment 98). Both sides of the temporal equation—past and future—are
bounded by a present. This means the finiteness of each divisible part/side
of time is determined by its limitation at and with that present. A state of
time’s change from being present to being past is enacted by a new present
that limits the previous present state’s presentness. Similarly a future state
is finitely bordered by a present state that limits its current presentness.
Despite this mode of finiteness, Samuel Sambursky reminds us that we
must be careful not to interpret that this present “limit of time” is entirely
“sharp” (Sambursky 1959, 103). Time for the early Stoics is also continu-
ous after all. The present limit accordingly participates in a dynamic and
ongoing temporal “continua” (103). This continuous or ongoing tempo-
ral flow means that the present limit for Sambursky “forms a fringe” with
other time states (103). We will comprehensively consider the ambiguous
borders between continuous time states soon via Henri Bergson in order
to evaluate the finite extensions of Stoic time.
Raising the notion that the present operates as a limit returns us to
Aristotle’s traces in early Stoic conceptions of time. Aristotle defines the
present instant as a “now.” The limiting function of this now is apparent
52 W. JOHNCOCK
in Aristotelian theory when he straightforwardly defines each present now

as the “limit of time” (Aristotle 1996, 4.13.222a11). The now is the limit
of time for Aristotle because as it enacts a new present while limiting the
presentness of a previous present it marks “the beginning of one time and
the end of another” (4.13.222a11–12).
Complementarily the now is also that which, in connecting states of
time, “is what holds time together” and “makes past and future time a
continuous whole” (4.13.222a10–11). The Chrysippean position regard-
ing time’s continuity is apparent here. Because the now is both the limit
and the connection between past and future, it is for Aristotle simultane-
ously time’s “division and unification” (4.13.222a18). It is through this
dual function of the now that what the present means for Aristotle versus
for Chrysippus will become clearer.
We can refine our earlier understanding of Aristotle’s impression that
time manifests via the counting of the changes of befores and afters by
clarifying that what are countable for Aristotle are these instants or “nows.”
Time counts the before and after nows of a change which as “ends of a line
form its number” (4.11.220a14). The counting of time is the counting of
the magnitude in change between nows. These relations between nows
condition time given that “there would be no time if there were only a
single now, rather than different nows” (4.11.218b27). The fact that
there can be infinite different nows for Aristotle illustrates how the
Chrysippean position on the infinite divisibility of time likely develops
features of the Aristotelian model.
We have noted that there are two modes of the now for Aristotle.
Aristotle considers this duality in asking whether the present “now” that
“appears to divide past from future” (4.10.218a8) remains the same now
or is always becoming different. Firstly, Aristotle affirms that the now per-
petually remains self-identical. This refers to the now always being the
present limit of time. The now as present universally divides past from
future, marking why what “it is that the now is is the same (since it is what
is before and after in change)” (4.11.219b26–28).
The now is not simply the universal difference between before and
after, however. Instead, the now divides and links infinite such before and
after changes as time’s continuous flow (4.11.219b912–15). This has the
ramification for Aristotle that while “single and identical” (4.11.219b912)
as the general condition of before and after, in another regard “what it is
to be the now is different” because the now’s enactment depends on the
specific before and after that it enacts (4.11.219b27). This marks the
duality of continuous temporality for Aristotle. The now is the universal

condition of the before and after of change, as well as a present which “in
so far as it is to be found at successively different points, it is different—
this is what it is to be now” (4.11.219b13). There are infinite different
nows (4.12.220b5–10) in accordance with the infinite different befores
and afters of infinitely continuous time.
That in the first mode discussed however the now is always universally
what it is—a division or limit between past and present states—means that
for Aristotle it has a timeless or durationless mode.12 As a durationless limit
of time, the now is not a “part of time” (4.11.218a6–8).13 This mirrors
the eternal and external status of the Aristotelian God in relation to time.
In dividing time without being a part of changing temporal interrelations,
the now remains outside time and has never “ceased to be in itself”
(4.10.218a17).14
Chrysippus will not agree with key features of this argument. As with
his contestation to the timelessness of the Aristotelian God, for Chrysippus
the now has no immediacy that is outside other states of time. The reason
for this is that in Chrysippus’ model no state of time is ever “wholly pres-
ent” in a way that would extract it from time (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in
L&S, 304). Understanding this logic requires returning to Chrysippus’
conception of the infinite divisibility of continuous time.
As we have covered, time for Aristotle and Chrysippus is infinitely con-
tinuous. Furthermore, for both thinkers this continuity is divisible into
infinite parts. Any past or future direction of time comprises infinite
smaller pasts and futures. As our Stoic protagonist Chrysippus defines it,
“every time is infinitely divisible” (2.509, in L&S, 304).
While Aristotle and Chrysippus share such positions regarding time, it
is via the topic of its infinite divisibility that we find a Stoic divergence. In
the above citation, Chrysippus specifies that “every time” is infinitely
divisible. This is significant for our inquiry because it indicates that the
Stoic condition of infinite divisibility also applies to the present. Conversely,
we have seen that Aristotle does not define the now as divisible, for in one
mode it is entirely outside time.
We should recall here the perspective raised in this chapter’s opening
thoughts regarding the demand to be present. If regarding the “present,”
we assume an immediacy with a now-moment that is not occupied by
what already occurred or will occur, we can identify an inconsistency
between such a perspective and Chrysippean philosophy. For Chrysippus,
when we describe the present we typically neglect the infinite not-present
54 W. JOHNCOCK
components that actually do constitute that present now-moment. Such

not-present parts are the past and future parts of what we otherwise believe
is only a present now. As Plutarch explains in his On Common Conceptions,
the position that Chrysippus maintains is that “whatever one thinks one
has grasped and is considering is present is in part future and in part past”
(Plutarch, 1081C–1082A, in L&S, 304).
No time is ever exclusively or even primarily present in this view.
Stobaeus offers us a relatable everyday example of this. Of importance here
is recognizing that for Chrysippus past and future states “subsist” rather
than “exist” in what appears to be the present alone. To explain this notion
of “subsistence,” Stobaeus shares Chrysippus’ discussion about walking.
The predicate “walking” exists as your present only when you are actually
walking. When you are sitting after walking, we would conventionally
interpret that your present state is one of sitting as opposed to walking.
While you are sitting, however, walking still subsists as an aspect of your
present state (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). Walking is a past that
is infinitely constitutive of what you interpret to be your present state of
existence. A not-present state such as the past does not in this sense exist.
Nevertheless, its subsistence in the present is real, which is why John
Sellars neatly describes subsistent states as “non-existent realities” (Sellars
2006, 84; author’s original emphasis). Time’s subsistence refers to the
inter-temporal dependencies that define everything the present is, whereby
Chrysippus indeed clarifies according to Plutarch that “the present has no
part which is not future or past” (Plutarch, 1081C–1082A, in L&S, 304).
For this Stoic perspective, the way we typically discuss the present is
accordingly inexact. Our references to the present inadvertently accom-
modate non-immediate pasts and presents and the associated extensions of
duration. These durations can range from a present to its immediately
preceding past moment, or to longer periods like an event which last days,
or to an era such as an entire generation! From such a conclusion we must
therefore consider where this leaves the present to which we refer in mod-
ern vernacular. When we ask if someone is focused on the present, are we
referring to a state that could never manifest as a part of time nor state of
the self? Is presentness as we understand it ever possible?
A more recent development of these kinds of considerations comes in
the social theory and philosophy of Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941).
Bergson’s interrogations of time-relations will most interest us in examin-
ing Chrysippus’ concern that our conception of the present is imprecise.
Ramifications will here emerge for questions around whether we are ever
present and what we even mean by presentness.
Magnitudes of Time
Bergson’s work prominently attends to what is intuitive about our imme-
diate experience. Complementarily he compares such immediacy to the
abstracted impressions of time that socialized being requires. Or in short,
he examines how we live the flow of time intuitively but measure it with
scientifically and socially constructed abstract symbols.
It is the focus on the “immediate” of time-experience that will serve
our questions into how in an everyday regard we might describe someone
as “present.” While this was not necessarily Bergson’s philosophical con-
cern it is through his integration of themes of intuitive immediacy that he
would explore the topic of the present. This interest would lead to him
participating in a prolonged debate on the question of simultaneity and
the present with the physicist Albert Einstein.15
Bergson establishes his position on the relationship between time and
intuitive immediacy in the published version of his doctoral thesis Time
and Free Will. In this work, Bergson allocates worldly phenomena into
two groups. One of these groups, “extensive magnitudes,” includes the
aspects of the physical world that are measurable and comparable.
“Intensive magnitudes” are conversely aspects of the conscious self and
sense experience which are neither measurable nor comparable (Bergson
1960 (1889), 3).
We will begin our Bergsonian engagement with a focus on “extensive
magnitudes.” Space for Bergson exemplifies what is extensive about the
world. What is spatial or extensive can be divided into distinct or atomic
units (1). These divided units can then be measured, aggregated, or com-
pared. Think of pebbles as an example of extensive units. Each is distinct
and yet when added together with other pebbles forms a relatively sized
collection of pebbles.
To aggregate a “collection of units” (75) there must be something
common to or homogenous about each unit (each pebble).
Complementarily the units must be separately distinguishable from each
other “otherwise they would merge into a single unit” (77). The separa-
tion of extensive units occurs in Bergson’s account via their mutual quan-
titative differentiation. Units that are otherwise the same differ only by
size or degree. Because quantitatively differentiated units are individually
distinct, they can be “set alongside each other” (77). This mutual juxtapo-
sition is characteristic only of the spatial realm of phenomena. Bergson
uses the example of sheep to illustrate this point. Each sheep is different in
56 W. JOHNCOCK
that it is spatially distinct from the others. Counting the sheep however
requires a recognition of their commonality. Aggregation needs us to
“neglect their individual differences” in order to “take into account only
what they have in common” (76).
These conditions are not surprising regarding spatial or physical units.
What is perhaps more interesting is Bergson’s insight that when time takes
on these properties of calculability, comparability, and representability, it
constitutes “a measurable magnitude, just like space” (104). It is this rep-
resentation of time that we find on clocks and calendars which portray
temporality via spatially visible intervals. What I would like to add to this
commentary is that this spatial symbolization of time is potentially limit-
less. A clock could divide a second into milliseconds then microseconds
then nanoseconds and so on. I find this interesting because this limitless
division of spatialized time evokes one form of the infinite divisibility of
time that we earlier encountered Chrysippus describe. Stobaeus has shown
us that for Chrysippus the parts of time are themselves not infinite. It is
the finite extensions of time’s parts that condition their respective distin-
guishability, where of time “some of it is past, some present, and some
future” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3, in L&S, 305). The present as the limit of time
enacts this finiteness as we have seen. Later we will consider how Stoic
continuous time’s infinite limits complementarily indicate a completely
different mode of time that discounts the interpretation of finite states.
Also relevant to this comparative point with Bergson regarding time’s
infinite magnitudes of extension is the Aristotelian perspective on the
magnitudinal character of time that informs the Chrysippean position. We
should recall that for Aristotle time manifests as an enumeration of these
magnitudes (Aristotle 1996, 4.10.219a30).16 While Chrysippus does not
number time, themes of enumeration and magnitudinal extension are
nonetheless apparent in the Stoic’s conception. From the infinite divisibil-
ity of any part of time that Chrysippus proposes, the overall number of
temporal parts increases as each part inversely decreases in temporal mag-
nitude or extension. There is an important regard in which I correlate this
Chrysippean sense of infinitely divisible limits with the spatialization that
for Bergson represents the extensive form of time. Indeed I propose that
Chrysippus’ infinitely divisible phenomenon would in one account be for
Bergson an infinitely extensive phenomenon. This concerns how such
division lends itself to time’s measurability. Stobaeus’ account informs us
that Chrysippean infinite divisibility conditions time as a quantifiable mea-
sure for worldly motion:
Chrysippus said time is the dimension of motion according to which the

measure of speed and slowness is spoken of. (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509,
in L&S, 304)
Aristotle’s Physics in fact offers a somewhat similar commentary regarding

time’s measure of faster or slower changes (Aristotle 1996,
4.11.218b910–20). As earlier indicated, Chrysippus does not reduce time
to number as Aristotle does.17 Nonetheless Chrysippus’ connection of time
to the extensive measurement of speed and slowness suggests that time for
him is involved in enumerative processes. Chrysippean time’s consistencies
with the parameters that for Bergson illustrate how we spatialize and quan-
tify extensive time are evident. In flagging this, it is worth noting the genu-
ine lack of scholarship dedicated to comparing Bergsonian and Chrysippean
conceptions of time (a point that partly inspires my work in this chapter).
We can readily find commentaries however that compare the time theses of
Bergson and Aristotle (such as via Martin Heidegger’s criticisms of both).18
Bergson argues that the extensive or spatial representation of time
allows us to harness and control time for various social utilities. He accepts
that this kind of time is therefore undeniably an aspect of how we really
experience time. There is for Bergson a concrete reality to this separation
of time into distinct units. We do this for Bergson because it is what every-
one else around us is doing. Doing this facilitates our participation in
social arenas and suits “the requirements of social life” (Bergson 1960,
128). In The Creative Mind Bergson duly exclaims “how much simpler”
life is when it is controlled by the spatial notions “stored up in language!”
(Bergson 2007 (1934), 24). The use of spatial conceptions becomes nec-
essary for social control and survival in this sense, for what “is spatial has a
social utility” (16).
Bergson cautions though that the mistake we make is to believe that
this representational model is time’s only or all-encompassing constitu-
tion. Any such representation for Bergson is an imperfect, partial interpre-
tation of time. This partiality is attributable to the restriction that is in-built
to any representation. The restriction is that a representation is “taken
from a certain point of view” (135). Bergson notes a certain irony to this
restriction or partiality of time-knowledge. This is because the contrary
appeal of spatially quantified time is how it must serve the human desire
for complete knowledge and a measured control of the world. In explor-
ing this topic of our attraction to concrete knowledge, he arrives at the
conclusion that “fixity is what our intelligence seeks” (5).
58 W. JOHNCOCK
In returning to the central topic of this chapter’s inquiry, it occurs to

me that the question of whether someone is present could rely on this
notion of concretely fixed and divided time. Implicit within the request for
you to be “present” is a demand that you exclude distracting pasts, alter-
natively occurring presents, and anticipatory futures. This is necessary so
that you are engaged only with the immediate now. Extensive time in this
mode is seemingly comprised purely of simultaneously juxtaposed and
therefore measurable points.
Chrysippus has argued though that it is problematic to interpret the
segregation of a present point/state from your other points/states. The
infinite division of time for Chrysippus into past and future states means
that “no time is present exactly,” even if, according to convention, “it is
broadly said to be so” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.509, in L&S, 304). The everyday
request to be present implies refining one’s focus to a currently occurring
now. A ramification of this, as David Sedley notes, is that when we use the
term “now” increasingly more narrowly to refer to a “week, today, this
morning, the duration of this conversation, etc.,” certain aspects of the
past and present will be “stripped away” (Sedley 1999a, 395). Even if this
stripping narrows the present now it will never for Chrysippus, however,
“yield an altogether durationless instant” (395). The present of which we
speak is consequently inexact.
This notion of the present’s inexactness inspires my curiosity about
whether when we refer to the “present” (or as Chrysippus terms it, the
“exactly present)” do we ever really intend to invoke a time state that is
entirely outside past and future components? Surely in an everyday regard
when we request someone’s attention and expect them to be “present,”
we still assume that they will be embodying a whole range of past and
future states. It is as a result of considerations not unlike these that for
Bergson characterizing time only in terms of divided states is problematic.
This query manifests a different appreciation of our relation to the present
via an alternative understanding of Chrysippean infinite divisibility.
Present Belonging
Aside from the time of spatially extensive, divisible states, Bergson empha-
sizes that we also experience time as an “intensive” phenomenon. The
intensive experience of time is what he defines as time-as-duration/durée.
Bergson differentiates this time from its spatial representation via three
metaphors in The Creative Mind.
The most straightforward of these metaphors asks us to consider an

infinitely small piece of elastic which when stretched progressively becomes
a continuously longer distance. This evokes time-as-duration for Bergson
if we focus on the action of stretching instead of on the stretched distance
that eventuates (Bergson 2007, 138). If we simply focus on the resulting
distance (as we do when we quantitatively represent time), our impression
of time is strangely of something static that is outside time’s flow. This is
the spatial magnitude that our intellect then subsequently divides into
simultaneously discontinuous, aggregable points that are “homogenous
to one another” (137). Such points equate with the Aristotelian now that
remains the self-same durationless present. This we should recall is the
timelessly present instant that Chrysippus’ position avoids.
Alternatively for Bergson, if we remain focused on the continuous
stretching, no two points of intensive time can be separated. This is
because each point or time state manifests via qualitatively infinite rela-
tions with new points or time states that continuously emerge during the
stretching (137). States of time in this durational regard differ from spatial
states in Bergson’s estimation as “duration excludes all idea of juxtaposi-
tion and reciprocal exteriority” (138). What we might conventionally or
socially describe as the present according to this durational perspective
only manifests through its implication with other time states. The result is
that divisibly separating out a discontinuous present from a continuous
flow is not possible.
This directs us to a discussion about the possibly similar qualities
between Bergson’s impression of duration and Stoic continuous time. I
am interested in two topics here. Do duration’s intensive qualities mani-
fest in Chrysippus’ sense of the inexact present’s infinite division?
Furthermore, what does this qualitatively differentiated form of time
mean for our being present?
To explore these topics, we will consider our “being present” via the
notion of our “belonging” to the present. I direct us this way due to
Chrysippus’ specific terminology regarding continuous time. “Belonging”
to the present can conventionally refer to being consciously available to a
current experience, the being present with the “here and now.” Chrysippus’
view as we have covered though is that there are infinitely divisible pasts
and futures that “subsist” in the present. Following Plutarch’s evaluation
in his On Common Conceptions of this definition, what manifests is that for
Chrysippus these past and future parts which subsist in the present do not
belong in the present. Plutarch guides us to read this distinction between
60 W. JOHNCOCK
belonging and subsistence in terms of time’s “belonging” and “non-

belonging” parts (Plutarch, 1081C–1082A, in L&S, 305). This terminol-
ogy should not take us into entirely unfamiliar territory given our earlier
discussion on such a matter. What is new for our inquiry however is
Plutarch’s conclusion from this. For Plutarch, if the present for Chrysippus
is always constituted by subsisting, non-belonging, past and future parts,
there is nothing about time that ever entirely belongs (1081C–1082A, in
L&S, 305).
Could the conception of present time in which the non-belonging past
and future always lurk, eradicate the idea of there ever really being a “here
and now” present to which any of us consciously belong? If nothing about
the present ever entirely belongs to the present, does Plutarch’s conclu-
sion mean that via early Stoicism we are always outside a state of present-
ness? Is nothing about us ever exclusively or primarily present? We can
respond via a different reading of Chrysippean time’s “infinite divisibility”
that conditionally aligns with Bergson’s understanding of time as continu-
ous duration rather than as discontinuous extensions.
We have reviewed the dominant portrayal of Stoic time as continuous.
From this, we must recognize that Chrysippus’ infinitely divisible parts of
time are in one mode not quantitatively discontinuous. Gilles Deleuze also
acknowledges this in forwarding a dual reading of Stoic time. Stoic time
for Deleuze exhibits an “unlimited continuity” (which he terms “Aion”)
(Deleuze 1990 (1969), 5) because the not-present inhabits the present.
Even though the not-present past and future are outside time for the
Stoics, these states condition temporality as they “inhere in time and
divide each present infinitely” (5). Deleuze emphasizes that this “qualita-
tively intensive” Stoic time pairs with the “mutually exclusive” (“Chronos”)
form of time. Chronos here marks the perpetual “subdivision” of time
that occurs on either side of the extensively finite “always limited present”
(61). As Ryan Johnson succinctly reviews, in appreciating both intensive
and extensive aspects of Stoic time “Deleuze is careful not to sacrifice
extensity for intensity” (Johnson 2017, 280). Indeed while mutually
exclusive, these forms of time “simultaneously” co-function for Deleuze.
My further reading is that the relation of extensive time to intensive
time sets up an interesting point of difference between Bergson and the
Stoics. In Time and Free Will Bergson attributes our conceptual division
of time into magnitudinal extensions to the human tendency to interpret
all of experience as discontinuous. The reason “we usually think” (Bergson
1960, ix) in terms of discontinuities is for Bergson traced to our language.
Our words conceptually separate our conscious experiences in a way that

we believe reflects the apparent division of material bodies, by applying
“the same discontinuity as between material objects” (ix).
For the Stoics however neither material objects, nor extensions, are
discontinuous. We will more expansively explore Stoic physics in later
chapters. What we need to appreciate now though regarding the Stoic
impression of continuous extension is that in their view everything in the
world is composed by an active and a passive principle. The active animates
the passive, or as Diogenes Laërtius reports of Chrysippus’ position, the
“active exists in the passive” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68).
What are these principles for Chrysippus? In On Bodily Mass Galen spec-
ifies that in Chrysippus’ view a “breathy substance” is the active principle
that “sustains” all things (Galen, 7.525, 9–14, in L&S, 282). The passive
principle conversely is matter, whereby via breath, bodies’ “material sub-
stance is sustained” (7.525, 9–14, in L&S, 282). Consistent with the Stoic
belief in a pantheistic universe, Chrysippus describes the active principle,
the breathy substance, as God and as rational. Diogenes Laërtius’ account
is that this active principle “as primary god, passes perceptibly as it were
through the things in the air and through all animals and plants, and
through the earth itself” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.634, in L&S, 284).
Crucially it is in Alexander’s opposition in On Mixture to this Chrysippean
position that we learn not only that breath materially sustains material
bodies for Chrysippus but also that it continuously bonds such bodies:
What too is the tension of breath which binds bodies together so that they
both have continuity in relation to their own parts and are connected with
the bodies adjacent to them? (Alexander, 223, 25–36, in L&S, 283)
The topic of the body’s parts is notable. Just as Chrysippus defines time as
infinitely divided, equally Stobaeus informs us of the Chrysippean view
that material “bodies are divided to infinity” (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.482, in
L&S, 297). Chrysippus here compares continuous “things” and continu-
ous “time” in that “since continuous things are infinitely divisible … every
time too is infinitely divisible” (2.509, in L&S, 304). The body’s infinite
divisibility means it lacks an absolute extremity for there can be no indivis-
ibly final part. In On Common Conceptions Plutarch objects to this
Chrysippean argument, given that it has the effect of “casting the object
into infinity and indeterminacy” (Plutarch, 1078E–1080E, in L&S, 298).
62 W. JOHNCOCK
For our considerations, this insight regarding indeterminacy is useful.

Bergson has described intensive time as a progression of indeterminate or
indistinguishable durations. We cannot for Bergson in this mode aggre-
gate greater or fewer parts of time for they do not exist. Similarly, the
indeterminacy that Chrysippus recognizes of body parts means that in his
perspective there are “no more or less” parts of the body (1078E–1080E,
in L&S, 298). Referring to a body by its supposedly distinct parts is thus
for Chrysippus an “inexact” reference.
We can note the similar terminology Chrysippus employs regarding the
inexact present and the inexact body. Both the present and the material
body extend as continuums in which the possible extraction of reciprocally
external parts of either is refuted. We know from our earlier considerations
that time for the Stoics is not itself a body. The way however that the pres-
ent as time incorporates past and future is extended as a body. To repeat
an already reviewed point, day and night are bodies for Chrysippus
(Plutarch, On Common Conceptions, 1084C–D, in L&S, 306).
What Bergson defines as discontinuously extensive is for the Stoics
instead a materially extensive continuity. The material present for the
Stoics is embedded in a continuum that does not entirely exclude not-
present states. This is despite the Stoic belief that a not-present state does
not exist and is not in time. In this mode, Stoic time coheres with the
Bergsonian description of duration-as-time’s infinitely continuous condi-
tions. The difference is that for the Stoics this time is extensive whereas for
Bergson it is intensive.
Where does this leave the issue of our “belonging” to the present? The
everyday sense is that to be present is to be exclusively or primarily con-
sciously available to an immediate now. The Chrysippean present’s non-
belonging parts however contradict the notion of a present to which we
can intensively belong that is outside what infinitely does not belong.
Strictly speaking, we never wholly belong to the present for the Stoics.
This does not necessarily discount what we mean regarding belonging
to the present though. When someone asks whether you are present, a
Chrysippean impression of time’s continuum invokes a presentness that
requires, rather than requires excluding, the not-present. This might actu-
ally reflect the reality of our everyday experiences with the request to be
present. Such a request cannot literally expect the negation of all other
states of time or consciousnesses of those states of time. While this posi-
tion obviously contests extreme suggestions of an exclusive focus on a
present state, what this chapter more adventurously complicates is even
what a primary attention on the present comprises.
Notes
1. George Mead, who we will engage in a later chapter, contests the reading
of a permanently and inalterably finalized past. When appraising the past,
we should not, in Mead’s view, be concerned with what it was as a prior
present (Mead 2002, 46). Mead is instead interested in how the relation of
the past to a new present changes what the past “was” (36).
2. Discussions around being “present” typically concern not only the inter-
personal ethics of presentness but also the benefits to an individual of pres-
entness. Desai (2014), Shapiro and Shapiro (2011), and Rice-Oxley
(2017) provide examples in the mass media of the advisory that contrarily
not being present will prevent us from fully experiencing our worlds.
Related studies of the adverse effects of “not being present” have also per-
meated academic fields such as psychology and healthcare (Brown and
Ryan 2003; Easter 2000; Morrow 2005). Pedagogical commentaries fur-
thermore link an educator’s willingness to “be present with course mate-
rial” to a capacity to critically engage such material and assist students
(Greene 1984; McDonough 2015, 176–179).
3. Alfred Pearson reports how Cleanthes’ prominence is attributable to him
succeeding Zeno in becoming the second head of the Stoic school (Pearson
in Zeno et al. 1891, 35). Diogenes Laërtius informs us that Cleanthes was
“originally a boxer” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.1) before arriving in
Athens and studying Stoic philosophy under Zeno. It was only after this
that Cleanthes “devoted himself to philosophy” (7.1). His philosophical
presence is so considerable that he inspired David Hume to later feature a
character called “Cleanthes” in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion (1998 [1779]).
4. This account of the early history of the Stoic school is seemingly ubiqui-
tous in modern Stoic scholarship. As with many Stoic teacher-student rela-
tionships, Cleanthes and Chrysippus share certain points of view. Ricardo
Salles notes how they were joint proponents of the interpretation that each
new conflagration perpetually restores the universe to its previous condi-
tion as “the everlasting recurrence of everything” (Salles 2009, 118). This
is a position that differentiates both from other major Stoics (even if they
departed from each other on the details of this conflagration).
5. There are numerous aspects of the influence of Aristotle on Chrysippus.
Outside the range of this chapter, for instance, is the Aristotle-Chrysippus
relation that informs Stoic conceptions of logic. On this point, see Jonathan
Barnes’ “Aristotle and Stoic Logic” (1999).
6. See also the discussion in The Symposium regarding the circular relation-
ships shared between the celestial bodies and the sexes (Plato 2008b, 190b).
64 W. JOHNCOCK
7. Despite Aristotle’s impression of time’s “everywhereness,” God in fact is

not the only thing that does not exist in time in his worldview. Things that
change but are also “everlasting” or “always are” are “not in time” for
Aristotle (Aristotle 1996, 4.12.221b3–7). Edward Hussey’s accompanying
notes to his translation of Aristotle’s Physics provide a useful guide on this
matter. Hussey explains there are things which are both “everlasting yet
changeable” in the universe for Aristotle. This is despite everlasting “imply-
ing unchangeable” (Hussey in Aristotle 1993, 169). Such things include
“the celestial spheres, which move; animal species, which increase and
diminish in number” as well as “the earth, which changes its surface con-
formation” (169).
8. This is not the only notable divergence between the schools. In consider-
ing, for instance, how each school frames philosophical expression, David
Sedley reviews why the dialogue form is used by Platonic and Aristotelian
schools but not by the Stoic tradition that stems from Zeno (Sedley 1999b,
149–152).
9. For a further discussion on the ambiguities around whether time for the
Stoics is closer to Aristotle’s or Plato’s conception, see Rist (1969,
273–278).
10. We might open a discussion between Chrysippus’ perspective and the pre-
Socratic Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes regarding motion (this Zeno should not
be confused with the Stoic founder, Zeno of Citium). Aristotle’s Physics
actually critiques Zeno’s “dichotomy paradox” in which walking from point
a to point b firstly requires walking halfway to point b. Before getting half-
way to point b though, one must walk a quarter of the way there, and before
that an eighth of the way, and so on. Because of the infinite divisions of
distance that this requires for motion, Zeno renders motion an impossibility
(Aristotle 1996, 6.9.239b5–b9). Aristotle disagrees on the basis that move-
ment over the fractional parts of the whole distance is not only possible but
will each be achieved within a finite time. This is partly a result of his inter-
pretation that such parts of distance are not infinite but finite, whereby
“since these parts are finite … the time must be finite too” (7.7.237b23).
11. Kidd notes in his commentary on this fragment that the context of
Posidonius’ discussion is “Stobaeus’ doxography on ‘time’” (Kidd in
Posidonius 1999, 157). We have just seen that Stobaeus’ work here reviews
what time means for Chrysippus. This claim is based on the text where
Posidonius posits that “he defines time like this: an interval [or extension]
of movement, or a measure of quick and slow” (Posidonius 1999, Fragment
98; my emphasis). “He” in this context I am interpreting to refer to
“Chrysippus.” The validation for this interpretation is that elsewhere
Chrysippus is reported by Stobaeus as defining time in exactly the same
terminology; “Chrysippus said time is the dimension of motion according
to which the measure of speed and slowness is spoken of” (Stobaeus, SVF,
2.509, in L&S, 304; my emphasis). We analyze this specific feature of
Chrysippean time later in this chapter, while being aware of its similarities
with an Aristotelian assertion.
12. Aristotle’s conception of the timeless now is in part a response to the
Platonic position on the durationless “instant.” This concerns Plato’s argu-
ment in Parmenides about how we commonly interpret that transitions
from one state to another occur in time. For Plato, anything that occurs in
time is either in motion or at rest. A transition from motion to rest, or vice
versa, cannot be either state exclusively, nor both states simultaneously.
Accordingly, the instant of such transition is not in time (Plato 1996,
156c–d). While any further discussion of the intricate differences between
Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of the instant or now go beyond our
needs in this chapter, for a long-established discussion of Plato’s position,
see Cornford (1939, 194–202). Alternatively, for an analysis of what dura-
tionless means for the Platonic instant, see Strang and Mills (1974, 73–75).
Bowin (2008) provides an overview of Plato’s and Aristotle’s respective
theses on the instant of change.
13. This theory of the presence of the now has perhaps been most famously
examined by Martin Heidegger. In Being and Time Heidegger criticizes
the present-centrism of Aristotelian time by observing how in Physics “time
shows itself for the vulgar understanding as a succession of constantly
‘present’ [‘vorhanden’] nows that pass away and arrive at the same time”
(Heidegger 2010 (1927), 401). Heidegger believes that philosophy’s
adoption of this “everyday interpretation of time” (402) produces an
account of a permanently present-at-hand world; “the succession of nows
is interpreted as something somehow objectively present” (402). Heidegger
elsewhere launches a further attack on this position, taking aim at the
Aristotelian reading of Being as “synonymous with permanence in pres-
ence” (Heidegger 1962 [1929], 249; author’s original emphasis). Aristotle
in Heidegger’s view is susceptible to subscribing to the comprehension of
Being’s total self-evidence through time, which “determines the ‘Being’ of
time from the point of view of the now, i.e., from the character of time
which in itself is constantly present and, hence, (in the ancient sense of the
term) really is” (250; author’s original emphasis). Heidegger’s alternative
to this perspective is to construct an awareness of time that avoids a perma-
nent presence. In Margins of Philosophy Jacques Derrida later notably
builds on Heidegger’s insights (Derrida 1982 (1972), 61). By positing an
entirely different reading of Aristotle’s work in which the now is both a
determining limitation of time and its “accident” (61), Derrida argues
against any dominating role for presence.
66 W. JOHNCOCK
14. This notion of a durationless present instant re-emerges via Saint Augustine
of Hippo. In contrast to the supposed non-existence of past-duration and
future-duration, the present-instant seemingly exists but has no duration
according to Augustine. If the present was more than an unextended
instant it would no longer simply be present but rather “could be divided
into past and future” (Augustine 1961, 11.15). Such duration would mark
its passing into the non-existence of what has been or what will be. The
passing of the present which takes it into the realm of non-existence is nev-
ertheless crucial. If the present did not extend or pass it would be eternal
not temporal. As Augustine states, “in eternity nothing moves into the past:
all is present. Time, on the other hand, is never all present at once” (11.11).
15. See Bergson’s Duration and Simultaneity: With Reference to Einstein’s
Theory (1965 [1922]).
16. In Being and Time Heidegger actually compares Bergson’s and Aristotle’s
respective arguments. See where Heidegger laments that the “common
understanding” of time “has persisted since Aristotle and beyond Bergson”
(Heidegger 2010, 17). Heidegger responds to Bergson, as he does to
Aristotle, by offering a model of time that is contrary to “Bergson’s thesis
that time understood in the common way is really space” (18). My response
to Heidegger however is that for Bergson our “common way” of under-
standing time is in fact twofold. This duality comprises our extensive, spa-
tial representation of juxtaposed points and an intensive, indivisible,
continuous flow/duration that we live. Even though Bergson concedes
that we “find it extraordinarily difficult to think of duration in its original
purity” (Bergson 1960, 106), he does not characterize it as outside com-
mon everyday experience. Whether Heidegger addresses this appropriately
is much debated (Massey 2010; Protevi 1994). For further evidence of
Heidegger’s position on Bergsonian spatial time, refer to his lengthy foot-
note (Heidegger 2010, 410) that links Hegelian, Aristotelian, and
Bergsonian conceptions of time as space.
17. Bergson correlates the Aristotelian numbering of time accordingly with
one of the two modes (the quantitative mode) that he characterizes in
Time and Free Will; “we must admit two kinds of multiplicity, two possible
senses of the word ‘distinguish,’ two conceptions, the one qualitative and
the other quantitative, of the difference between the same and other.
Sometimes this multiplicity, this distinctness, this heterogeneity contains
number only potentially, as Aristotle would have said” (Bergson 1960, 121).
18. While not appropriate to be included in the Stoic-centric phase of this
discussion, I direct interested readers to Seyppel (1956), Massey (2010),
and Hill (2012). This is not to forget Bergson’s extended commentary in
Creative Evolution in which he discusses Aristotelian and Platonic theories
in terms of the metaphysics of the “intellect” (Bergson 1911 (1907),
330–356).
References
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Clarendon Press.
———. 1996. Physics. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and New York.
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Augustine of Hippo. 1961. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London
and New York: Penguin.
Barnes, Jonathan. 1999. Aristotle and Stoic Logic. In Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed.
Katerina Ierodiakonou, 23–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bergson, Henri. 1911 (1907). Creative Evolution. Translated by Arthur Mitchell.
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———. 1960 (1889). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of
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———. 1965 (1922). Duration and Simultaneity: With Reference to Einstein’s
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———. 2007 (1934). The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics.
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Bowin, John. 2008. Plato and Aristotle on the Instant of Change—A Dilemma. In
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter: Binghamton University,
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Brown, Kirk, and Richard Ryan. 2003. The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness
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Cornford, Francis MacDonald. 1939. Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides’ Way of
Truth and Plato’s Parmenides Translated with an Introduction and a Running
Commentary. London and New York: Routledge.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1990 (1969). The Logic of Sense. Edited by Constantin Boundas.
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Derrida, Jacques. 1982 (1972). Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass.
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Desai, Panache. 2014. Are You Present in Your Life? Banish Busyness and Start
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post.com/panache-desai/are-you-present-in-your-l_b_5588670.html.
Easter, Anna. 2000. Construct Analysis of Four Modes of Being Present. Journal
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Greene, Maxine. 1984. The Art of Being Present: Educating for Aesthetic
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Heidegger, Martin. 1962 (1929). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Translated
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———. 2010 (1927). Being and Time. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany:
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Hill, Rebecca. 2012. The Interval: Relation and Becoming in Irigaray, Aristotle,
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Hume, David. 1998 (1779). Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, with; Of the
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Johnson, Ryan. 2017. On the Surface: The Deleuze-Stoicism Encounter. In
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With Introduction and Explanatory Notes. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.
CHAPTER 4
Why Do You Care About Yourself?

The Early Stoics and Herbert Spencer
on Self-Preservation
Our First Impulse

As we each navigate the world, it appears that we intentionally factor in
our well-being. We might rudimentarily connect this regard for our own
welfare to notions of survival. There is something about a living creature
that seems to be inclined toward preserving its ongoing existence. Upon
further examination we can even learn that this drive for survival might
arise within an individual creature that is not merely concerned with itself
but also with the survival of its species overall.1
A human’s self-preserving inclination could be apparent in their behav-
iors. Avoiding potential dangers or being attracted to sustenance are just
two examples of the day-to-day drive to survive or self-preserve. What is
less straightforward however is identifying the causal conditions of this
motivation for self-preservation which go beyond elements of sheer sur-
vival. We can grant that self-preservation appears to correlate with a pref-
erence to survive. But from this emerges a more complex question asking
why living beings are impelled to maintain their existence?2 In conjunction
with such an inquiry arises the associated curiosity regarding from where
these self-preserving, existence-maintaining tendencies manifest?
For much Stoic philosophy, these kinds of questions are integral to
appreciating self-preservation. We can consider the Stoic conception of
the role of self-preserving tendencies via the feature of subjectivity that
certain Stoics refer to as hormé. Hormé is a Latin term meaning “impulse”
(that we will also encounter spelled as “hormai”, especially in a later

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_4
72 W. JOHNCOCK
chapter’s discussion on reason and passion). Within the theme of hormé

we will primarily be examining an exchange between Cicero (106–43 BCE)
and the Stoic Cato (95–46 BCE). This exchange concerns the early Stoic
sense of our practical orientation toward aspects of self-preservation. The
Stoic interest in self-preservation is not restricted to its earlier eras and
indeed is almost a universal theme across its ancient generations (Jedan
2009, 100; Robertson 2010, 80–81; Sellars 2009, 57–58; Stephens 2007,
13).3 See, for example, Marcus Aurelius’ later Stoic sense of how one’s
“mind preserves its own serenity by withdrawal” from “unbearable pain”
(Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.33). Given however that the interaction between
Cicero and Cato occurs in a time that can only occupy itself with ear-
lier Stoic principles, that era is accordingly the central focus of this chapter.
Cicero was not strictly a Stoic philosopher. Vocationally as a Roman
politician and lawyer, citizens knew him as one of the greatest orators dur-
ing ancient times.4 While prioritizing such political endeavor over philo-
sophical study, he nevertheless emerges as the most prominent
commentator of the earlier Stoic periods. This is partly due to how Cicero
recognizes the value of Stoic teachings for political and personal action.
When writing about notions of natural law and justice in his De Officiis
(On Duties), Cicero describes how philosophies that are concerned with
the correlation between action and virtue offer benefits to the Roman
Empire. Stoicism is a prime example of such philosophies for Cicero given
its focus on virtue. He duly cites as valuable and related to our “first source
of duty” studies that do not interfere with the “activity of the mind, which
is never at rest,” but rather which contribute to our understanding that
“virtue lies in action” (Cicero 1991, 1.19). It is in its dual foci of virtuous-
ness and practical action that Cicero finds in Stoicism studies of such worth.
Of direct relevance to this chapter is how when considering the ways
practical action manifests, Cicero directs our attention to the Stoic impres-
sion of self-preservation. Cicero does this by raising in De Finibus Bonorum
et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil) the importance for the Stoics
of hormé. The aspect of subjectivity that is hormé captures for Cicero the
sense of our personal drive from which our actions result. Given the par-
ticularity of anyone’s action-orientation, this impulse or “natural desire,
which they [the Stoics] term hormé” (Cicero 1914, 4.14, 39) is different
for each individual creature. To this extent Cicero emphasizes that “every
animal has its own nature” (5.9, 25) and therefore its own hormé.
While hormé is specific to each of us it is not for the Stoics an instru-
ment that we can manipulate to serve any kind of life we might prefer.
4 WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF? THE EARLY STOICS… 73
Cicero observes that according to “Stoic phraseology” hormé is instead

designed for a “particular mode of living” (3.7, 23). This mode, which
becomes willed through “our faculty of appetition” (3.7, 23),5 is directed
to the universal “ends” that are associated with the Stoic understanding of
nature or reason. Cicero’s summation here draws inspiration from the
Stoic Balbus’ account of Zeno’s position that “world-nature experiences
all those motions of the will … that the Greeks call hormai” (Cicero
1967a, 2.18.58). What we can take from this is that hormé has a common
objective reality in terms of its ubiquitous presence among all individual
creatures. Complementarily as the preceding paragraph shows though,
hormé also manifests with subjective features via the particularities of each
living creature. Hormé overall marks the different ways we willingly
embody the shared natural ends of life. Anthony Long duly describes the
hormé-ends relation as that which “prompts action but right action” (Long
1968, 337).
Cicero presents these positions in a discussion with the Stoic follower
Cato the Younger6 (who I shall hereon refer to as Cato). Cato explains to
Cicero that for “Zeno and the Stoics” self-preservation is the most pri-
mary of the ends toward which hormé pulses. This early Stoic system that
Cato “adopts” (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 16) invests every creature with the
instinct of self-preservation from the moment they are born:
…immediately upon birth (for that is the proper point to start from) a living
creature feels an attachment for itself, and an impulse to preserve itself and
to feel affection for its own constitution and for those things which tend to
preserve that constitution. (3.5, 16)
This natural impulse for self-preservation is in the Stoic reading comple-

mented with a contrary aversion to anything that would harm oneself.
Zeno expects, according to Cicero, that when encountering dangerous
situations an animal will behave in a manner that exhibits an “antipathy to
destruction and to those things which appear to threaten destruction”
(3.5, 16). Cicero notes that the evidence offered by Cato’s account of
Zeno’s thought is that living creatures have a primary impulse to self-
preservation that is apparent even in infants. This portrays infants as
expressing a natural inclination toward things that are conducive to their
health. Infants conversely reject things that comprise the opposite, even if
they have no experience with these things (3.5, 16). Cato consequently
74 W. JOHNCOCK
describes an infant’s navigation toward things that appear to be beneficial

as indicating for Zeno an “affection for their own constitution” (3.5, 16)
that must be innate to creatures generally. An infant’s inherent self-
affection symbolizes in this perspective our natural “love of self” (3.5, 16).
This theme is widespread in early Stoic thought beyond the initial era
of Zeno. It is also identifiable, for example, during Chrysippus’ leadership
of the Stoic school. Diogenes Laërtius reports that Chrysippus’ On Ends
posits that an “animal has self-preservation as the object of its first impulse,
since nature from the beginning appropriates it” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF,
3.178, in L&S, 346). Beyond these eras, the later Stoic philosopher
Hierocles similarly states in his Element of Ethics that primarily:
…each animal does what contributes to its own preservation, avoiding every
attack even from afar and contriving to remain unharmed by dangers, while
it leaps toward whatever brings safety and provides for itself from far and
wide whatever tends toward its survival. (Hierocles 2009, 5.55)
We might notice that the Stoics include human and nonhuman animals in
discussions of self-preserving tendencies. Anthony Long and David Sedley
caution from this that characterizing a “basic common ground in nature
between animal and human behavior in preserving oneself” is “not saying
we should do these things because animals do them” (Long and Sedley
1987, 352). The point rather is that the Stoics “are claiming that animals
and humans alike are so structured that such behavior is natural and appro-
priate to them both” (352).7 From this universal impression of self-
preservation, we will now learn that it, not pleasure, is our natural
inclination.
Preservation, Not Pleasure, Is Our Primary End

If self-preservation is the natural condition according to these Stoic
appraisals, it will frame each individual’s actions. In his “defence of Stoic
ethics” Cato accordingly describes the causality behind our behaviors and
thoughts as exemplifying a self-preserving “primary impulse to action”
(Cicero 1914, 3.5, 16–17). Cato here demands that for the early Stoics
such as Zeno pleasure is not as primary as self-preservation. This evidently
is a position that Cato supports; “pleasure, according to most Stoics, is not
to be reckoned among the primary objects of natural impulse; and I very
strongly agree with them” (3.5, 17). Diogenes Laërtius similarly reports
in his discussion around the Chrysippean position specifically and of the

Stoics generally that they say it is “false” that “the first inclination of ani-
mals is to pleasure” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.52). The interpretation
that the Stoics hierarchize self-preservation is indeed widely shared by
modern scholars (Becker 1998, 128–130; Graver 2007, 32; Reydams-
Schils 2011, 318).
The primacy of self-preservation over pleasure is an indication that
one’s hormé is consistent with Stoic natural “ends” (Cicero 1914, 4.13,
33). As a natural inclination, self-preservation will benefit the entirety of
the self rather than any particular aspect of the self. Cicero is adamant
regarding this portrayal of early Stoic thought, explaining that for the
Stoics what is naturally self-preserving is “neglecting no side” of the indi-
vidual (4.13, 34). There is an awareness from Cicero that the notion of the
“entire self” could be relatively abstract. He accordingly clarifies that the
early Stoics have here developed ideas from the Platonist Xenocrates and
Aristotle in which “natural ends” refer to the preservation of our physical
and mental attributes.8 Appreciations of the Stoic theory of self-
preservation must duly take “account of body as well as mind” (4.7, 16).
The bodily aspects of this theory of self-preservation translate to
straightforward counsels regarding the avoidance of physical danger or the
aversion to gluttony. The ramifications for our mental life of self-preserving
directions are however more complex. In the Stoic position that we have
reviewed, actions resulting from mental processes stem from our primary
impulse toward objects that we deem will benefit us. Cato’s defense of
early Stoicism describes such actions as “appropriate acts” (3.7, 23).
“Appropriate” evidently encompasses a reference to the Chrysippean posi-
tion on self-preservation. As we have encountered it is the term used by
Chrysippus in his On Ends regarding our inclination toward preserving
our “own constitution” and our “consciousness of this” preservation
(Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.178, in L&S, 346).
Cato notes that for the Stoics any act which is “appropriate” must have
been designed as a “means to the end of attaining the primary needs of
nature” (Cicero 1914, 3.6, 22). This incorporates Chrysippus’ earlier con-
testation to the false presumption that pleasure is our primary end. Cato
posits accordingly that “appropriate acts” directly serve, in accordance
with a Stoic sense of Nature, the primacy of the self-preserving “End.”
Cicero’s capitalization of the word “End” (4.10, 25) emphasizes this
point, concurrently deeming that acts of the mind and body are worth-
while in themselves if they serve this end/End. He consequently describes
76 W. JOHNCOCK
the early Stoic account of “acts of cognition” which serve our self-affec-
tion as features of a living creature that have been “adopted for their own
sake” (3.5, 18). As Cato via Cicero asks rhetorically in channeling Stoic
thought, why would we conversely develop cognitions designed to harm
instead of to help ourselves? Appropriate thoughts are our nature’s self-
preserving thoughts.
A similar interpretation applies to the body. The body becomes for the
Stoics an exemplification of that which is in accordance with nature. If
anything bodily was conversely opposite to one’s nature, the systematicity
of Zeno’s early Stoicism demands that it would be “rejected” (3.6, 20–21).
This evokes Plutarch’s interpretation in On Stoic Self-Contradictions of the
Chrysippean position that we have an “appropriate disposition relative”
not only to ourselves but to each of our “parts” (Plutarch, SVF, 3.179, in
L&S, 348). In considering the parts of the body such as hands, feet, and
organs, Cato’s Stoic impression is that such features appear to “have been
bestowed on us by nature for the sake of their use” (Cicero 1914, 3.5,
18). Within such a perspective, however, it is determined that there are
other parts to every living creature, such as the plumage of a dove, that
seem to be purely “ornamental” (3.5, 18). This might be potentially a
tense point in the theory. Who or what after all has the authority to decide
where ornamentalism ceases and function commences?
The answer is universal nature. What nature has attributed to us is
always inclined toward our natural ends and self-preservation. We might
interpret that a feature of ourselves or other creatures is purely ornamen-
tal. The universe’s divine rationality knows though that it serves the self-
preserving “primary elements of nature” (3.5, 19). With this universal
orientation to our self-preservation, we encounter aspects of being that go
beyond our overtly subjective limits.
The Collective Orientation of Preservation

In the introductory thoughts, this chapter briefly opened the question of
one’s self-preservation to the collective phenomenon of an entire species’
inclination to preservation. In a related sense, Cicero considers whether
self-preserving impulses do not simply refer to prolonging our own organic
existence but also to that which serves a broader benefit.
The preceding discussion with Cato does not necessarily present
Cicero’s personal position on self-preservation. We instead encounter the
early Stoic positions of Zeno and Chrysippus through the voices of Cato
and Cicero. Contrary to this style of commentary, it is in On Duties that

we hear Cicero’s own argumentation regarding the collective benefit that
ensues from self-interested preservation.
In this mode Cicero demands that what is of interest to every individual
is relatively “identical” to what is of interest to “the whole body politic”
(Cicero 1928, 3.6, 26). Cicero correlates one’s self-preserving direction
with what should be a simultaneous motivation to serve others within
one’s group/kind. This position coheres with the Stoic mandate that each
individual is impulsively “bound to their fellow citizens” (3.6, 28). Cicero
indeed posits that pursuing an end with only self-oriented intentions rep-
resents an attempted denial of these mutual obligations. Given how this
might defy the “common good,” the widespread adoption of such a men-
tality would result in the destruction of “human fellowship” (3.6, 26).
The Stoic principles that we have been reviewing in his exchange with
Cato have clearly inspired Cicero. As Cato says of the early Stoic position,
just as “it is natural for us to shrink from pain” so we are born to love our
offspring and other humans (Cicero 1914, 3.19, 62–63). Both the retreat
from destructive situations and the pull toward our fellow humans are self-
preserving tendencies. From this latter element of “common humanity,”
individual humans are primarily aware of their compulsion to “do certain
actions for the sake of others beside themselves.” Cato imparts that this
“bond of mutual aid” is naturally derived for the Stoics and leads humans
to “form unions, societies and states” (3.19, 63). A broader good duly
manifests from such human unification that for Cato serves “more than …
any single individual” (3.19, 64).
Scholarship widely recognizes that for the Stoics notions of self-
preservation incorporate an awareness of mutual welfares (Annas 1993,
265–266; Evans 2014, 89; Irvine 2008, 129). From a topic (self-
preservation) that might seem to have purely subjective orientations we
find in this discussion collegial figurations of self-benefiting tendencies.
This recognition of the collectively dispersed conditions lurking within
one’s sense of self-preservation is a noteworthy navigation in terms of one
of the opening questions in this chapter. We might recall how that ques-
tion asks from where our self-preserving tendencies manifest. Do these
preceding insights mean that our predisposition for our own preservation
originates both from beyond the self and is directed beyond the self? If so,
what qualifications are necessary to the description of such a compulsion
as a “self”-preservation?
78 W. JOHNCOCK
In order to explore this collegial component of why living beings self-

preserve, we will consider its intersection with the theory of self-preserva-
tion forwarded by the English sociologist, philosopher, and political
theorist, Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). Theories of evolution inspire
Spencer to situate individuated aspiration and well-being within a socially
environmental structure.9 It is through this broader environmental fram-
ing of individual function and “fitness” that he develops a perspective that
is most easily described as socially Darwinian.10 At stake in Spencer’s
inquiry is not simply the individuation of self-preservation. He instead is
interested in tracing our individual inclination toward self-preservation to
collective tendencies and originations.
Spencer’s work recognizes that humans are social and organized in such
a way that they can mutually benefit each other. His essay “The Proper
Sphere of Government” exemplifies a commitment to these kinds of con-
ditions by stating that a “community is a body of men associated together
for mutual defence” (Spencer 1981, 99). This characterization of society
as the seat of a collaborative “self-defence” among combined individuals
would eventually transition into his broader adaptation of a social
Darwinist position. Spencer on this theme argues that the best structure
for a society is one where government intervention into the lives of all
individuals remains minimal, making clearer the “boundary to the inter-
ference of government” (83). The associated thesis is that from less state
interference a social arrangement occurs in which the “fittest” social mem-
bers self-preserve and survive. This for Spencer will benefit the population
overall.
It is according to Spencer that even before this governmental interfer-
ence into our lives as adults occurs, our education when we are children
and adolescents adversely normalizes the acceptance of such interference.
Contrary to this, Spencer investigates the ways in which education should
be representative of a generally more organic, social design. In this model,
citizens would actively embody a collective responsibility for their own
educational structures, from which each younger citizen will rise “towards
his fittest function” (127). One of Spencer’s better-known pieces—“What
Knowledge Is of Most Worth?” found in Education: Intellectual, Moral,
and Physical—appraises such education according to its anticipated ends.
These anticipated ends for Spencer should address the question of “how to
live?” (Spencer 1861, 16). In exploring this most “essential question” (16)
about the ends that education serves, we will also consider how the knowl-
edge that this education generates informs our self-preservation.
Happiness Is the Ultimate End

Spencer identifies an individual’s happiness as the ultimate end that a
properly socially structured education should facilitate. An interesting cor-
relation here emerges with Stoic philosophy’s general emphasis on happi-
ness as a natural end for every individual. As I have already indicated, the
term that we have translated as “happiness” for the Stoics does not
straightforwardly match how we use it in a modern context to feeling
good. Happiness more broadly for the Stoics encompasses our rational
and virtuous orientations. It is the earliest Stoics who perpetuate a belief
in the primacy of a happy and virtuous life (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S,
394). The Stoics advise not to directly target happiness though in order to
achieve a consequent state or feeling. Instead, as commentators generally
interpret (Annas 2007, 64; Brennan 2005, 35; Inwood and Donini 1999,
684), it is through living a virtuous life that we will each experience hap-
piness as its ultimate end. Stobaeus observes of this intrinsic connection
that the Stoics “say that being happy is the end for the sake of which every-
thing is done, but which is not itself done for the sake of anything”
(Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394).
I have indicated in the Introduction chapter that the Stoic understand-
ing of happiness as a rational and virtuous activity develops from ancient
ideas around eudaimonia. An initial appearance of the term “eudaimôn”
comes in the earliest Greek poetry from Hesiod. Eudaimôn here is a refer-
ence to a happy personal state that is “free from divine ill will” (Hesiod
1982, 826–828). We see that as this concept develops philosophically via
the Stoics and their predecessors, a definition emerges of happiness as liv-
ing in harmony with divine intentions by being virtuous.
With the Socratic dialogues, we indeed encounter the sense that living
virtuously and therefore wisely will induce the well-being of eudaimonic
happiness. Given the lack of direct reference by Plato to the term “eudai-
monia,” there is often concern among commentators (Bobonich 2010;
White 2002) regarding where Socrates commits unequivocally to what we
interpret to be eudaimonia. What we can however find via Socrates’ com-
mentaries is the firm belief that our happiness manifests with and as virtu-
ous orientations. In the Apology Socrates defines virtue as the necessary
and sufficient condition to fulfilling the “greatest good” of happiness.
That attending to virtue is the chief good is apparent in how conversely for
Socrates “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 2002, 37e). This
80 W. JOHNCOCK
kind of theme is present in other works such as the Meno, where Socrates
explains how happiness is a wise and virtuous existence (Plato 1980, 88c–d).
Just as the link between virtue and happiness becomes a central Stoic
position, there are further features of Socratic/Platonic happiness that
would re-emerge in Stoicism. One such feature is the distinction between
pleasure and happiness. In Plato’s The Symposium we see a dissimilarity
identified between the pleasure derived from wealth versus the happiness
that being wise generates. Apollodorus tells his companions who are “rich
money-makers” that he “feels sorry” for them “because you think you are
achieving something when you are achieving nothing” (Plato 2008b,
173d). By instead now associating with Socrates, Apollodorus describes
the happiness that manifests through being virtuous and wise (173a).
Plato’s Republic also conceives of an inherent commonality between
happiness and virtue. This notably appears in Book IV via an interpreta-
tion that the soul is divided into three parts. We will examine this division
more comprehensively in Chap. 12. For our current purposes, it suffices
to familiarize ourselves with the basic principle that the Platonic soul com-
prises the parts (faculties) of reason/logic, spirit, and appetite. Happiness
is the virtuous or “just” application of these parts/faculties. Justness or
justice here involves being “led” by our rational faculty but crucially also
requires that each faculty should attend to the functions for which only it
is designed. Plato defines this divided but interrelated function in terms of
a soul’s “harmony” and draws an analogy with a supposedly harmonious
division of functions between classes of people in a city state. Justice in
Plato’s conception is not exclusively concerned with whether our acts
toward others are just (Plato 2012, 4.441e–442d). Rather to be just marks
one’s internal harmony (443c–d). Given how this harmony constitutes a
virtue-happiness, Richard Parry observes that for Plato being just “is in
one’s own best interest” (Parry 1996, 31).
The point of this brief sketch of Socratic and Platonic positions is to
identify the ancient link between happiness and virtue that the Stoics
develop. A specific relevance for this chapter’s discussion regarding happi-
ness for the Stoics and Spencer goes beyond Socrates and Plato however,
to incorporate the later conception of Aristotle. My interest here concerns
Aristotle’s focus on the role of virtuous activity in eudaimonia. Virtuous
activity is undeniably also integral to Socratic and Platonic positions
regarding happiness. It is however the emphasis that Aristotle places on
what is internal about happiness’ enacted virtue, while also requiring and
involving external goods, that situates his view uniquely in relation to the
Stoic model.
In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle posits virtuously active conditions
for happiness, whereby for him and “those who identify happiness with
virtue … our account is in harmony” (Aristotle 2004, 1.8). Just as all
things in the world have their respective functions, this virtuous activity
manifests from our human function which is to have a rational nature;
“the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a ratio-
nal principle” (1.7). Our rational function can be involved in many of our
ends. Aristotle though distinguishes for special attention rationality’s rela-
tionship to the end that is happiness. While other ends serve subsequent
purposes in that an end is often done for the sake of another end, only
happiness “is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something
else” (1.7). From this distinction, Aristotle describes rationalized happi-
ness as the “final end,” “chief good,” and “self-sufficient.”
To this extent, Aristotle’s account of happiness sounds quite Stoic and
Socratic. Where the Stoics will diverge from Aristotle concerns the rela-
tionship of happiness to what is external to us. As we have encountered,
Stoic reason and the associated happiness depend only on internalized
functions and “goods.” The Stoic subjectivity is indifferent to externals.
Less exclusively Aristotle involves in our happiness not only goods of the
internal soul but also those of the body (health) and of externals. This dif-
ferentiates not only Aristotelian and Stoic positions but also Aristotelian
and Socratic positions. Unlike for Socrates and the Stoics, in Aristotle’s
world virtue is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for happiness.
Virtuous orientations are fundamental to happiness in the Aristotelian
model. External goods such as friendships, having children, or being aes-
thetically attractive cannot in themselves engender happiness. He does not
however see how we could be happy if some externals were not involved
in our lives. Happiness as an overall activity “needs external goods as well”
(1.8). Aristotle carefully qualifies this inclusion by reminding us that our
activity should never target externals. Nor indeed should our activity tar-
get happiness in order to attain other subjective states or experiences in
our lives. Happiness instead simply has its preconditions in our acting
rationally and virtuously, duly marking it as “the end of action” (1.7).
On this final point regarding happiness’ inherent presence in rationally
oriented structures, the Stoics and Aristotle evidently cohere. Interestingly
for Spencer, happiness is an end that should also be prefigured into our
actions. In his thesis though, such actions will emerge from the
82 W. JOHNCOCK
“appropriate” and rational functioning of social structures. This function

and not happiness needs to be the focus in Spencer’s view (much like how
for the Stoics and other ancients the focus is our rational function). If
these functions are “appropriate” to our individual and collective develop-
ment, then for Spencer “the method of culture pursued shall be one pro-
ductive of an intrinsically happy activity” (Spencer 1861, 163). The
similarity with the preceding ancient conception of achieving happiness
not by focusing on happiness itself is striking. Appropriate actions facilitate
the primary end of self-preservation and therefore of happiness for the
Stoics. Likewise for Spencer, appropriate social structures facilitate happi-
ness. Spencer’s just-encountered reference furthermore to the “activity”
of happiness will become increasingly important as we progressively exam-
ine how he links this happiness to self-preservation.
The problem for the Stoics with targeting happiness rather than fulfill-
ing an inherently happiness-inducing activity is that happiness can be
problematically interpreted merely as a precursor to pleasure. Happiness as
an end is in the Stoic account forwarded by Cato and Cicero, as well as in
the material that we have reviewed from Chrysippus’ On Ends, a matter of
self-preservation rather than of pleasure. In responding to the Epicurean
correlation between happiness and pleasure, Cato affirms the contrary
Stoic view that happiness as a natural end is not reducible to “pleasure.”
Because happiness is a natural end, its mode in each subjective “instinct
does not seek pleasure” (Cicero 1914, 2.11, 33).
As we have seen, the Stoic belief that virtue is the necessary and suffi-
cient condition of happiness is evidently drawn from Socrates. What we
should now consider is that this Stoic distinction between pleasure and
happiness also has its roots in Socratic perspectives. In the Gorgias Socrates
determines that because what is good and bad is not the same as what is
pleasurable or painful, goods and pleasures must be distinct. We can expe-
rience a good that is not necessarily pleasurable and vice versa (Plato 1864,
497c.52–53). Similarly in the Phaedo Socrates notes that the soul is “happy
having rid itself of” bodily pollutants such as “physical desires and plea-
sures” (Plato 1977, 81a).11 Socrates presents us with a conception of the
soul that is “divine and wise.” The soul here is the “happiest” of all when
it practices a “virtue” that enacts a state beyond pleasure (82a).
We can also note that for Spencer happiness is not simply the pleasur-
able feeling that is associated with it. Happiness rather consists in the
aforementioned “appropriate” structuring of life which exercises one’s
natural or “essential activities” as completely as possible. The experience of

an “essential activity”—a term to be defined in a moment—will not, for
Spencer, make “one happy in virtue of extrinsic rewards to be obtained”
(where pleasure is one such extrinsic reward). The undertaking of the
activity is instead itself infused with happiness “in virtue of its own health-
fulness” (Spencer 1861, 163–164; author’s original emphasis). In expand-
ing his definition of happiness to include what manifests through an
activity’s self-sufficient requirements and outcomes, Spencer’s social the-
ory radiates an increasing number of Stoic mantras.
The issue of what comprises for humans an essential activity is central to
Spencer’s reading of self-preservation. In Spencer’s words if we are to
understand the relevance of activities (including those found in educa-
tional structures) to our lives, the “first step must obviously be to classify,
in the order of their importance, the leading kinds of activity which con-
stitute human life” (17–18). Quite contextually for this chapter’s inquiry,
Spencer defines the most primary of these “leading kinds of” or “essen-
tial” activities as those which are self-preserving. Here he evokes of course
the earlier Stoic recognition of self-preservation as the primary end for any
living creature (Cicero 1914, 3.5, 16). Unlike the Stoics Spencer restricts
his definition of self-preservation to humans (as is typical of much social
theory). His prioritization nevertheless of “those activities which directly
minister to self-preservation” (Spencer 1861, 18) highlights how his con-
nection between education, happiness, and self-preservation intersects
with the Stoic hierarchization of preservation. Attending to what is essen-
tial about self-preservation for both Spencer and the Stoics will help us to
explore common elements between their perspectives regarding why we
incline toward being self-preserving.
An Innately Ongoing Education

We can recall that there is something naturally innate about the tendency
toward self-preservation for the early Stoics. The evidence presented for
this argument emerged in Cicero’s discussion with Cato. The Stoics
observe infants as having no experience with destructive things yet none-
theless they exhibit a natural aversion to such things (Cicero 1914, 3.5,
16). I find it noteworthy then that similarly in Spencer’s reading of the
inherently self-preserving character of humans he describes how self-
preserving tendencies are identifiable in infants. For Spencer, when an
infant hides its face and cries at the sight of a stranger, it shows “the
84 W. JOHNCOCK
dawning instinct to attain safety by flying from that which is unknown and
may be dangerous” (Spencer 1861, 24).
This consistency between ancient and modern positions is further
apparent in the portrayal of our natural “acquisition” of the self-preserving
tendency. We have reviewed via Cicero and Cato that what is innately self-
preserving about our actions for the Stoics is attributable to the derivation
of such actions from a faculty with which we are born; the “primary
impulses of nature” (Cicero 1914, 3.6, 20). While we develop self-
preserving habits, we do not have to go out of our way to initially acquire
the propensity for self-affection (3.5, 16). It is in-built upon birth.
Spencer arrives at a similar conclusion that we do not carry the burden
of ever having to be proactively self-preserving. Instead, in his thesis such
a direction is our natural constitution. This pleases Spencer considerably:
Happily, that all-important part of education which goes to secure direct

self-preservation, is in great part already provided for. Too momentous to be
left to our blundering, Nature takes it into her own hands. (Spencer 1861, 24)
Spencer also shares commonalities with the Stoic presentation of the

developmental capacity of our self-preserving apparatus. We acquire the
knowledge of what constitutes our self-preservation in greater detail as we
grow older for Spencer. Our continual navigations to avoid “death or acci-
dent” (25) are attributed to the fact that education is an “ever learning”
process. So inherent is this impulse in us and “so well cared for by Nature”
(25) that we do not need to give its ongoing development much atten-
tion. Our developing drive of self-preservation as a “fundamental educa-
tion” instead perpetuates by default. This for Spencer marks self-preservation
as an education that is intrinsic to life and that requires “comparatively
little care” (25).
Self-preservation is hierarchized in Spencer’s theory—as it is in Cato’s
and Chrysippus’ Stoic accounts—as our naturally primary and directly
essential activity. There are nonetheless also indirect activities recognized
by Spencer to which our education is “naturally directed.” These include
the activities by which we receive a wage, attend to family responsibilities,
maintain social and political relations, and engage in leisure. In acknowl-
edging a hierarchical order for these activities Spencer broadens the defini-
tion of education’s duty to posit that the “ideal of education should be
one’s complete preparation in all these divisions” (21). Education here
takes on a more pragmatically socialized character, reflecting what is nec-

essary to acquire the skills and sustenance of collective life. Correlations of
self-preservation with our literal physiological survival emerge from this.
Spencer reminds us that the knowledge acquired from education that is
the most valuable or of “primary importance” is that which directly serves
our ongoing physical preservation. The imperative here for Spencer is that
through this knowledge we can prevent our “loss of health” or life (30).
We must be careful with how straightforwardly we compare this loss of
health or life in Spencer’s definition of self-preservation to Cicero’s per-
spectives on the Stoics. This is because for Cicero sometimes death might
ironically serve the Stoic purposes of self-preservation more thoroughly
than remaining apparently healthily alive. Even suicide can be a self-
preserving action in the ancient account if it maintains our identity and
subjectivity. Suicide in this context counters what is unhealthy in his esti-
mations about remaining alive and changing “falsely.”12 As Cicero notes in
On Duties it is a moral imperative that each citizen lives according to their
natural, “individual endowments,” whereby everybody “must hold fast to
his own peculiar gifts” and “follow the bent of our own particular nature”
(Cicero 1928, 1.31, 110). To conversely try to be someone that “one is
not” would not be to live in accordance with one’s nature, Cicero clarify-
ing that “it is of no avail to fight against one’s nature or to aim at what is
impossible of attainment” (1.31, 110). That nothing is “proper that ‘goes
against the grain’” is for Cicero’s perspective on self-preservation an indi-
cation that sustaining a life of “uniform consistency” is essential to main-
taining our “propriety” (1.31, 111).
The particularities of each of our life’s natural proprieties mean that the
course that is appropriate for one person might be the incorrect course for
another. Richard Sorabji consequently notes that while Cicero declares
that suicide was a self-preserving mechanism for Cato’s situation, this does
not mean that it would have been “right for anyone else in the same cir-
cumstances” (Sorabji 2006, 45). Such a characterization holds true for
Cicero even if numerous individuals live in the same environment or cir-
cumstances. We have encountered in preceding chapters that this heralds
the Stoic sense of the internal mastery of each individual self or nature.
This control occurs in resilience to circumstantial, external, and environ-
mental forces. As a consequence, when Cicero turns to the topic of suicide
and in particular the suicide of Cato, he identifies not a “loss” but the
Stoic exemplification of a subject’s self-preservation.13 If conversely Cato
had surrendered to the tyranny that was challenging his subjectivity and
86 W. JOHNCOCK
had not maintained what Cicero just described as a “uniform consistency

of self,” Cato would no longer have been living in accordance with his
nature14:
…suicide may be for one man a duty, for another [under the same circum-
stance] a crime. Did Marcus Cato find himself in one predicament, and were
the others, who surrendered to Caesar in Africa, in another? … Cato had
been endowed by nature with an austerity beyond belief, and he himself had
strengthened it by unswerving consistency and had remained ever true to
his purpose and fixed resolve; and it was for him to die rather than to look
upon the face of a tyrant. (Cicero 1928, 1.31, 112)
For Spencer somewhat differently, the design of educational institutions

should ensure our actual ongoing physical existence and well-being. For
the Stoics self-preservation relates to our knowledge of who we each are.
Seemingly conversely for Spencer knowledge is a tool that we can use to
self-preserve in terms of sheer survival. As we will now consider though,
part of the purpose of this knowledge for Spencer is also to familiarize
ourselves with our true nature.
Knowledge Is Self-Preserving
In considering which of the knowledge transmitted through educational
structures is most directly self-preserving, Spencer prioritizes those found
in the sciences. This is an economically pragmatic position to take in one
regard. Spencer here integrates the assertion that aside from only “a very
small number of classes” all men are “employed in the production, prepa-
ration, and distribution of commodities” (Spencer 1861, 32). The indi-
vidual’s capacity to remain employed in such roles depends on an “adequate
knowledge of their physical, chemical, or vital properties … that is,
depends on Science” (32). Spencer even includes those working in the
“Science of Society” as students and practitioners of “social science” (40)
in this collective impulse toward a scientifically inclined state of knowledge.
Spencer complements this pragmatic insight with a more ideological
justification of the prioritization of scientific knowledge for human self-
preservation. This concerns what he believes is the timelessly true charac-
ter of scientific results, in that “the truths of Science in general, are of
intrinsic value, they will bear on human conduct ten thousand years hence
as they do now” (23). The intrinsic value of scientific knowledge becomes
apparent when comparing it to what he interprets is the contingent char-

acter of the knowledge of languages. This latter knowledge for him is
“quasi-intrinsic” truth that will “only last as long as the languages last”
(23). Language is accordingly for Spencer what requires “memory” (83)
whereas science solicits an individual’s “understanding” (83).
The assertion that scientific knowledge contains timelessly useful truths
or aptitudes is contentious. Most, if not all, sciences incorporate a devel-
opmental ethos in which their own theories supersede their previous theo-
ries. Despite this, we can use the point from Spencer here that there is
something “intrinsic” (as he describes it) to our nature about our scientific
inquiry of nature. The desire for scientifically engendered facts about the
world connects human endeavor to its natural conditions.
There is a symmetry that I identify consequently between Spencer’s
hierarchization of natural human inclinations toward scientific knowledge,
and Cato’s impression that for the Stoics any desire or impulse that is in
accordance with nature is worthwhile for its own sake (Cicero 1914, 3.5,
18). For Spencer scientific knowledge is intrinsically valuable in its own
right given its role in understanding our own nature. Likewise as Cato
recounts of the “system of Zeno and the Stoics” to which he subscribes,
knowledge derived from “the sciences … are things to be chosen for their
own sake” (3.5, 18). This presents the early Stoic view that nature has
bestowed the sciences because “they contain an element of fact established
by methodical reasoning” (3.5, 18).15 Scientific perspectives are here
grounded in reason and rationality and therefore are directed toward nat-
ural ends.
The Stoic equation of a worldly intrinsic or rational knowledge with a
knowledge justified for its own sake asserts that such knowledge repre-
sents a natural end. Through “acts of cognition” oriented toward such
knowledge the Stoics say we execute natural acts (3.5, 18). If, contrarily,
we stray from a cognitive method, we also stray, according to Cato’s
account, from our natural reasoning. The result of such adverse circum-
stances for the Stoics is that we assent to what is not factual. Cato’s
response to Cicero’s account of erroneous assent concludes that the
“mental assent to what is false, as the Stoics believe, is more repugnant to
us than all the other things that are contrary to nature” (3.5, 18; my
emphasis). This relates to what Long describes in the context of other
Stoics such as Epictetus as the generally “exacting standards the Stoics
expected scientific knowledge to satisfy” (Long 2002, 151). We have
88 W. JOHNCOCK
already established that for the Stoics it is maintaining a life in accordance

with nature that serves self-preservation.
I hope to have opened a possible appreciation that both the positions
presented by early Stoicism and by Spencer share the belief in an inherent
connection between (1) knowledge and (2) self-preservation as a natural
end. This connection for both eras is an instinctive impulse toward aspects
of the world with which an (infant) individual does not have experience.
Of course the Stoics explain this by a universal rational nature sourced
from God. We have seen that God infuses us with reason, whereby if we
self-preserve we are fulfilling the Stoic God’s intention to live according to
our nature. Fascinatingly the conceptual alignment of God with notions of
self-preservation is also a significant part of the discussion for Spencer. We
see this in the correlations that he opens between science and religion.
Such a comparison can be surprising if this is your initial encounter with it.
Spencer is adamant that comparing science and religion is possible and
indeed necessary in terms of a theory of self-preservation. This is only the
case though if both domains are liberated from their “ordinary, limited”
definitions and the “superstitions that pass under the name of religion”
(Spencer 1861, 85–86). Equally the portrayal of science as an “irreligion”
(86) is incorrect says Spencer, instead asserting that it is the neglect of sci-
ence that is irreligious (86). This is quite a curious development from a
modern perspective in which science and religion have been increasingly
polarized. From our present-day angle, we might duly ask how a theorist
so concerned with prioritizing scientific knowledge can reduce its meth-
odological provability to the faith embedded in religious ends. We will
discuss a variation of this theme in Chap. 7 in considering how uncomfort-
able certain modern Stoic scholars are with retaining the pantheistic ratio-
nality of Stoicism in an era dominated by scientific reason.
Scientific ignorance is religious ignorance in Spencer’s view because it
represents an individual’s “refusal to study the surrounding creation”
(86). What we see here for Spencer is a correlation between an interest in
our natural environment and our consequent drive for the primary end of
self-preservation. By attending to the things of the universe scientifically
we exemplify an interest in the “Universe and its Cause” (87). This con-
nects us to, rather than alienates us from, God. An interest in the cause of
the universe (theological or not) also intrinsically symbolizes for Spencer
an interest in knowing our own, natural origins, and what we might call
the “mysteries of existence” (88). Spencer portrays any consequent knowl-
edge gained as that which could only serve self-preservation. This he
believes should be the interpretation of science even from a religious
perspective. Scientific understandings of physical phenomena potentially

prevent the inadvertent physiological demise of any individual. I also
interpret that if the religious individual ignored scientific enquiry entirely
Spencer could view this as representative of a certain irreligious reckless-
ness toward preserving a life that God had created. While we are not to
fear the transience of earthly life, as I read Spencer a human of good faith
should nevertheless embrace any capacities that a created existence
affords them.
The desire and acquisition of a greater knowledge of our existential
conditions represents a self-preserving direction for Spencer’s social the-
ory. There is a certain parallel that I draw here with Cicero’s recounting of
how for the Stoics an impulse toward our self-preserving ends engenders
a “wisdom [that] is the guardian and protectress” (Cicero 1914, 4.7, 17).
This wisdom neglects no sides of the individual by incorporating a “com-
plete” education that comprises cognitive, bodily, and scientific ends that
are worth acquiring for our self-preservation and therefore for their own
sake (3.5, 18). Wisdom in this view is not simply instrumental to saving a
natural life but is an ultimate end of life as nature. The guardian as nature-
wisdom preserves a life that is lived in accordance with it.
With this characterization, we might indeed recall Epictetus’ daimon as
encountered in this book’s second chapter. Cicero points toward a com-
mon nature that binds all individual natures. As seen earlier in Cicero’s On
Duties, the self-preserving impulse toward one’s individual nature is con-
currently a service toward a collegial end-nature. We have reviewed the
early Stoic inspiration for this natural collegiality in Cicero’s statement
that “the interest of society is the interest of the individual” (Cicero 1928,
3.6, 27). Indeed, in Cicero’s account, for the Stoics we embody this inter-
est from birth.
Equally for Spencer an individual’s “tacit worship” of the “Universal
Power of Nature” (Spencer 1861, 87–88) answers not simply to the spe-
cific needs of one’s own self-preservation but also to that which “concerns
all mankind for all time” (91). Cicero’s and Cato’s Stoic impressions of
the concurrent inclination toward benefiting our own natural ends and
the human fellowship on which individual preservation is dependent is
mirrored, I argue, in Spencer’s sense of self-preservation as that which
services a body politic. Spencer identifies widespread scientific knowledge
as the natural end or the “indispensable key” (90) for a broader, collective
prosperity. Every individual as a collegial condition of such prosperity
incorporates a “collective, national life, past and present, without which
they cannot rightly regulate their conduct” (90).
90 W. JOHNCOCK
This self-preserving knowledge and regulation around one’s conduct

that serves a broader good is for the Stoics and for Spencer a rational ori-
entation. As we have seen in Chap. 2, the correlation of nature with ratio-
nality is the Stoic convention. Cato’s description is of a self-preserving
hormé that impulses toward a particular and a common end via decisions
and actions that are “fully rationalized and in harmony with nature”
(Cicero 1914, 3.6, 20; my emphasis). This perspective on the harmonious
rationality of our self-preserving end is drawing from what for Cicero’s era
were recently past and current generations of Stoic thinkers for whom the
rationality of nature was not in question.
Spencer’s description of science as self-preserving knowledge likewise
indicates a natural rationality or inclination. He states when pondering
the mysteries of the self’s existence that this natural end of “science famil-
iarizes with rational relations” (Spencer 1861, 83; my emphasis). That his
examination of the self-preserving roles played by political and educational
structures defines the scientific elements as rational is not that surprising.
Characterizations of science’s rationality are the norm (as we discuss in the
next chapter). What is noteworthy though is that Spencer goes to rela-
tively “Stoic lengths” to accommodate our natural inclinations with this
kind of rationality. Such a perspective does not restrict scientific rationality
to a culturally developed technique used to uncover nature’s truth. This
scientific outlook is instead the self-preserving truth of our collective
nature.
These collegially minded rationalizations of self-preservation found in
early Stoicism and in Spencer address what commonly and naturally binds
all individuals. The question of why you care about yourself is in this
regard as much concerned with the prevention of your own annihilation
as it is an exemplification of your innate duty to a nature from which you
have manifested. In such a guise, every human’s knowledge about their
own preservation expresses how their subjectivity is situated universally.
Notes
1. Sigmund Freud articulates this belief in “the immutable biological fact that
the living individual serves two purposes, self-preservation and the preser-
vation of the species … Here … we are studying the psychological con-
comitants of biological processes” (Freud 1949 (1933), 124–125).
Numerous accounts forward these dual foci of self-preservation (MacLean
1959; Pearce 1987; Buck 2002). Research also shows that plants not only
self-preserve but also help fellow plants of their species survive by reserving
access to subterranean nutrients (Dudley and Fine 2007).
2. Not all individual creatures prefer their continued existence. Suicide occurs
in humans and indeed in other species (Crawley et al. 1985). Suicide does
not contradict the assertion though that individual members of a species
generally have an aptitude for their survival. A Durkheimian interpretation
from our preceding chapter might argue that because suicide is as much a
collective phenomenon as it is an individual phenomenon (Durkheim
1952 [1897]), suicidal acts are part of a species “code.” We can grant this
while remembering that suicide is not a statistically dominant behavior.
3. The consistency among Stoic thinkers across eras regarding self-preserva-
tion is noted by Diskin Clay in the “Introduction” to Marcus Aurelius’
Meditations. Clay explains that while “the Stoics themselves were not
united on every matter of doctrine … they were in their conception of …
a divinely established hierarchy” (Clay in Marcus Aurelius 1964, xxvi).
This hierarchy (that we will review elsewhere in this book) positions inani-
mate objects at its base, whereas humans are situated nearer the top, just
below the “supreme rationality of the divine” (xxvi). This informs consid-
erations of self-preservation. Clay reports the Stoic belief that as with “any
animal” positioned higher in this hierarchy, “the human animal as it devel-
ops gains a sense of itself … that is, a manifestation of its instinct for self-
preservation” (xxvi).
4. Ingo Gildenhard (2011) provides one of the more fascinating analyses of
this characterization of Cicero. Gildenhard not only gives a historical
account of Cicero’s reputation as an eloquent orator but also critically
examines how such speeches engage crucial features of human experience.
5. See Cicero’s Academica (On Academic Skepticism) for a similar description
(Cicero 1967b, 2.8, 24).
6. We use the moniker Cato the Younger (formally known as Marcus Porcius
Cato Uticensis) to distinguish him from his great-grandfather, the famous
Roman senator and historian Cato the Elder. Cato the Younger was him-
self a politician in a later era of the Roman Empire and an advocate of Stoic
philosophy. See Geiger (1979) for an account of Cato the Younger’s politi-
cal and philosophical legacies.
7. See also Long’s explanation that this sense of appropriation invokes the
Greek term oikeiôsis, which in its Stoic use “primarily refers to a process or
activity, innate in all animals, which explains why, from the moment of
birth, they behave in self-regarding ways” (Long 1999, 352).
8. Links between Aristotelian and Stoic positions are common (as we see
throughout this book). Xenocrates and early Stoicism are potentially
connected however by a report that Zeno attended the lectures of

Xenocrates. This information is not certain though, coming as it does from
Diogenes Laërtius’ possibly unreliable account of Zeno’s student life
(Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.3).
92 W. JOHNCOCK
9. After having read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (2008
[1859]), Spencer recoins Darwin’s evolutionary theory of natural selection
as the “survival of the fittest” (Spencer 1864, 444–445).
10. Social Darwinism has a relatively contentious history as the integration of
the evolutionary theory of biological selection to human, social settings.
Peter Bowler argues that the “term ‘Darwinism’ has come to be regarded
as virtually synonymous with evolutionism” (Bowler 1989, 188). In social
analysis it has been employed most familiarly to explain the plights of the
poorer classes during early industrialized eras, by attempting to “justify the
competitive ethos of Victorian capitalism in terms of the struggle for exis-
tence” (286). One critical concern about this is that Darwin’s theory
encourages an “aggressive individualism” (Harris 1968). An alternative
critique is that Darwin counters theories of individualism through his con-
siderations of how a species collectively adapts (Greene 1977). Social
Darwinism in its more extreme version argues for a laissez-faire economic
policy that allows free competition in capitalist markets. This requires
removing state interference from the lives of individuals. The prosperity or
adversity experienced by each citizen is then attributable to the species’
evolutionarily developed abilities in those citizens. A collective progress is
envisaged accordingly in which the fittest individuals become dominant
and carry social development. In Spencer’s works spanning the early Social
Statics (1883) through to the later, provocatively titled The Man Versus the
State (1969), we find this sense of human evolution being inherently tied
to socialized and economic developments.
11. Plato’s Timaeus offers one reference of how souls are initially “implanted”
into bodies (Plato 2008a, 42a).
12. Timothy Marquis notes how this position evokes the belief which becomes
apparent in the Roman period that it is appropriate for a citizen to “discern
how his character best fits his persona—a sort of naturalized view of his
social role” (Marquis 2013, 64; author’s original emphasis). Speaking to
later considerations in this chapter around the justification of suicide to
preserve one’s “persona,” Marquis indicates that “philosophical notions of
persona grounded discussions of suicide in the late Roman Republic and
early Empire” (64; author’s original emphasis).
13. Diogenes Laërtius also recognizes that if circumstances demand it, for the
Stoics a “wise man will commit a well-reasoned suicide both on behalf of
his country and on behalf of his friends” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.757,
in L&S, 425).
14. Marcus Aurelius qualifies the notion of maintaining one’s sense of self at all
costs with a reminder that we should avoid clinging to a life not lived in
accordance with nature. To doggedly “continue the same man as you have
been up to now, to be torn apart and defiled in this life you live, is just
senseless self-preservation like that of half-eaten gladiators who, mauled all

over and covered in blood by the wild beasts, still plead to be kept alive”
(Marcus Aurelius 1964, 10.2).
15. Despite this apparent similarity, we must be cautious here. John Sellars
notes that while there is no real distinction for the Stoics between “knowl-
edge and wisdom” (Sellars 2009, 171), there are nevertheless two distin-
guishable forms of knowledge. Rational knowledge is occupied with
“practical wisdom” (171). Technical knowledge conversely concerns theo-
retical expertise. In my estimation, scientific knowledge traverses both
forms by being concerned with practical approaches to existence and with
disciplinary specific intelligences. This dual reading could seemingly be
accommodated within Sellars’ impression that Stoic technical knowledge
“do[es] not reject” rational knowledge but “incorporate[s]” it (171).
References
———. 2007. Ethics in Stoic Philosophy. Phronesis 52 (1): 58–87.
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Good and Evil). Translated by Harris Rackham. London and New York: William
Heinemann and The Macmillan Company.
———. 1928. De Officiis (On Duties). Translated by Walter Miller. London and
New York: William Heinemann Ltd. and G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
———. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by
Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press and
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———. 1967b. Academica (On Academic Skepticism). Translated by Harris
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———. 1991. In De Officiis (On Duties), ed. M. Griffin and E. Atkins. Cambridge:
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Clarendon Press.
PART II
Knowledges and Epistemologies

CHAPTER 5
Do Preconceptions Determine New

Knowledge? Epictetus and Max Weber
on Truth
Skeptical Concerns
We evaluate certain kinds of facts according to how scientific the processes
are that bring them to us. Our confidence in the knowledge we have of a
physically causal world, for example, shares a relationship with the per-
ceived scientific status of the associated facts. Even where there are com-
peting scientific perspectives, a belief pervades that science targets and
approaches something timelessly true about the feature of the world in
question.1 This point relates to the prevalence of the phrase “scientifically
proven.” We see it in contexts as varied as discussions about an impending
climate change catastrophe and advertising terminology that endorses
vitamin supplements.
When the facts that manifest from a scientific study are characterized as
“objective,” the parameters of “falsifiability”2 and its experimental associ-
ate “repeatability”3 are typically involved. Take as an example where sci-
ence analyzes multiple instances of the same type of rock. If by using the
same experimental procedure on each rock we determine that they all have
exactly the same density, we begin to believe that we have knowledge
about the density of that type of rock. As the same results arise from
repeated experiments in various laboratories so a certainty develops that
we know that rock’s density.
Notions of objective knowledge here manifest through what is replica-
ble about an experimental process. The exclusion of the contingently sub-
jective or idiosyncratic qualities of the experimenter or observer from the

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_5
100 W. JOHNCOCK
scientific process is crucial. This interpretation demands that to directly

and objectively access an aspect of the world (such as the rock) individual
contingencies must not interfere.4 The facts that are presented will then
supposedly be true for every instance of that aspect of the world (every
one of those rocks). This avoids restricting facts to only being true for the
localized specificities of a particular experiment.
I have a concern with much of the preceding discussion. This is because
we must take into consideration that a certain value-orientation will navi-
gate any knowledge that we derive from the world. By this I mean that
what an individual or a society considers to be important or worth inves-
tigating will in some manner inform why that scientific study occurs. This
is self-evident. What arises from this straightforward point though is a
more complicated consideration; could this value-orientation also be
internal to the results derived from the study? If so, if our consequent
knowledge is value-oriented, what does this mean for its possible objectiv-
ity? What indeed is “objectivity” in the context of knowledge?
Knowledge does not typically arrive completely unexpectedly. Humans
anticipate knowledge, for example, through the premises and hypotheses
via which scientific processes are initially shaped. Our question now is
whether subjective and collective value-orientations conflict with the just-
reviewed presiding impression of scientific factuality. If our premises antic-
ipate the composition of knowledge, do we only find truths which match
those anticipations? Our premises certainly will lead our knowledge devel-
opments in certain ways and not others. That is not necessarily a problem.
What is open for debate though is what this preconceptual orientation says
about the objectivity of our knowledge. If our knowledge is contingent on
preconceptions of the knowledge that manifest, does this make that
knowledge less certain?
Stoic philosophy explores these questions regarding the development
of knowledge from the basis of preconceptions. Epictetus’ position on the
conditions of knowledge is especially relevant here. To contextualize
Epictetus’ position we must also involve the critique of Stoic knowledge
claims from Sextus Empiricus. As a “Pyrrhonian skeptic,” Sextus symbol-
izes a group of thinkers who attend to the role that our pre-existing judg-
ments play when experiencing and evaluating the world. One intention of
the skeptical method is to help prevent preceding beliefs from incorrectly
conditioning our subsequent claims of knowledge. Given how ever-
present this concern should be, in Outlines of Pyrrhonism Sextus defines
the enactment of this skeptical outlook as a “doctrinal rule” (Sextus
5 DO PRECONCEPTIONS DETERMINE NEW KNOWLEDGE… 101
Empiricus 1933, 1.8, 16–17). The translation of the same section of this
text by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes interprets that for Sextus “scepti-
cism” is not just a rule. Skepticism is in fact an “ability” that is enacted by
those who “coherently follow” a “correct persuasion” (Sextus Empiricus
2000, 1.8, 16–17). What is this “correct persuasion”? Along the just-
mentioned lines of reflecting on the judgments that condition knowledge
claims, this persuasion is where humans “set out oppositions among things
which appear and are thought of in any way at all” (1.8, 4). By appreciat-
ing any oppositions or conflicts between our impressions of an aspect of
the world, for the skeptic we “suspend belief” (1.8, 4) in our knowledge
of that aspect.
Sextus’ skepticism does not refute the notion of knowledge. It instead
demands that we should not defer unconditionally to perceptual and
empirical foundations for knowledge. Christopher Gill summarizes
Pyrrhonist skepticism accordingly as searching for truth about the world
but feeling “prevented from determining what is true by the conflicting
appearances that the world presents” (Gill 2006, 393). What Sextus (and
skepticism generally in this mode) denies is that what we observe, scientifi-
cally or otherwise, can be trusted enough to constitute “knowledge.”
Sextus’ Against the Logicians (2005) explains his position by comparing it
to the alternative justification for knowledge production that is held by
Stoics such as Epictetus.
Sextus’ imperative is to highlight the pre-existing conditions via which
we acquire knowledge. This responds to the Stoic principle that precon-
ceptions are a prerequisite of any investigation. Sextus evidently agrees
with the Stoics that “when anything is being investigated, a prior notion
(preconception) and conception has to come first” (Sextus Empiricus
2005, 2.331a). His assertion here is that in encountering an object we
never experience that object blindly or neutrally. Our experience with it
instead develops through a web of related preconceptions. In mirroring
aspects of the question from this chapter’s introduction regarding the
anticipations of premises that condition scientific inquiry, Sextus asks:
“how can anyone investigate if he has no conception of the object being
investigated?” (2.331a).5
Acknowledging that preconceptions condition such investigations is a
rudimentary point for Sextus. As I have earlier relatedly indicated, it is self-
evident that we will investigate aspects of the world that we already hold
to be important. It is however through an awareness of this kind of point
that Sextus posits we reveal a more complex problem. This problem is that
102 W. JOHNCOCK
in negotiating our preconceptions about a consequent object of analysis

we have no way to decide objectively which of those preconceptions war-
rants authority. How do we know which preconception trumps the others
in terms of an object’s “truth?”
It concerns Sextus that there is no self-evident correlation between a
preconception and an object. When appraising an object our mind wan-
ders in a preconceptual fog in which “we have many conceptions and
preconceptions of it” (2.332a). This multiplicity of preconceptions com-
promises for Sextus the capacity of any of our preconceptions to reliably
inform what we consider to be knowledge, “thanks to our being unable to
discriminate these and find the preconception with the most authority”
(2.332a). This is the point at which Sextus’ characterization of the condi-
tioning role of preconceptions in the production of knowledge dramati-
cally diverges from Epictetus’ position.
Education and Unimpeded Preconceptions

Just prior to Sextus’ interrogation, Epictetus offers a later Stoic view on
the preconceptual conditions for knowledge. This Stoic position sharply
contrasts from the skeptical view. There are two basic elements that we
need to appreciate regarding Epictetus’ perspective. Preconceptions firstly
are universal or “common to all” humans. These are general ideas that
nature affords us. We use these universal preconceptions and embody their
associated assumptions when encountering and understanding the world
around us. Epictetus argues that evidence of their universality is apparent
in that:
… who among us doesn’t assume that the good is beneficial and desirable,
and that we should seek and pursue it in every circumstance? And who
among us doesn’t assume that what is just is honourable and appropriate?
(Epictetus 2014, 1.22, 1)
The second element of preconceptions for Epictetus is that contrary to

Sextus’ view, nature has invested humans with the reason needed to dis-
criminate between preconceptions. While nature invests this ability in us,
what is innate for the Stoics here is not necessarily an in-built distinction
between all preconceptions. Epictetus instead attributes the development
of our capacity to discriminate between preconceptions to formal educa-
tion and informal social instruction. We develop, or make what Anthony
Long describes as “far more precise” (Long in Epictetus 2004, 21), our
capacities to judiciously apply preconceptions to particular objects and
experiences. Even though this indicates a developmental process, for
Epictetus the shaping of our preconceptual orientations still manifests
from our rational natures that we have covered in Chap. 2. Via rational-
ized inclinations, we equip ourselves to draw distinctions about the world
(Brennan 2005, 29–30; Gill 2003, 43–44; Jackson-McCabe 2005; Long
2002, 80). Our ongoing sense of how to apply preconceptions thus occurs
in agreement with a natural tendency toward rational judgment. Education
and our nature coincide for Epictetus, whereby “we have need of educa-
tion, so as to be able to apply our preconceptions of what is reasonable and
unreasonable to particular cases in accordance with nature” (Epictetus
2014, 1.2, 6).
This “natural” directionality toward only applying the appropriate pre-
conception to instances of new knowledge acquisition is inherent to our
being a rational and philosophical creature for Epictetus. Nature impels us
in this sense to be rational and to steer our choices in a manner that in
other chapters we have seen Chrysippus describe as “appropriate.” This
connection between rational judgment and our nature guides our dis-
crimination between perceptions. If operating well this discrimination
according to Epictetus should mean for us that “one preconception
doesn’t contradict another” (1.22, 1).
This argument does not convince Sextus, however. His opinion is that
“differently educated” individuals (as in different philosophers) will have
alternative conceptions about which preconception for any object of
knowledge is the most “authoritative.” Such differentiation prevents
knowledge that is “objective” collectively developing if consensus on the
truth of any object is always preconceptually splintered. What especially
bothers Sextus is the associated Stoic justification that the cognitive
impression that follows from a preconception will meet the “criterion for
truth … if it ‘has no obstacle’” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.253). We can
trace this notion of unimpeded preconditions for knowledge to the earliest
Stoic era of Zeno. For Zeno if a preconception is to develop into a reliable
“cognitive impression” of a real object, the impression must have “clear
and distinct” conditions (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 7.53, in L&S, 242).
Cicero also reports that for Zeno and the immediately subsequent eras of
the Stoic school, it is only by having this unimpeded clarity that the result-
ing impressions and cognitions “reveal their objects” (Cicero 1967b,
1.40–41).
104 W. JOHNCOCK
We will later explore the intricacies of Zeno’s model regarding the links
between “impressions” and knowledge. Of more immediate concern is
the central issue that Sextus posits regarding a contradiction in this notion
of a rationally discriminated preconception. In one regard Epictetus claims
that we can trust preconceptions because their source is of a rational
nature. In another regard however, the Stoic view as we have just noted is
that such preconceptions can be potentially deceiving and act as “obsta-
cles” to our impressions and consequent knowledge. For Sextus, this
means that the resulting impression is “the criterion of truth not without
qualification, but when it has no obstacle” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.257;
my emphasis). Given that there is the possibility of the obstacle, leading to
what Zeno describes as an “incognitive impression … which is not clear or
distinct” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.53, in L&S, 242), some other param-
eter is necessary for Sextus to verify a correlation between preconception,
perception, cognition, and knowledge. Sextus even expresses bemusement
at this caveat of the “obstacle” within Stoic epistemologies. In arguing
that its possibility undermines the certainty that the Stoics portray regard-
ing what can be known about a perceived world, Sextus suggests that “one
who accepts objects, but attacks sensory appearance, through which one
grasps objects, is completely deranged” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.260).
This is a rather extreme response. The Stoic position is far from “attack-
ing” the perceptual and preconceptual conditions of our knowledge. It
instead recognizes frequent instances where those conditions might not
produce knowledge. Nevertheless, Sextus’ contestation to Epictetus’
argument concerning the notion of the obstacle seemingly polarizes their
respective positions.
Despite this difference, from the preceding discussion we can recognize
that Epictetus and Sextus interpret an inescapably coexistent relationship
between preconceptions and knowledge production. Neither of their
positions excludes preconceptions from associated assertions about facts
and truth. This is not to say that their positions cohere otherwise of course.
Epictetus attributes humans with the capacity to distinguish which pre-
conception appropriately informs which apprehension of truth. Sextus
does not agree. What is peculiarly apparent in any case for both Epictetus
and Sextus about preconceptions epistemologically is that before humans
determine something to be true, we already have a preconceptual orienta-
tion to that truth. We do not simply “discover” truth. We hold rather a
certain idea of it in advance of realizing it and identifying it. Despite their
differentiation regarding how this relates to our access to truth, both
Sextus and the Stoic model on which he commentates do assume that a

truth in the world exists before we rational agents comprehend it.6
For Epictetus and Sextus therefore, the constitution of this comprehen-
sion comprises both preconception and a “newly developed” conception.
In a separate theoretical context, Max Weber (1864–1920) also appreci-
ates this co-constitution when reviewing the nature of scientific objectiv-
ity. Weber takes a study of the relations between preconceptions and
knowledge in a useful direction for our opening considerations on objec-
tivity. I refer here specifically to his deliberations about how the notion of
a preconceptually conditioned knowledge might affect the value of our
knowledge, specifically scientific knowledge.
Can We Know the Value of Knowledge?

Epictetus and Sextus assert that we cannot investigate the truth of some-
thing without already having a preconception of it. Weber similarly ana-
lyzes how epistemological processes might relate to an inquirer’s
presuppositions. Weber encourages us to appreciate what the ramifications
for notions of knowledge are when we accommodate rather than exclude
the presuppositions of an inquirer. As becomes apparent in this chapter, I
will be drawing a connection between Stoic/skeptical impressions of a
“preconception” and Weber’s sense of a “presupposition.”
Weber’s perspective forms part of his assertion that all scientific meth-
odology occurs through contextually interpretative rather than transcen-
dentally absolute modes. Given my focus on socialized phenomena in this
book, it is notable that Weber also applies his argument about science
generally to social science specifically. In The Nature of Social Action he
asserts that even when observing the most standardizing of environments,
the “meanings” that are derived about human behaviors should not be
“thought of as somehow objectively ‘correct’ or ‘true’ by some metaphysi-
cal criterion” (Weber 1978, 7). Weber rather is intrigued about the traces
of personal value and subjectivity present in perspectives and processes
that we believe to be impersonally homogenized.7
These themes become most apparent in The Vocation Lectures when
Weber builds on Friedrich Nietzsche’s insight that a paradox emerges
when attempting to justify scientific inquiry.8 The paradox in question
concerns how science in all its forms presupposes that the products of its
inquiries are worth knowing. For Weber this presupposition actually indi-
cates the restricted jurisdiction of scientific claims to objectivity. This is
106 W. JOHNCOCK
because scientific inquiry, if it contains objective conditions, cannot via

that objectivity validate its own presupposition of its worth (Weber 2004,
18). This brings to our attention the complications that an inquirer will
experience when attempting to offer an “objective valuation” of a scien-
tific inquiry. Such qualitative evaluations go beyond the jurisdiction of
scientific objectives. Weber’s doubt here concerns whether science can
ever verify the value or worth of science. Scientific projects do project a
belief in their value. It is expressed in their premises and by their agents.
Can a scientific project adjudicate on its value though?
That science cannot validate the worth or value of its studies is a posi-
tion that Weber takes when analyzing medical science in The Methodology
of the Social Sciences. Weber argues that the objective of a practitioner or
researcher in the medical sciences is to preserve life, with the associated
responsibilities of preventing pain and suffering. This he posits is broadly
recognized and quantifiably objectifiable. If we ask the medical practitio-
ner or researcher why science preserves a patient’s life though, the param-
eters framing the response become less objectivity assessable. Any such
response indeed ceases to be in Weber’s estimation of a scientific evalua-
tion. Weber takes this example as symbolic of why scientific results can
give people knowledge but not instruct them about the value of that
knowledge, whereby “science cannot tell anyone what they should do—
but rather what they can do” (Weber 1949, 54).
What would Epictetus’ estimation be of the value-adjudicating capaci-
ties of science? Epictetus firstly does not focus on the literal “scientific”
elements of Stoic philosophy. Direct discussions of science are in fact rare
in his Discourses and non-existent in The Enchiridion. In commentating on
this in the “Introduction” to Epictetus’ Discourses, William Oldfather also
invites a Nietzschean observation. Oldfather emphasizes Stoicism’s
Socratic roots in noting how for Nietzsche the Socratic schools by “look-
ing at everything from the point of view of happiness … bound the arter-
ies of scientific research” (Oldfather in Epictetus 1961, xxv). Oldfather
shares this view to suggest that “this word of Nietzsche’s seems especially
apt of Epictetus” given that Epictetus cared “not at all for science” (xxv).
Despite this apparent disinterest in scientific formalities, Epictetus does
continue in a Stoic tradition whose inaugurating principles emphasize the
importance of empirically derived knowledge. Famously outlined in
Cicero’s Academica (On Academic Skepticism), Zeno represents the pos-
session of scientific knowledge “by gesture.” In this gesture, Zeno por-
trays a perceptual impression or “visual appearance” of the world with an
open palm. He then closes his fingers to indicate “assent” to that impres-
sion. Making a fist then exemplifies a stage of cognition or “comprehen-
sion.” Finally, by grasping this fist with his other hand, he symbolizes the
“scientific knowledge” of the wise man (Cicero 1967b, 2.145). For Zeno
this illustrates how sense-perception or “sensation” instigates a process
that can generate knowledge. Zeno does not believe that all sense-
perception is trustworthy. That our senses can however condition such
knowledge means for Zeno that sensation is “trustworthy”:
…not because it grasped all the properties of the thing but because it let go
nothing that was capable of being its object, and because nature had
bestowed as it were a “measuring-rod” of knowledge and a first principle of
itself from which subsequently notions of things could be impressed upon
the mind, out of which not first principles only but certain broader roads to
the discovery of reasoned truth were opened up. (2.142)9
Zeno here describes how nature bestows the capacities for discerning the
preconditions for knowledge. From this, we can interpret an influence on
Epictetus’ conception of our natural inclination to rationally distinguish
correct judgments that derive from our preconceptions and sense-
impressions. Even without concerning himself with specifically scientifi-
cally empirical themes, Epictetus is operating within a Stoic heritage in
which the perceptual conditions of knowledge occur in accordance with
our nature.
Epictetus illustrates the legitimacy of this assent from impression to
knowledge via a thought experiment. This asks that during the middle of
the day we try to believe that it is conversely the middle of the night
(Epictetus 2014, 1.28, 2–3). Epictetus here asserts that because our
impression will guide us against this “belief,” such an impression must be
“adequate” (1.28, 2–3). The adequacy of other impressions more broadly
determines that there is no need to entirely suspend judgment as the skep-
tics claim or to withhold assent.
Sextus recognizes that “adequate impressions” could lead us away from
the realm of misinformed opinion toward reliable or scientific knowledge.
The concern though for Sextus is that this adequacy alone does not suffi-
ciently guarantee knowledge. John Sellars reports that even beyond
Sextus’ view this is because “adequate impressions can be held by anyone
and thus do not in themselves constitute scientific knowledge. They are a
necessary condition but not a sufficient condition of such knowledge”
108 W. JOHNCOCK
(Sellars 2009, 161). As we have explored, this means that Stoic episte-
mologies do not necessarily satisfy knowledge conditions for Sextus.
Epictetus though operates in the just-reviewed Stoic tradition in which if
we adjudicate in accordance with nature our empirically derived impres-
sions are conditions for knowledge.
We can ascertain an explicitly scientific characterization of such knowl-
edge for Epictetus from a passage in Discourses. As Robert Dobbin trans-
lates, in considering “what makes for freedom and fluency in the practice
of writing” Epictetus identifies “knowledge of how to write” (Epictetus
2008, 4.1, 63). When moving onto grander themes Epictetus then notes
that in the “conduct of life, there must be a science of living well” (4.1,
63). As we see Epictetus describe, knowledge conditions how we write or
how we scientifically live well. To live well for the Stoics is to live according
to nature. If the knowledge of how to live well is “scientific” as he states,
then scientific knowledge thus assists us in living in accordance with
nature. This establishes a scientific characterization of the knowledge of
living in accordance with nature for Epictetus. We can from this insight
open a discussion with Weber’s doubt about whether scientific knowledge
ever has value properties.
The preceding analysis suggests that for Epictetus the preconception-
observation-knowledge development occurs in accordance with our ratio-
nal natural ends. That this knowledge for Epictetus is not only “scientific”
but also evaluates and directs us how to “live well” (in accordance with
nature) seemingly contradicts Weber’s belief that science cannot tell us
what we should do. Epictetus’ position is that such knowledge can tell us
what we should do and how we can live well. We could in fact recall that
it is knowledge’s nature to inform these kinds of value-orientations, as we
have reviewed in Chap. 2 via the topic of Epictetus’ daimon. We might
also reflect on how in Chap. 4 our self-preservation relies on the natural
value that the Stoics attribute to knowing our rational ends. Epictetus has
now associated the naturally inherent value of these ends of living well
with a scientific knowledge.
Zeno’s to Epictetus’ Stoicisms assert that we have a natural rationality
that knows how to distinguish which preconceptions and impressions are
true. By being aware of this nature we live a more virtuous life accordingly.
Again, therefore, the science of living well or rationally tells us what we
should do. Complementing the justification that there are no obstacles to
our preconceptions if they are guided by rational and natural judgment,
Epictetus posits that conflict only arises between preconceptions when

they are applied to “particular cases” (Epictetus 2014, 1.22, 2). As we will
discuss now, this concerns how educated or knowledgeable we are when
applying our preconceptions to individual situations.
Take the example of climbing to a dangerous height. One person’s
preconception of the “bravery” of the act might condition their cognitive
impression of it. Another person could alternatively have a preconception
of the act’s “craziness.” In responses like these for Epictetus it is not the
preconceptions that are in conflict. As earlier reviewed the preconceptions
are universal, they are part of each of our natures in that we all carry them.
The problem for Epictetus does not reside at the preconception level itself
but in our uneducated manner of applying these universal preconceptions
to non-universal cases. Epictetus advises that in such circumstances we
need to “learn to apply our natural preconceptions to particular cases” in
a way that is in “accord with nature” (1.22, 9). From such conformity
comes a functional knowledge that will underpin our life’s value structures
in “the nature of the good” (1.23, 2).10 Knowledge serves a good life.
Weber’s portrayal of course firmly differentiates between function and
value. We can evaluate scientific knowledge only in terms of operation and
not in relation to notions of good or value (Weber 1949, 54). Impressions
developed scientifically do not guide us ethically. They cannot tell us how
we should live but instead only assist by informing us how we can live.
Conversely for Epictetus’ Stoic position, through the transformation of
impressions to knowledge, the Stoic individual understands their relations
to themselves and the world in a manner that serves common value and
virtue structures. This is not just Epictetus’ impression. Stobaeus reports
the value that is inherent to the scientific conditions within Stoic knowl-
edge generally in that for the Stoics “scientific knowledge [episteme] is a
cognition … which exists in the virtuous man” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.112, in
L&S, 256; my emphasis). The virtuous directions of scientific knowledge
in this reading cannot avoid possessing answers to the “should” of a Stoic
existence. Quite differently for Weber the benefit of scientifically derived
epistemological insights can only explain the physically causal world.
Science does not contribute to a knowledge-based development of a moral
guide for individual lives. Having established this distinction we can now
ask what the effect is of each position for our opening considerations
regarding the objective status of knowledge.
110 W. JOHNCOCK
Orientated Objective Knowledge

In The Vocation Lectures Weber explains that the distinction he identifies
between function and value is symbolic of the direction of scientific and
intellectual inquiries in early twentieth-century Germany (Weber 2004,
12). Weber reports that this emphasis on scientific functionalism is consis-
tent at the time with dominant bureaucratic notions of rationalism and
organizational efficiency. This societal and institutional trend positions sci-
ence fortuitously in Weber’s estimation to benefit from the consequent
narrowing of the country’s educational and ideological focus. As universi-
ties, for example, become increasingly concerned with practices that can
be evaluated according to quantifiably rational and functional parameters,
the apparently objective or factual ends of the sciences will be prioritized.
By reducing the human experience of the world to a set of preconceived
laws that can predict what will occur, humanity for Weber gets a seductive
glimpse of the potential for total control over its physical environment. As
an example that again uses the context of the medical sciences, this scien-
tific emphasis provides a greater certainty about how to address human
physiological vulnerabilities. The appeal of the sciences here for Weber is
that no longer will our existence be “ruled by mysterious, unpredictable
forces, but that, on the contrary, we can in principle control everything by
means of calculation” (13).
We can pause on this aspect of Weber’s review that with scientific
knowledge comes an expected control of the world. Converse to this,
Epictetus’ position is that in learning how to apply preconceptions in a
naturally rational manner we do not head toward a complete control of
our surroundings. An increased knowledge regarding the science of living
well does not equate to an increased control. The effect for the Stoic is
instead that via such knowledge we are better able to “draw the distinction
that some things lie within our power while others do not” (Epictetus
2014, 1.22, 9). Stoic knowledge anticipates the capacity to distinguish
what always was in our control versus what was never in our control nor
ever will be. This counters the modern view that scientific knowledge her-
alds a new era in which we approach a more complete control of the world.
Epictetus’ categorization of the features of our existence that are in our
control (such as judgments) versus those that are not (body, possessions)
is a topic of debate in Chap. 2 of this book. Interestingly in terms of the
current themes of this chapter though, Epictetus here also states that
another parameter which is in our control is “moral choice and all acts that
depend on that choice” (1.22, 10). For Epictetus our epistemological

inclinations do not service a cold control of the world. Knowledge orien-
tations are rather about rationally adjudicating the limits of that control in
order to enhance the moral value and purpose of our lives. We again see
function and value operate together in a manner that differs from Weber’s
thesis. While for Epictetus preconceptions are universal and “common to
all” humans (1.22, 1), how a person individually applies preconceptions
will determine to what extent they function according to the natural val-
ues by which we should Stoically live.
For this Stoic view, preconceptions and consequent knowledge inhabit
the universal value structures that guide our nature. Weber interestingly
also recognizes a universalized connection between values and preconcep-
tions. In this regard, he refers to a fundamental preconception which
assumes that there is a value to any truth that we obtain about the world.
No truth manifests in value-free isolation, not even the general notion of
truth itself. Weber duly demands that social scientists, for example, have
always presupposed the possibility of an ordered and objective truth to the
extent that it defines their disciplines’ heritage and development (Weber
1949, 105). This is a value-orientation that authorizes the search for facts
that such practitioners “uncover” or “develop” (76).
We have indeed covered via Durkheim in Chap. 2 how the foundations
of sociology revolve around the belief that the objects of its inquiries
(“social facts”) are as objectively knowable and therefore as valid as the
facts of the physical sciences. That investigators of all fields embody this
belief differently means for Weber that the history of scientific inquiry and
objectivity incorporates a practitioners’ values which are “attempting to
order reality analytically” (105). The notion of scientific objectivity does
not simply demand what can be determined to be true about the world by
removing an inquirer’s subjectivities. Objectivity is itself a value perpetu-
ated and desired by generations of subjectivities. The impersonality of
objectivity is in this sense for Weber destabilized. An important subtlety to
which we must be sensitive is that Weber does not intend to discount the
possibility of objectivity based on the preceding insights. The just-
mentioned destabilization is not a destruction of objective truth but a
reconstruction of how we conceive its actuality. This conception differs
completely from its conventional status (as briefly considered at this chap-
ter’s outset) which requires the neutral separation of an object of inquiry
from the values of its inquirer (105).
112 W. JOHNCOCK
This theme of maintaining a belief in objectivity despite objectivity’s

intersections with preconceived values is also raised in Sextus’ concerns
about Stoic theory. Sextus does not entirely negate the fact that we have
objective conceptions. In declaring that our preconceptions about an
object steer our overall and only sense of that object, his position is in his
words “so far from saying that we do not have a conception of the entire
object being investigated” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 2.332a). Or in other
words for Sextus, despite the role of preconceptions we can still conceive
the object we are investigating. The problem persists though that when
appreciating that humans have “many conceptions and preconceptions”
of the object” (2.332a), we must question whether “this object knowl-
edge” is ever the true and verifiable perspective.
These preconceptual conditions of knowledge require for Sextus (but
not for Weber) a certain “suspension” of the belief that we know the object.
In Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus further clarifies that while a skeptic might
be “emotionally or compulsorily” driven to “yield … to assent,” this is bet-
ter described as “nonassertion” rather than belief (Sextus Empiricus 1933,
1.193). Brad Inwood clarifies this “nonassertion” in terms of how it con-
flicts with assent proper. The skeptic who recognizes that they live as if they
have knowledge, while remembering the nonassertions underpinning their
decisions, “does not take responsibility for the propositional attitudes and
beliefs to which his behaviour might seem to commit him” (Inwood 1985,
76). Straightforwardly, this skeptical view portrays Stoics and others as mis-
guided about knowledge assertions. More interestingly, I believe that for
Sextus skepticism is a practical outlook. Being skeptical allows us to func-
tion in the world while appreciating that our knowledge is conditioned by
nonassertions about that world. For Sextus, we can be practically prag-
matic in our existence without holding certainty regarding knowledge.
This argument matters given the jurisdiction the Stoics usually have over
the notion of practically oriented philosophical beliefs. What is objectively
practical is in Sextus’ view the skeptic’s day-to-day functioning which
accepts our “inability to discriminate” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 2.332a)
between differently presupposed knowledge.
So numerous are the possible complications with our generation of
knowledge for Sextus that he even invokes the Academic Carneades’ con-
testation to Stoic knowledge-claims regarding the role of what is unreal.
Appearances of the world for the Stoics and the associated cognitive
impressions we develop from these appearances could not arise from what
is not real. We have seen this in Zeno’s imagery of the fist of knowledge.
Long and Sedley describe Zeno’s reading of the cognitive impression as

that which has “a real object as its cause” and that “represents the object
with complete accuracy and clarity” (Long and Sedley 1987, 250).
Conversely as portrayed by Sextus, Carneades demands that any impres-
sions that we have of an object “come about from unreal things as well as
from real ones” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, 1.402). That such impressions
are constructions of an object’s reality and unreality is because both aspects
are “found equally striking and plain” as “an indication of their indistin-
guishability” (1.403; my emphasis). Such a thesis is consistent with the
heart of Sextus’ own argument. If the sources of the impressions of what
a thing is, as well as of what a thing is not, are indiscernible from each
other, then we derive unreliable truths or knowledge from the judgments
associated with such impressions. Sextus’ view is that believing we know
what something is probably also always involves being coerced by what
it is not.
This supports Sextus’ call that the Stoic belief in the conditions for
knowledge must be suspended. Weber somewhat differently does not call
for the suspension of judgments and/or decisions regarding knowledge.
He instead asks us to accommodate the unavoidability of value-oriented
and preconditioned knowledge. This would even be applicable to
Epictetus’ scientific knowledge of living well, for in Weber’s view “no sci-
ence is absolutely free of assumptions” (Weber 2004, 28). Provided these
assumptions are rationally discriminated preconditions, Epictetus’ episte-
mological structure would agree with Weber’s assertion. Where for Weber
though such value-orientations are environmentally and subjectively fash-
ioned, for Epictetus we find a universal rationalization of preconceptual
conditions.
Notes
1. This interpretation informs critical reviews of the humanities and the social
sciences via the “two cultures problem.” The two cultures problem attends
to a belief in the following distinction; the natural sciences uncover singu-
larly objective, timeless truths, whereas the humanities and the social sci-
ences present contingently contextual, socialized/encultured phenomena.
Snow (1998 [1959], 14–15) famously exemplifies this distinction.
2. The modern view on the role of falsification in scientific methods is some-
what informed by Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Popper
distinguishes falsifiability from the logical empiricist notion of “verifiabil-
ity.” Verifiability asserts that a claim is meaningful if other investigators can
114 W. JOHNCOCK
authenticate it (Popper 2002 [1959], 9–10). This method intends to

demarcate the empirical sciences from metaphysical philosophies and other
fields. Popper contends though that verifiability renders meaningless cer-
tain scientifically useful, universalizing conclusions, where, for example,
“no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this
does not justify [according to the principles of verifiability] the conclusion
that all swans are white” (4). Given that Popper recognizes a valid use for
science of claims similar in construction to “all swans are white,” he coun-
ters the verifiability method. What Popper instead posits as distinguishing
a scientific theory from a non-scientific theory is that the theory contains
claims that might prove to be false. Non-scientific theories will not feature
these potentially falsifiable parameters. There are numerous criticisms of
Popper’s theory of falsification. The most impressive in my view is that of
Thomas Kuhn (1962). Kuhn argues that an issue with Popper’s falsifica-
tion concept is that observers will “falsify” (or not falsify) in contradictory
ways. This renders every process of falsification as itself requiring examina-
tion for falsification. Popper nevertheless provides an example of why we
might view the objectivity of the sciences as bound up in their capacity to
resist falsification.
3. Jonathan Bartlett and Chris Frost explain that “repeatability” refers to the
use of the same experimental conditions in subsequent examinations. This
is in order to compare the results garnered secondarily with those previ-
ously obtained. The repeatability of the scientific apparatus will require
measurements to be “made by the same instrument or method … on the
same subject under identical conditions” (Bartlett and Frost 2008, 467).
4. I have explored this theme in an earlier work, “The Experimental Flesh:
Incarnation in Terms of Quantum Measurement and Phenomenological
Perception.” Via the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the theo-
retical physics of both Niels Bohr and Karen Barad, I consider whether we
can reduce Being to “a separation of knower from what can be known, or
of observer from what can be observed” (Johncock 2011, 140). While in
that work I destabilize this subject|object separation, the important point
to recognize here is the pervading interpretation that such a separation
conditions objectivity.
5. There are various ancients whose thought Sextus could be even inadver-
tently developing in this question. Perhaps most notably the pre-Socratic
philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, postulates that “if you do not hope,
you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and
inaccessible” (Heraclitus 1889, 86). The interpretation here is that the
impulse of hope is what leads to the result of hope. To some extent, this is
consistent with the connection we are exploring between the preconcep-
tions of knowledge and the knowledge-results of those preconceptions. Of
perhaps greater prominence is Plato’s discussion of the “paradox of
inquiry” that Meno offers in response to Socrates. Plato posits that inquiry
never strictly involves the “learning” or “discovery” of knowledge of which
someone is entirely unfamiliar. Learning instead initiates the recalling of
things that our immortal soul already knows or expects to know (Plato
1980). A basis of Meno’s argument is that if you did not already know the
answer to your inquiry you would not be able to recognize it when you
“encounter” it.
6. This presumption of a world of pre-known truths that inhabit the world is
not exclusive to any school. Before the Stoics we can turn, for instance, to
Plato’s influential studies regarding wanting to discover the truth behind
appearances. The “Allegory of the Cave” in Plato’s Republic (2012) could
be the best-known example of this.
7. This attention on subjectivity in an era of mass socialized standardization
and objectification would come to inspire Frankfurt School critical theo-
rists such as Herbert Marcuse (2002 [1964]) as well as Max Horkheimer
and Theodor Adorno. In Dialectic of Enlightenment Horkheimer and
Adorno argue that capitalist impositions beckon an end to subjectivity, in
that “the individual is entirely nullified in the face of the economic powers”
(Horkheimer and Adorno 2002 [1947], xviii).
8. Nietzsche’s most compelling position on the value-laden quality of science
comes in his The Birth of Tragedy (1995 [1886]). See, in particular, the
chapter “Attempt at Self-Criticism” which did not feature in the book’s
first edition (given that it is a commentary, in effect, on that first edition).
For a complementary comprehensive study of Nietzsche’s broader reading
of science, see Babette Babich’s Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Science: Reflecting
Science on the Ground of Art and Life (1994).
9. Cicero elsewhere recounts how Zeno says of “sense presentations … some
were false, but not all” (Cicero 1967a, 1.25, 71).
10. It is debatable whether this broad sense of conforming to nature is a satis-
factory response to the concern about the ramifications of conflicting pre-
conceptions. It definitely does not satisfy Sextus as we have noted. Anthony
Long and David Sedley assert, for instance, that “for this quite promising
move to work, the scope and content of preconceptions would need to be
far more restricted than the Stoics were willing to admit” (Long and Sedley
1987, 253).
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New York: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
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Nature. Translated by G. Patrick. Baltimore: Isaac Friedenwald.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor Adorno. 2002 (1947). Dialectic of Enlightenment:
Philosophical Fragments. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Translated by
Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Jackson-McCabe, Matt. 2005. The Stoic Theory of Implanted Preconceptions.
Phronesis 49 (4): 323–347.
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Measurement and Phenomenological Perception. Phenomenology and Practice
5 (1): 140–154.
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of Chicago Press.
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Advanced Industrial Society. London and New York: Routledge.
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London and New York: Penguin.
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Publishing Company.
Penguin Books.
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———. 2000. Outlines of Scepticism. Edited and translated by Julia Annas and
Jonathan Barnes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2005. Against the Logicians. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge:
Snow, Charles Percy. 1998 (1959). The Two Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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Edward Shils & Henry Finch. Glencoe: The Free Press of Glencoe.
———. 1978. The Nature of Social Action. In Weber: Selections in Translation, ed.
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Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2004. The Vocation Lectures. Edited by David Owen and Tracy Strong.
Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
CHAPTER 6
Do People Know Why They Travel? Seneca

and Anthony Giddens on Ignorance
Traveling for Tranquility
For discontent individuals travel can seem to provide an appropriate
change. Working in an unrewarding job, a recently ended relationship, or
otherwise feeling stagnant in the all too familiar surroundings of home,
regularly represent motivations for travel.1 An individual’s capacity to
exhibit the self-awareness that a change in environment could benefit
them often receives praise. The interpretation here is of proactively turn-
ing an adverse situation into an opportunity for a new experience.
This emphasis on how to “take control” of your life intersects with a
central Stoic mantra. The Stoic interpretation to which I am referring is
that an unfavorable circumstance does not harm us but provides us with
an occasion to prove our virtuousness. This requires as we have seen that
we are resilient to a circumstance’s environmentally negative stimuli by
instead focusing on what is within our power. For influential ancient Stoics
such circumstances are consequently not adverse whatsoever. They are
instead “blessings” which help us to distinguish the aspects of our exis-
tence over which we have control.2
We would not necessarily expect that modern interpretations of the
traveler would look upon their motivations in terms of Stoic virtue. A
present-day perspective instead often reads voluntary travel as an indica-
tion of a person’s desire to experience different cultures and see more of
the world. Modern affluences and technologies have in this sense increased

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_6
120 W. JOHNCOCK
attention on the topic of global travel and the question of why people
travel where they do.
Beyond the current era though, we can also find an interest in evalua-
tions of the motivations for travel. A prominent ancient view appears in
the commentaries of the Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(5 BCE–65 ACE). These commentaries take the form of a series of letters
addressed to Gaius Lucilius, the procurator of Sicily. In these letters,
Seneca regularly discusses Stoic principles, which is why they are antholo-
gized as Letters from a Stoic.3 Seneca’s interest in the topic of travel emerges
from within this conceptual impetus and investigates the dual questions of
(1) why we choose to travel and (2) what are the results for us that mani-
fest from travel.
In engaging Seneca on this topic, his personal wealth and political
power are not irrelevant. We must in this regard appreciate the relative
ease with which he was able to travel in comparison to the average Roman
citizen of the era.4 It is within such a context that in referring to his own
recent travel experience Seneca specifically explains that he journeyed to
his “place at Nomentum.” This journey is not to escape anything about
his current environment, “the city,” but rather because of “a fever” (Seneca
1969, 104, 1–5). The effect of travel upon Seneca’s health is seemingly
positive in that he enthusiastically states that no sooner had he exited “the
oppressive atmosphere of the city” with its “poisonous fumes” than he
“noticed a change in his condition” (104, 6–11). Not everyone of course
had the financial luxury of being able to travel to their countryside house
to recover from illness. For Seneca though the ailment from which he was
suffering is a valid justification for travel. So improved is his condition
from the journey that he assumes openly in his writing that anyone could
easily “imagine how much stronger I felt after reaching my vineyards”
(104, 6–11). Here he presumes a general belief in the positive effect of
traveling to a more tranquil setting when unwell.
Even though Seneca talks fondly of the grass, the animals, and the
pleasing natural environment in Nomentum, he makes an important qual-
ification regarding what is most responsible for the upturn in his health.
This he asserts is not his new surroundings but the capacity of his own
mind to be able to enjoy this seclusion. While enjoying such calmness is an
easy task in this rural setting, for Seneca a healthy mind should be able to
feel calm in even the most frantic of environments. He refers to his new-
found health accordingly as an indication of a state of mind that finds
tranquility regardless of the external environment, whereby his current
condition:
6 DO PEOPLE KNOW WHY THEY TRAVEL? SENECA AND ANTHONY GIDDENS… 121
…is not something, however, to which mere surroundings are conducive,

unless the mind is at its own disposal, able at will to provide its own seclu-
sion even in crowded moments. (104, 6–11)
We can acknowledge then that tranquility in Seneca’s impression is cor-

related with a certain mental state. Tranquility is not simply bound to the
contingencies of an external environment. Seneca’s “voyage to tranquil-
ity” indicates an inner journey instead of a physical or geographical move-
ment. This is a theme that will arise later in this chapter’s discussion with
Anthony Giddens in considering the kind of travel that Seneca does
endorse.
It is because of this distinction that for Seneca the individual who roams
incessantly hoping that new surroundings alone will induce a sense of
peace “will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from
relaxing” (104, 6–11). No one benefits according to Seneca to “go over-
seas” or to “move from city to city” if they do not already possess this
self-maintained mental conditioning. Commentators generally agree that
for Seneca without this inner perspective our experiences of new sur-
roundings will be encumbered by our concerns that preceded such travel
(Inwood 2005, 317; Graver 2007, 99–101).
In advising not to follow the lead of others in traveling just for the sake
of it we see a consistency with Seneca’s general ethos that we should each
think for ourselves. This directive extends to our relationship with our
teachers. Elsewhere Seneca advises regarding the studying of Stoicism that
in the way Chrysippus disagreed on aspects of philosophy with his teacher
Cleanthes, so everyone should “claim his own freedom” (Seneca 1962,
113.23). This coheres as Gretchen Reydams-Schils observes with how for
Seneca “Stoics are not beholden to the authority of a master” (Reydams-
Schils 2011, 299). It is likewise why Massimo Pigliucci comments that in
belonging to the “posterity Seneca is talking about,” in Pigliucci’s own
Stoicism he feels “free to accept or reject whatever I find sensible in his
teachings” (Pigliucci 2017b). Seneca’s outlook applies whether one’s mas-
ter is a sage like Zeno or a compulsion to follow a trend like unthought
traveling. This emphasis on freedom goes hand in hand with Seneca’s view
that to escape an adverse state an internal rather than an external transition
is required in which you become a master of the self. Becoming this master
will allow us to escape what Seneca identifies as the greatest of internal
afflictions.
122 W. JOHNCOCK
Fear of Death
For Seneca an internal journey is necessary to arrive at a peaceful state.
This kind of “traveling” will help us to arrive at a different sense of self,
whereby “if you really want to escape the things that harass you, what
you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different per-
son” (Seneca 1969, 104, 6–11). The “things” that in Seneca’s terms
“harass” an individual include what we have seen general Stoic principles
believe contradicts our living in accordance with nature.
One such thing is a desire for wealth and power. Seneca perceives that
he is resilient to such forces given that he has both wealth and power and
so neither controls him. In particular he demands that if we unhealthily
value “wealth” or “success in public life,” no matter where we travel we
will always be lacking what we need to be happy (104, 6–11).5 Another
“thing” which Seneca believes is pivotal in preventing solace is our fear
that death represents the “worst of all bad things” (104, 6–12). If you fear
dying before traveling, you will for Seneca still fear it when you arrive
somewhere new. You will indeed potentially fear it even more if where you
travel you find different aspects of the environment which threaten your
life. In again noting the pointlessness of traveling to quell such discontent,
Seneca rhetorically laments “what difference does the character of the
place make?” (104, 6–11).6
The fear of death is for Seneca related to our experiences of the deaths
of others we know. Seneca does not believe that emotional reactions to
such deaths are irrational. The argument that a Stoic mindset can be emo-
tional about things is part of Seneca’s differentiation between an Epicurean
sage and a Stoic sage. For Seneca the Stoic “feels” their “troubles but
overcomes them” whereas the Epicurean “does not even feel them” (9,
2). Contemporary Stoic commentators also emphasize the point that
either in Stoicism generally (Becker 2004; Sellars 2016a, 48) or Seneca’s
Stoicism specifically (Farren 2014, 196–198; Robertson 2014, 35–36)
there is not a demand to be unemotional. The imperative instead is to
manage faulty reasoning which leads to unpleasant emotions. Seneca
expects that we will be upset about losing a close friend or family member
to death. Such experiences destabilize us because “other people are
snatched away from us” (Seneca 1969, 104, 12). What however we need
to be more attentive to is that if our fear of death remains unaddressed
even when we are healthily alive “we are being filched away surreptitiously
from ourselves” (104, 12).
This sentiment of a “filching” or distancing of ourselves from ourselves

coheres with the Stoic concern about a life that is not lived in accordance
with nature. Seneca says such self-distancing occurs in two ways. Firstly,
the individual who is not responsive to their fear of something like death
avoids “attending to their own self-preservation” (104, 12). This topic of
“preservation” regards how we manage the threat that fear signals.
Certainly in one sense, fear might be a valid precautionary self-defense
mechanism in perilous circumstances. If however such fear continually
dictates or controls us then there is nothing self-serving about the fear
response (104, 12). Instead of incorporating fearful self-defense responses
at all in fact, for Seneca the self-preserving actions that deserve priority are
those which focus on what it means to live in accordance with what is in
one’s control. Seneca here expresses the Stoic perspective on control that
we have earlier seen expanded in terms of self-preservation.
Complementing general concerns regarding self-preservation, the sec-
ond way this self-distancing occurs for Seneca is that if we travel to try to
dampen such fears, what actually occurs is a further separation from the
aspect of the self that we should be addressing. This self-separation again
results from repressing the fearful aspect of the self. As Seneca rhetorically
critiques of the anticipated benefits from traveling such as clearing your
mind, “what good has travel of itself ever been able to do anyone” in
bringing about a greater self-awareness (104, 12)? It might seem peculiar
that someone would be perpetually thinking about and fearing their death
as Seneca claims. What we can nevertheless take from this stage of our
Seneca discussion is that traveling to distract ourselves from our concerns
is not in accordance with our nature.
We are treading a very particular consciousness of death here. In one
regard Seneca encourages us not to think of death in a way that engenders
a fear of it that controls us. In another regard though we should not
“improperly” attempt to repress the fear or distract ourselves from it.
Seneca indeed acknowledges the potential in all of us to be healthily cog-
nizant of the ramifications of death. This is a point that coheres with
Seneca’s call throughout his On the Shortness of Life (1997). In an alterna-
tive letter to the one on which we have been focused Seneca similarly
recognizes everyone’s capability to understand their inevitable mortality,
in that “no one is so ignorant as not to know that some day he must die”
(Seneca 1969, 77, 12). This portrays any such “ignorance” regarding
death as an active choice to avoid reflecting on the most threatening
of fears.7
124 W. JOHNCOCK
That traveling to avoid internal reflection is an active choice does not

stop Seneca from emphasizing its aimlessness. All the “hurrying from
place to place” (104, 19) which travel comprises makes it an indirect ori-
entation. A better definition accordingly for travel in Seneca’s view is
“drifting.” This drifting does not simply refer to a physical meandering
through the terrains and regions of the world. As we might expect it is also
indicative of one’s growing ignorance about what is essential or most nat-
urally accordable about life. An individual who is governed by fears or
desires “remains in ignorance of what to aim at and what to avoid, what is
essential and what is superfluous, what is upright or honorable conduct
and what is not” (104, 19; my emphasis). This for Seneca leads to a voyage
that “will not be travelling but drifting” (104, 19).
The terminological diversion toward “drifting” might seem to liberate
“travel” from some of the negative connotations it receives in Seneca’s
commentary. He does distinguish traveling from drifting in the immedi-
ately preceding citation after all. I believe the reason for this however is to
differentiate the beneficial experience that people assume traveling is, from
the harmful experience that it often actually eventuates as. Traveling can
never itself be the source of fulfillment for Seneca, arguing that “the trip
doesn’t exist that can set you beyond the reach of cravings, first of temper,
or fears” (109, 19).
This distinction between what someone thinks travel is versus what its
reality is leads us to Seneca’s portrayal of the ignorance behind our
decision-making. An ignorance of what sort of person you are will lead
you to desire travel simply for travel’s sake. From this ignorance, you will
carry a set of conditioning fears and desires from your home location to
your travel destination (28, 2). The same ignorant self goes with you
wherever you are.
In focusing on the internalized ignorance of the self Seneca’s discussion
possibly appears to be at odds with this book’s focus on our awareness of
what shapes us that is “outside” us. We have indeed explored how our
individuated decision-making occurs via social and universal elements that
pervade beyond a restricted internality of the self. To contextualize
Seneca’s sense of subjective ignorance within these kinds of themes we will
open a dialogue with the sociology of Anthony Giddens. For Giddens, we
must question any suggestion that we are ever unaware of what impels us
to make decisions.
Are We Not Aware of Why We Make Decisions?

This ignorance that Seneca aligns with travel refers to the Stoic principle
of an unknowledgeable life not lived in accordance with natural ends. This
refers to a person’s development in relation to what for the Stoics are the
externals of the social sphere. Sociality is a reliable element to raise in
exploring Stoic subjective ignorance. This is because for Seneca the igno-
rant are those who desire the “uncontrollables” of public status or social
reputation. We have seen Epictetus highlight these exact concerns.
Rather than wanting the acclaim of our peers, Seneca actively encour-
ages us to develop an awareness of the “arts” that define a “social citizen.”
By developing these arts he believes we acquire wisdom which is “the
greatest art of all” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). From being a proficient public
speaker to learning the intricacies of medicine, for Seneca such arts are
crucial to how our citizenship manifests. Seneca delivers a further blow to
traveling by opposing the acquisition of these arts from it, stating that
“there isn’t a single art which is acquired merely by being in one place
rather than another” (104, 19). To fulfill the techniques and requirements
of social citizenship we need to stay where we are and work toward them.
Conversely, the “being in one place rather than another” of travel does not
facilitate the adequate production of a subject’s social artistry.
With Seneca’s introduction of this socialized parameter to the produc-
tion of subjectivity, we venture into the territory of modern social and
sociological theory. We will here invite perspectives from Anthony Giddens
on the topic of subjective self-knowledge in the context of our socialization
(1938–). A specific aspect of Giddens’ considerable body of work that
interests me is his accusation that “structuralist methodologies” unneces-
sarily constrain individuals. Structuralisms do this according to Giddens by
positing already fixed modes of social being for the subjects that are subse-
quently born into social arenas. Giddens’ focus is on sociological theories
rather than on philosophies such as Stoicism. Also, Seneca’s philosophy is
not a structuralist thesis. Nevertheless, Giddens’ position is relevant to the
preceding position found in Seneca, given that for Seneca a socialized sub-
ject is collectively and therefore structurally impelled to attain an already
established art of social being. Giddens furthermore has much to critique
about impressions that we are ever unaware of what motivates our deci-
sions, even if those decisions follow social patterns or trends (such as travel).
There is one constraint in structuralist approaches that concerns
Giddens. This is that structuralisms describe how aspects of society
126 W. JOHNCOCK
precede then produce individuals in ways of which individuals are not

aware. We will consider whether this element features in Seneca’s sense of
sociality. This concerns Seneca’s belief that we are generally not aware of
why we choose to travel and might just do it because it is what is normally
done. From this interaction, we will be able to contextualize through a
modern perspective Seneca’s position on our decisions to travel.
We firstly need to appraise Giddens’ contestation to the structuralist
outlook. It is in The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of
Structuration that Giddens most explicitly forwards his characterization of
structuralist tendencies. Here Giddens identifies Émile Durkheim’s socio-
logical study of suicide (which we encountered in Chap. 2 of this book) as
a prime example of a sociological structuralism which suffocates subjectiv-
ity. This occurs by what Giddens describes as Durkheim’s whole focus on
pre-established social ways of being for an individual.
Giddens is particularly concerned with how, for Durkheim, social struc-
tures exist before and after any individual’s existence, where “the longue
durée of institutions both pre-exists and outlasts the lives of individuals”
(Giddens 1984, 170). This is the basis upon which Giddens argues that
socially structural properties in the Durkheimian model, into which indi-
viduals are born, perpetually transcend individuals. The social structure
from which an individual’s behaviors derive is in this regard “certainly
exterior to the activities of the ‘individual’” (170). Durkheim in fact
repeatedly reminds readers that the collective consciousness which com-
prises social structure is exterior to the individual consciousness that
it shapes.
Because of this externality of social structure that Giddens identifies in
Durkheimian structuralism, his concern is that individuals have no agential
role in their own production. As noted in Chap. 2, Durkheim does state
that even if our decisions feel subjectively motivated, this should not pre-
vent us from acknowledging that they are collectively coerced. This pres-
ents the interpretation of a “constraint [that] stems from the ‘objective’
existence of structural properties that the individual agent is unable to
change” (176). If we think back to Seneca briefly there are likewise char-
acteristics of this kind of structuralist operation exhibited in his impression
of the individual acquisition of socialized techniques. Seneca like any Stoic
prioritizes the internal control of the self. Social techniques or “arts” as
Seneca terms them are nevertheless already structurally established and
esteemed within an arena into which a subject is born. The inclination to
acquire such arts and become social accordingly derives from collectively
structural authorizations. Preceding populations normalize these authori-

zations and present populations internalize them.
The conception that I present here of Seneca’s perspective might con-
cern Giddens if it means that Seneca is displaying the Durkheimian attri-
butes of which Giddens is so critical. Durkheim’s structuralism is indicative
for Giddens of social theories that attribute the production of subjectivity
to an inextricable preceding social force. The structuralist belief Giddens
laments is that after we are born into normalizing structures we are oblivi-
ous to the way that any decisions we make (such as the choice to travel)
are socially shaped. Giddens consequently claims that Durkheim’s sociol-
ogy imposes “circumstances, of which agents are ignorant and which
effectively ‘act’ on them, independent of whatever the agents may believe
they are up to” (xix; my emphasis). Giddens instead does not want to dis-
count the role or intention of the individual agent, in that “there are some
acts which cannot occur unless the agent intends them. Suicide is a case in
point. Durkheim’s conceptual efforts to the contrary” (8).
Giddens wants to respond to this notion that we unwittingly perpetu-
ate social structures into which we are born. We are never entirely “igno-
rant” in his view of our behaviors, actions, and “productions” (26). He
readily grants that our behaviors represent the patterns of predictable, col-
lective forces (as Durkheim identifies). Given the individual’s participation
in the production of such patterns however, “the knowledge they possess”
of these trends and norms “is not incidental to the persistent patterning of
social life but is integral to it” (26). This reflects Giddens’ demand to
acknowledge a co-constitutive production between an individual agent
and social structure. Rather than social structure antecedently and over-
poweringly producing agents who ignorantly reproduce its predictable
rhythms, there is for Giddens a “rationalization of action” by agents that
is “chronically involved in the structuration of social phenomena” (26).
Giddens recognizes an individual “rationality” about action that none-
theless behaves in a collectively predictable manner. This presents a poten-
tial agreement with Seneca’s appraisal of the Stoic individual’s inclination
to acquire social arts and techniques. As we have encountered it is Seneca’s
argument that in learning to be a medical doctor, or a public speaker, we
are bound up in the acquisition of wisdom (Seneca 1969, 104, 19; my
emphasis). Wisdom and rationality in this Stoic sense operate in tandem.
Seneca indeed proclaims in an earlier letter that “the wise man is content
with himself … for all he needs is a rational and elevated spirit” (9, 16; my
emphasis). His argument therefore is that for the individual to be wise, to
128 W. JOHNCOCK
acquire the social arts that precede them, is to act rationally. The individ-
ual knows they are acting in certain ways and why they are acting in those
ways. Giddens would seemingly endorse this view of the individual ratio-
nalization of a socially oriented consciousness.
Individuals are in this sense for Giddens aware of their own enactment
of that which precedes them. This is because they are internal to such force
if they are partly responsible for the shaping of its continuity.8 It is further
argued by Giddens that individuals might not only be “cognizant” of this
structural activity (as he earlier describes) but also feel a sense of social
responsibility as a result. This counters the Durkheimian impression that
he critiques of the individual that is blissfully unaware about their own
structuration. Instead of following structuralism’s lead of looking “for the
origins of their activities in phenomena of which the agents are ignorant”
(Giddens 1984, 26), Giddens’ belief is that sociology should acknowledge
the awareness that individuals have of their roles in their actions and self-
production (26).
The kind of “ignorance” that Seneca posits is, as we have seen, alterna-
tively focused on subjectively developmental rather than collectively socio-
logical concerns. The ignorant Stoic individual is unaware of their true
subjective nature; the concern is not on how society might structure them.
In his Stoic attention on how individuals “run away” (104, 19) from the
aspects of themselves and their psyches about which they are ignorant,
Seneca observes that ironically all such individuals run from is their true or
natural self/ends.
Despite this contextual difference between Giddens and Seneca, I want
to consider whether there are conditions within Giddens’ critique of
Durkheim regarding ignorance that he could also direct toward Seneca.
This consideration picks up on my earlier note regarding the relevance of
a structuralist mentality to Seneca’s position on the social acquisition of
the “arts.” We will begin via suppositions regarding the temporality of
ignorance.
Ignorance and Socialized Externality

For Seneca individuals should not travel until they have first superseded
their state of ignorance and become aware of the unhealthy control that
their desires and fears have over them. Otherwise, such issues will con-
tinue to plague the traveling individual. Seneca advises that this is why
already existing problems “weigh you down with just the same
uncomfortable chafing wherever you are” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). Only
once an individual addresses such issues could they travel without harm
(104, 12–19). This indicates for Seneca that there can be a “before” and
an “after” to self-ignorance. One of the developmental aspects of this
Stoic perspective is that we can acquire wisdom and transcend our previ-
ously ignorant state. This kind of progression toward self-awareness indi-
cates for Seneca how we learn to rationally align our lives with nature,
reflecting that “when she created us, nature endowed us with noble aspira-
tions” (194, 26). A life increasingly lived in accordance with nature is “the
greatest honour” of self-wisdom (194, 26).
Conversely to this clear transition, I interpret that for Giddens an indi-
vidual’s ignorance and self-awareness are not states that line up sequen-
tially in time. Our capacity for knowing ourselves and for being aware of
the aspects of our environment(s) that produce us is always in Giddens’
view a blend of social and subjective. Where the ignorant individual ends
and the self-aware individual begins is indistinguishable. This is partly
because such states are indistinguishable from a social fabric from which
subjectivity is always inextricably manifesting. Giddens refers to this as the
“structuration” of our sense of self, where “what a person is ‘aware of’
cannot be fixed at a particular point in time” (Giddens 1984, 49). If our
self-awareness is not fixed to a point of time then neither can our self-
ignorance be. This feature of subjective temporality conditions Giddens’
contestation to essentialist impressions of subjective ignorance.
For Seneca of course an individual might be “ignorant of what is essen-
tial” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19) about life and decide to travel accordingly.
Giddens could have concerns about how this attributes the compulsion to
travel to a source that is external to an individual’s self-awareness. This
reading of externality would of course be consistent with the general Stoic
perspective to divide experiential phenomena into categories of what is
inside versus outside subjective control. Conversely for Giddens, rather
than anything external dictating the self, there is a structural co-production
between an individual agent and social structure of all authorship and
decision-making. This inside-that-is-an-outside-that-is-an-inside shared
between subject and social demands that “the moment of production of
action” for the individual agent “is also one of reproduction of the con-
texts of the day-to-day enactment of social life” (Giddens 1984, 26). As
the social life enacts us so we are aware of our internality to the re-
enactment of its/our contexts.
130 W. JOHNCOCK
There is a consequent co-implication here in Giddens’ sociology of the

intentions of everyone with the reproduction of the conditions that make
intention possible. Individual intention is social intention. Individual con-
sciousness is social consciousness. This logic would thus apply to the
intention and consciousness of travel. The decision to travel for Giddens
would never mark what Seneca describes as a self-ignorance or a break-
down in self-consciousness that is then at the mercy of external forces.
Such an impulse for Giddens would rather be just another manifestation
of a socially enacted individual consciousness that perpetually inhabits its
own generative conditions, whereby “human agents always know what
they are doing on the level of discursive consciousness under some descrip-
tion” (26). While for Seneca there are self-authoring aspects of the indi-
vidual about which they might be ignorant, for Giddens there is a collective
set of motivations from which the individual is never truly “outside.” Self-
knowledge is for Giddens a structural phenomenon that the individual
conditions and by which they are conditioned, whereby “structure has no
existence independent of the knowledge that agents have about what they
do in their day-to-day activity” (26). This avoids the blind spot that we
might have according to Seneca’s Stoic impression of where external phe-
nomena manipulate us.
Sociologies such as Durkheim’s posit the production of the individual
by an external socialized consciousness. In Giddens’ reading of Durkheim,
the individual is outside their own conditions and thus outside something
about the self. Giddens might be equally critical on these grounds of
Seneca’s characterization of the alienation from the self. We have covered
earlier how for Seneca the ignorant and drifting traveler seeking the “nov-
elty of surroundings abroad” (Seneca 1969, 28, 2) is perpetually “filched
away from themselves” (104, 12; my emphasis). The ignorant individual is
divided from themselves here in being driven by what is beyond their
nature. Consistent with much of the Stoicism that precedes Seneca, exter-
nally uncontrollable phenomena direct the ignorant individual in this
mode. Ignorance and self-alienation duly present as complementary char-
acteristics. Not only is the subject ignorant of their “wounds” (104, 12) as
Seneca describes but they are more importantly ignorant of themselves
while the wounding occurs.
This conception of self-alienation and/or self-ignorance sits in contra-
distinction to Giddens’ thesis. For Giddens the collective structuring of
self-knowledge is always practically and intentionally enacted by individual
agents (Giddens 1984, 27). We can never be ignorant of, or outside,
ourselves as a result. It is worth clarifying here the equation of knowledge

and awareness for Giddens who asserts that “‘knowledge’ equals accurate
or valid awareness” (90). By enacting social rules or protocols, we exhibit
knowledge both of those rules and of ourselves.
Seneca will obviously maintain that a misguided individual is self-
ignorant rather than self-knowing. Nevertheless, where for Seneca the
individual acquires the social arts we can interpret an intersection with the
collegially conditioned self-knowing subject for Giddens. Seneca holds
that if we ignore the normative compulsion to travel simply for an escape
and instead remain in an environment where we develop the social arts, we
become more aware of ourselves and our nature (Seneca 1969, 104, 19).
While this marks our self-development, the arts themselves are collectively
pre-authorized ways of being. In being aware of these arts, which is an
awareness that also comprises knowledge of social protocols or rules, we
manifest a self-knowledge. We have indeed seen Seneca define this as an
individual’s wisdom and rationality. The individual becomes rational
through an alignment with social structure.
Likewise, for Giddens this awareness of socialized structures via which
we become socially sanctioned individuals also represents a subject’s self-
knowledge. By enacting ourselves through collectively established direc-
tions we show our “awareness of social rules, expressed first and foremost
in practical consciousness” (Giddens 1984, 21). Our awareness rather
than ignorance of what it means to be practically social is for Giddens (and
also seemingly for Seneca) at “the very core of that ‘knowledgeability’
which specifically characterizes human agents” (21).
Giddens’ position counters readings of one’s self-ignorant externalized
production. There are nevertheless realistic limits in his view to our social-
ized knowledgeability. While an individual’s actions are intentional and
self-aware, they might know “little of the ramified consequences of the
activities in which they engage” (26). This reflects Giddens’ interpretation
of the deeply experiential knowledge that “social actors” (91) embody.
Every individual is aware of the direct results of their actions. They do not
however know of the “indirect” (27) effects that are dispersed around a
social structure in “contexts which they do not directly experience” (91).
Knowledge and awareness are locally situated phenomena for the individ-
ual. Giddens possibly underlines a justification of social science here.
Because we do not appreciate the indirect causal effects of our actions,
social scientists serve the role of communicating the ramifications of an
individual’s or a group’s actions upon others.
132 W. JOHNCOCK
Socialized localization restricts our knowledge in Giddens’ view. For

Seneca conversely, knowledge can be limited at the subjective level. This
subjective restriction is not a feature of Giddens’ sociology. Despite this
difference, as we have just seen there is a collectively situated nature to
individual knowledge and awareness in Seneca’s thesis that coheres with
the sociological perspective. This reading might sit awkwardly with typical
impressions of the internality of the Stoic self. As a result, we need to
expand on this consideration. Such expansion can occur by appreciating a
conditional form of “travel” that Seneca does support. This concerns the
sedimented knowledge that he believes we experience, depending on the
“company we keep.”
Collectively Sedimented Knowledge

Seneca targets people who are ignorant of how unhealthy desires and fears
dictate their lives. Regarding travel in particular he argues that rather than
travel because we want the novelty of new experiences, we should instead
“move to better company” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). Seneca even provides
a list of those figures among whom we should live. He describes this as a
process via which our standards of company might be “bettered.”
This list begins by proposing to the afflicted individual to “attach your-
self to Socrates and Zeno” (104, 19). Reflecting his specifically Stoic asso-
ciations he further advises that a focus on the self can be achieved if you
“live with Chrysippus, live with Posidonius,” because “they will give you
a knowledge of man and the universe; they will tell you to be a practical
philosopher” (104, 19). By suggesting this transition of our “company”
toward philosophical doctrines rather than physical locations, Seneca pres-
ents a different sense of journey. Cohering with his contestation to the
desire to move “from place to place” (104, 19), for Seneca knowledgeable
travel instead consists in how self-aware we are able and willing to become.
This kind of knowledge in his view trumps the contingent “knowledge of
other countries” that the traveler usually collects to show to others
(104, 12).
Seneca posits that a consequent self-knowledge derives from an already
established collective pool of philosophical knowledge. Here Seneca
appears to recognize interpersonally structured conditions to subjectivity
and the consequent authoring of decisions. He duly states that to super-
sede the state of ignorance “we must spend time in study and in the writ-
ings of wise men, to learn the truths that have emerged from their
researches” (104, 19). This does not contradict his earlier qualification that
our own opinions can diverge from wise predecessors. His focus instead is
how “authorized others” participate in guiding our internal transitions.
Could we interpret from this that there is something consistent between
the thought of Seneca and Giddens. Specifically, is Seneca recognizing a
socially dispersed source of self and self-knowledge? An opposing voice to
such a suggestion might be that knowledge does not necessarily socially
originate for Seneca in the way that a sociologist like Giddens might claim.
Certainly when dealing with any Stoic thinker we must be sensitive to the
belief that the universe itself is rational and the source of all human ratio-
nality. This is a point with which Seneca illustrates a consistency in his
characterizations of our “individual spirit” as “a spirit very like the uni-
verse” (104, 26).
Alongside these features of his argument though Seneca does posit how
knowledge is socially enacted and radiated among generations. This evokes
the elements in Giddens’ theory which attend to the transgenerational
transmission of practical knowledge. Giddens presents the language of
society’s peers and elders as playing an important community role. This is
similar to how the writings of the early Stoic “wise men” disperse knowl-
edge in Seneca’s view. It is in this guise of a socially structured heritage
that for Giddens “all social actors know a great deal more than they ever
directly live through, as a result of the sedimentation of experience in lan-
guage” (Giddens 1984, 91). The present-day actor in Giddens’ estimation
embodies a historically established socialized knowledge. This continually
reactivates a knowledge that is discursively “sedimented” over time. As
society’s knowledge of itself perpetuates in this way, we might be reminded
of Seneca’s call for us to be aware of the knowledge that structures proper
philosophical and communal citizenship. The difference is that for Seneca
our perpetuation of this knowledge requires us to actively pursue it
whereas for Giddens it is inescapable.
Despite this inescapability, the sedimentation of knowledge that
Giddens identifies does not match the deterministic structures for subjec-
tive development that he identifies in structuralisms such as Durkheim’s.
The perpetuation of this structured knowledge instead occurs, according
to Giddens, via the agent’s “intentional” reproduction of them (26). It is
inescapable that we will intentionally reanimate socially structured phe-
nomena. Despite its socially shaped character, there is nevertheless a nov-
elty in the direction we each take. The novelty of an individual’s actioning
of structured knowledge means that Giddens’ human history is never
134 W. JOHNCOCK
deterministically predictable. The individual is aware of their intention and

role in structuring their own history. This is a history that in turn partici-
pates in restructuring a collective history. In contradistinction to Durkheim,
Giddens demands that individuals who “make their ‘history’” are “cogni-
zant” that they are making their history (rather than history making
them). In being aware that they are making their history, individuals for
Giddens thus attempt to bring history under their control (27).
The individual is here aware of their adaptation of what is socially struc-
tured. They are however never able to entirely reduce this informing
structure to a purely subjective event, in that it “persistently eludes efforts
to bring it under conscious direction” (27). If we were to alter Giddens’
terminology, we might suggest that there nonetheless is a conscious direc-
tion that is involved in social structures. This is because such structures
comprise the consciousnesses of self-aware individuals. History in this
interpretation remains an intentional and ongoing production that the
individual is conscious they are maneuvering through their social role.
This is contrary to what Giddens interprets in the Durkheimian reading of
history, of an externally unrelenting force from an untouchably distant
past about which the individual is oblivious. We could in fact read a
Giddens-like position in Seneca’s contestation to the view that an anteced-
ent socially structured philosophical knowledge dictatorially perpetuates
subsequent individuals. Seneca states that as we become philosophically
sound we individually “carry on the search ourselves for the answers that
have not yet been discovered” (Seneca 1969, 104, 19). This terminology
of the “not yet discovered” indicates the ongoing production of collective
history that is consciously enacted by present individuals’ involvements.
For Seneca we perpetuate collectively authorized rationalities while re-
orienting them. This complements Seneca’s earlier point to challenge
one’s authorities/masters in pursuing knowledge.
We must be cautious though in ascribing too much consistency between
the two thinkers on the temporality of collectively sedimented knowledge.
The Stoic conditions of much of Seneca’s thought would after all demand
that because of a presiding belief that universal nature is rational, knowl-
edge and truth would always already exist in the world. This leaves the
individual who is inclined toward living in accordance with nature to dis-
cover (and therefore, to know) an already existing truth that is providen-
tially administered by Zeus/Nature. Conversely for Giddens, knowledge
and truth, as socially structured phenomena, are always in the process of
becoming originarily through the intentions and navigations of the indi-

vidual agents who enact and animate them.
This attention on the intentionality of individuality is a key aspect of
how Giddens separates his theory of structuration from preceding struc-
turalist sociologies. We have flagged that an issue for Giddens is Durkheim’s
use of the terms “exteriority” and “externality” to describe the subject’s
relation to social forces. Giddens’ critique wants us to attend to what is
internal about our socialization, in that “structure is not ‘external’ to indi-
viduals, as memory traces, and as instantiated in social practices, it is more
‘internal’ than exterior to their activities in a Durkheimian sense” (Giddens
1984, 25).
While I am receptive to many positions forwarded by Giddens’ theory
of structuration I believe more needs to be considered about his attack on
Durkheim’s use of loaded terms such as “exteriority.” Durkheim’s inten-
tion with such terminology is seemingly to emphasize that behaviors (like
suicide) are not exclusively motivated by separately individual minds as is
often interpreted.9 In an earlier chapter’s debate between Epictetus and
Durkheim, I indeed endorse this feature of the individual-social co-
constitution posited in Durkheim’s sociology. This reading argues that
Durkheimian social structure manifests not as pure constraint (as Giddens
supposes) but as an expression of a conditioned and conditioning
individual.
Giddens and I therefore agree that “structure is not to be equated with
constraint but is always both constraining and enabling” (25). Where we
differ concerns the nature of the constraint and exteriority in Durkheimian
sociology specifically. In the preface to the second edition of The Rules of
Sociological Method Durkheim indeed critiques readings of the first edition
that characterize social facts as externally constraining and deterministic.
Giddens’ commentary would later come to fall into this category of read-
ings. Durkheim, responding to claims that his school of thought was only
“explaining social phenomena by constraint” (Durkheim 1938 (1895),
liii), presents the clear refutation that “this was far from our intention”
(liii). Social facts are malleable in the Durkheimian conception. Whichever
institutionalized forces are contextually/currently prevalent shape them.
This differentiates social phenomena from physical phenomena in
Durkheim’s presentation given that “the peculiar characteristic of social
constraint is that it is due, not to the rigidity of certain molecular arrange-
ments, but to the prestige with which certain representations are invested”
136 W. JOHNCOCK
(lv). The collectivity of the social-fact-as-thing manifests uniquely because

it is informed but not determined by its cause. The individual is not abso-
lutely outside this process for Durkheim, despite Giddens’ claims. For
there to be a social fact for Durkheim a collaboration occurs in which
“several individuals must have contributed their action; and in this joint
activity is the origin of a new fact” (xlv).
This is a footnote to the comparative discussion through which Seneca
and Giddens have guided us. Having said that, this Durkheimian clarifica-
tion could contain the thematic glue of this chapter’s discussion. That
theme which has held Giddens and Seneca together in dialogue is “exteri-
ority.” For Seneca our ignorance of either our motivation to travel or of
our fears and desires represents a state of the self that externalities dictate.
This ignorance informs a lack of awareness about why we make any deci-
sions that we do. Before we have “moved to live with” philosophical com-
pany it is Seneca’s estimation that we perpetually move in a manner about
which we are ignorant.
Conversely for Giddens the notion of exteriority from aspects of our
decision-making apparatus is less entertainable. We are always aware of
how we intentionally individuate ourselves even if such intentions are
socially structured. Our externality, where externality refers to our social-
ized constitution, is our internality. While the issue of how we come to be
the individual that we each are is at stake in both Seneca and Giddens, the
novelty of how we travel to such individuation splinters in their respective
theses. This splintering or traveling is nonetheless for both Seneca and
Giddens a journey through a situated knowledge of our subjectivity.
Notes
1. The French mathematician, physicist, and theologian, Blaise Pascal linked
the desire to travel to dissatisfaction with life at home; “all the unhappiness
of men arises from one single fact, they cannot stay quietly in their own
chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with
pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town”
(Pascal 1958 [1670], 2.139). Sigmund Freud relatedly argues that travel
connects to notions of escape from home environments; “[the] longing to
travel was certainly also an expression of … dissatisfaction with home and
family” (Freud 2006, 76).
2. Epictetus explains in one of many similarly themed illustrations that a hor-
rible father is bad for the father in terms of his unjust life that is not lived in
accordance with nature. For the child however their horrible father “repre-
sents a blessing” (Epictetus 2008, 3.20, 11). This blessing is attributable to
how the situation provides the child with the opportunity to realize and
enact their Stoic virtuousness. In transposing this logic onto all adverse situ-
ations, Epictetus explains how every difficult “circumstance represents an
opportunity” (3.20). In a thematically similar fashion Marcus Aurelius
speaks of how when encountering an obstacle we can turn it to our advan-
tage. Via the power of cognitive adaptation, the mind, according to Gregory
Hays’ translation of Meditations, “adapts and converts to its own purposes
the obstacle to our acting” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.20). See also Maxwell
Staniforth’s translation of this passage as where the “mind adapts and turns
round any obstacle to action, to serve its objective” (Marcus Aurelius 1964,
5.20). This objective is a life lived in accordance with nature/virtue. Ryan
Holiday (2014) has recently popularized this theme of reconfiguring a bad
circumstance to the status of an opportunity.
3. Seneca is often referred to as Seneca the Younger given that his father’s
name was also “Seneca” (a reference to his full name; Marcus Annaeus
Seneca). This is a pertinent point given that history has at times, as James
Ker reminds us, made the error of “lumping together” the work of the
younger and elder Seneca and attributing it all to “the same statesman” (Ker
2011, li).
4. Madeleine Jones reviews numerous accounts of Seneca’s life in noting that
biographical recordings of Seneca’s great wealth and political power are so
comprehensive that we should doubt neither element (Jones 2014, 394).
5. It is important to clarify that wealth is not itself bad or anti-Stoic for Seneca
but is something to which we can be indifferent. The issue is not even in
choosing wealth over poverty in certain circumstances. Unhealthily desiring
wealth is instead the issue. Seneca’s position indeed is that it could be easier
to be resilient to wealth when you are poor and not familiar with its indul-
gences. In conversely maintaining a healthy indifference to wealth when you
are rich you demonstrate great virtue. Seneca does not deny that an indi-
vidual should embrace poverty if that is their position in life (Seneca 1962,
20.10). If you are poor, things you say that exhibit your acceptance of your
position will not seem suspicious, as though you are “merely saying them.”
Your poverty will instead evidence that “you will be demonstrating them”
(20.10). Seneca does not believe that this excludes wealthy individuals from
virtue and goodness though; “he also is great-souled, who sees riches heaped
up round him and, after wondering long and deeply because they have come
into his possession, smiles, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It
means much not to be spoiled by intimacy with riches” (20.10). Brad
Inwood observes of this mentality that for Seneca if you “understand for-
tune” (Seneca 1962, 51.9) then it will “cease to have power over you”
138 W. JOHNCOCK
(Inwood 2005, 317). These kinds of themes motivate John Sellars to also
argue that for the Stoics “there is nothing wrong with choosing wealth
rather than poverty” (Sellars 2016b, 2).
6. A thematic consistency presents on this theme of death with Seneca’s over-
riding argument in On the Shortness of Life. There he demands that everyone
should confront their inevitable mortality and live a rewarding life free of
wasted time (Seneca 1997, 5). For Pigliucci the Stoic view generally is that
death is our life’s logical “natural end point, is nothing special in and of itself
and nothing that we should particularly fear” (Pigliucci 2017a, 7).
7. Raising the possibility of actively “choosing” a path that is not in accordance
with our nature ventures into the elaborate terrain of Stoic conceptions of
agency, fate, and providence. Anthony Long and David Sedley note that
Chrysippus recognizes universally fated aspects to our being. Chrysippus
though does not want to “abandon altogether” the “could have done oth-
erwise” criterion regarding our choices and actions (Long and Sedley 1987,
392–393). This tension in the Chrysippean position is illustrated by
Eusebius’ portrayal in his Evangelical Preparation, in that Chrysippus “says
in book 2 that it is obvious that many things originate from us, but that
these too are none the less co-fated along with the government of the
world” (Eusebius, SVF, 2.998, in L&S, 389). From this we can contextual-
ize the characterization in Alexander’s On Fate that the Stoics “deny that
man has the freedom to choose between opposite actions, and say that it is
what comes about through us that is in our power” (Alexander, SVF, 2.979,
in L&S, 389; author’s original emphasis). While this suggests a certain
determinism, we can also acknowledge that what eventuates “through” us
for the Stoics is to an extent oriented by each of our natures.
8. This characterization is not entirely unlike claims made by sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu (who we engage in Chap. 8). In The Logic of Practice Bourdieu
conceives of the human body as a site that concurrently structures and is
structured by socialized practices (Bourdieu 1990a [1980], 5; Bourdieu
1990b, 156–167). Giddens credits Bourdieu as a result for offering “a
standpoint in some respects similar to that which I want to suggest here”
(Giddens 1979, 217). Despite, or perhaps because of, this ideological simi-
larity there are few other references to Bourdieu in Giddens’ work. This is a
point of contention for certain commentators (Jenkins 1982, 271; Schwartz
2001, 4).
9. Sociologist Jack Douglas expands on this novelty of Durkheim’s perspective.
During the era in which Durkheim proposes socialized compulsions regard-
ing suicide, contrarily “the common sense view of suicide was that it was an
intensely individual act” (Douglas 1967, 16).
References
Becker, Lawrence. 2004. Stoic Emotion. In Stoicism: Traditions and
Transformations, ed. Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, 250–276. Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990a (1980). The Logic of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
———. 1990b. In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology. Translated by
Matthew Adamson. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Douglas, Jack. 1967. The Social Meanings of Suicide. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Free Press.
Epictetus. 2008. Discourses and Selected Writings. Translated by Robert Dobbin.
Farren, Jen. 2014. Stoicism & Star Trek. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings I, ed.
Freud, Sigmund. 2006. Letter to Romain Rolland (A Disturbance of Memory on
the Acropolis). In The Penguin Freud Reader, ed. Adam Phillips, 68–76.
Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan.
———. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration.
Inwood, Brad. 2005. Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Jenkins, Richard. 1982. Pierre Bourdieu and the Reproduction of Determinism.
Sociology 16 (2): 270–281.
Jones, Madeleine. 2014. Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius: Hypocrisy as a Way of Life. In
Seneca Philosophus, ed. Jula Wildberger and Marcia Colish, 393–430. Berlin
and Boston: De Gruyter.
Ker, James. 2011. A Seneca Reader: Selections from Prose and Tragedy. Mundelein:
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.
Penguin Books.
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———. 2002. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. New York: The

Modern Library.
Pascal, Blaise. 1958 (1670). Pascal’s Pensées. Translated by W.F. Trotter. New York:
E.P. Dutton.
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2011. Authority and Agency in Stoicism. Greek,
Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51: 296–322.
Robertson, Donald. 2014. Stoics Are Not Unemotional! In Stoicism Today:
Selected Writings I, ed. Patrick Ussher, 33–36. CreateSpace.
Schwartz, Sean. 2001. Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640
C.E. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sellars, John. 2016a. Stoicism and Emotions. In Stoicism Today: Selected Writings
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 1962. Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales: Volume 1.
Edited and translated by Richard Gummere. London and Cambridge: William
Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.
———. 1969. Letters from a Stoic. Edited and translated by Robin Campbell.
———. 1997. On the Shortness of Life. Translated by Charles Costa. London and
New York: Penguin.
PART III
Physical Conditions
CHAPTER 7
Is Climate Change Natural? Marcus Aurelius

and Barbara Adam on Death
A Nature Contaminated by Humans?

Is there a tendency within climate change debates to characterize the rela-
tionship between humans and the natural environment in oppositional
terms? When arguing that human activities have primarily contributed to
changes in the world’s climate, is human life portrayed as a subsequent
imposition upon Earth’s natural state? Another way to phrase this is, do
we deem humans to be intruders on what was otherwise a naturally cohe-
sive environment/system?
Even if there is a propensity for conceiving of the human-Earth rela-
tionship in this kind of way, we might ask what the point is of challenging
it. Such a conception seems to serve a useful role as an intervention to the
possible human “destruction” of the planet. Its ethical authority comes
from its attention on what is detrimental about the human effect on the
planet’s climate for humans and nonhumans alike. Furthermore, this con-
ception highlights the structural inequalities between nations that eventu-
ate from climate change.
One example of the unequal distribution of climate change effects is
that rising sea levels will affect a very particular set of low-lying countries
and populations first and most adversely.1 Economically such populations
will be at a structural disadvantage through loss of infrastructure and phys-
ical displacement. Existentially such populations will have their lives
threatened, particularly if there are catastrophically sudden climate
change related events. The irony we are told is that such populations are

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_7
144 W. JOHNCOCK
often likely to have contributed least to the industrially induced warming

of sea temperatures and consequent elevations in ocean heights.2 In
attending to such inequalities, it can therefore garner critical respect to
characterize the cause of climatic shifts as the aforementioned industrially
intrusive arrival of humans on a natural ecological scene.
The concern that expands from this attention is that climate change
jeopardizes the existence of all humans by making the planet entirely unin-
habitable for our species.3 This complements the interpretation that
human industrialization (aligned with social and cultural development)
has adversely affected the natural environment in an unnaturally destruc-
tive manner. Human developments must also endanger the existence of
many other species in this regard. This portrays much of nature as power-
less in comparison to the externally imposed dominance of human pro-
cesses. Climate change and death become pervasively complementary themes.
In raising this debate, I recognize the utilities of environmentally con-
cerned discourses which present humans as unnaturally destroying a natu-
ral environment. I nevertheless wish to respond to this discussion by
asking whether there is something odd about characterizing humans and
the planet in polarizing terms. How can humans have evolved from the
Earth’s natural environment only to be able to unnaturally affect that
environment? Can natural beings on a natural planet induce unnatural
causes and effects? From this, I am curious about whether there is a danger
that in characterizing human-induced activities and effects as unnatural or
artificial we conceptually separate humans and nature. This unsettles me
because opponents of the industries, which have seemingly disregarded
our natural environment and caused climate changes, argue that such a
separation equally proliferates in the outlooks of those industries. What
interests me in discourses occupied with arresting climate change is which
jeopardies are involved in viewing its human industrial sources as unnatural.
It is with such a theme that the work of British sociologist Barbara
Adam (1945–) aligns. This especially relates to her focus on the topic of
time.4 Adam explores many aspects of society’s relationship with time. In
particular, we will be reviewing how her intrigue about the rhythms shared
between clocked time and naturally evolutionary time contributes to her
views on environmental time.
Adam examines the interplay between culturally industrial and naturally
environmental temporalities most closely in Timescapes of Modernity: The
Environment and Invisible Hazards. From this interplay, Adam
7 IS CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND BARBARA ADAM… 145
determines an oppositional distinction between human activity and the

natural world, such as when discussing how adversely “seasons and tidal
extremes are affected by industrial activity” (Adam 1998, 12). Human
culture in this view comprises an army of intruders that have infected what
was an already existing and self-regulating nature. Given social theory’s
attention on cultural practices, it has a responsibility in Adam’s opinion to
examine how “nature is inescapably contaminated by human activity, that
is, by a way of life that is practised and exported by industrial societ-
ies” (23).
Part of the commentary about this human effect on the natural arena
describes species’ extinctions that have already occurred or are straightfor-
wardly impending. What becomes particularly apparent when reading
Adam’s account though is that the primary “death” about which the
human species is concerned regarding climate change is its own.
Environmental discourses for Adam benefit from this prioritization of our
own species’ survival for “it is the recognition of human endangerment
through hazards arising from the industrial way of life that precipitates the
increasing interest in nature and environmental issues” (27). A species’
focus on its own prolongation is not necessarily surprising. What makes
this point noteworthy however is how it plays on the equation between an
increase in human-caused climate changes and an increase in the threat of
human extinction. The conceptual polarization of human activity from the
natural environment participates in galvanizing popular consciousness
around climate change issues.
It is peculiar that it is uncontroversial to conceptually separate nature
and humans. Humans have emerged from nowhere and from nothing but
such a nature. The natural arena is the site of origination of human beings,
as it is of the natural elements now under threat from “human intruders.”
Nevertheless, Adam’s terminology characterizes this relationship adver-
sarially by describing the “contamination” of Earth by humans. She indeed
exacerbates this sense of division with the idea that the environment is
responding negatively to humans. Adam explains this reactive separation
by portraying climate change as the result of human industrialized “threats
to bases of existence, pushing back the boundaries of nature, going against
nature by imposing ‘unnatural measures’ and nature retaliating” (30). The
tone is that humans do not simply live on Earth nor with the naturally
environmental features of Earth. Humans instead have arrogantly insti-
gated a battle against Earth.
146 W. JOHNCOCK
Humans “Out of Sync” with Natural Timings

Adam’s most important sociological work as indicated concerns the topic
of time. Human industrialization is part of a discussion about time for
Adam in that she defines it as an effort to transcend the finitude of our
mortal temporality. This view describes how industrialization shares an
intimate relationship with clocked and calendared time. Contrary to what
is unknown about our time after death, Adam notes that these industrial-
ized timings will seemingly continue “on indefinitely, day after day, year
after year” (Adam 1998, 70). Modern industrialized temporalities thus
offer a conditional immortality to otherwise mortal beings. As industrial-
ization ticks on indefinitely our ongoing presence is possibly preserved via
our contributions to it, even when our death seems to herald our finiteness
and absence.
Industrialization might offer for Adam this apparent potential for
immortality but the flip side is that its climatically conditioned destruction
of human life really represents our contrary finality. In considering how
environmentally oriented discourses express concern about the impending
death of the human species, Adam calls for more attention on the param-
eter of time. She duly argues in “Time and Environmental Crisis” that in
terms of the “environmental crisis … whilst the spatial dimension has been
brought to the fore in a number of disciplines, the temporal equivalent has
stayed implicit” (Adam 1993, 399).
What Adam means by the “spatial dimension” here is the physical or
material aspects of climate change. As we measure seawaters rising and
witness crops dying, the material changes of climate change are visibly
evident. Adam’s apparent concern is that within this focus the temporal
factor in climate change discussion has remained comparably invisible.
This perspective I will note is consistent with our general experience with
time. We can see space. Often we can touch its physicality. Space is materi-
ally verifiable. Time conversely is apparently everywhere but nowhere. We
perpetually live it and perhaps even within it but we cannot necessarily
locate it or touch it.5
In order to obtain a sense of control over this otherwise unwieldy phe-
nomenon that we call time, humans have created representational models
on clocks and calendars. These manifest as cultured and indeed as indus-
trialized tools via which we can track and use time. Through this measur-
able version of time, we also see how time concretely speaks to impressions
of the adversarial and existential threat posed in the climate change debate.
As with any discussions concerning existence and death, the prospect of

time’s measure becomes apparent in discussions about the ramifications of
a changing environment. Measurable time informs resulting fears about
how much time one (or one’s species) might have remaining. This quantifi-
able form of time has an interesting double character in terms of climate
change. Such time is an opponent against which we are racing to “save the
planet” (i.e. to save ourselves), as well as a resource that if used efficiently
can potentially arrest the threat.
Measured or quantified time becomes a resource just like any other that
is bought and sold, used or lost. Adam’s opinion in this context is that
“effective action” has been taken too late against climate change, which
means that “we are running out … of time” (401, 406).6 This lack of a
timely response to climate change characterizes for Adam a human species
that is “out of sync” with its natural environment. A prime example of this
is the changing constitution of the ozone layer around Earth. The deple-
tion of the ozone is for Adam the most obvious example of this lack of
synchronicity between humans and nature (401). The primary cause of
ozone degradation is the increased use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
That we have not entirely removed CFCs from use indicates for Adam
“out of sync time-lags” (402) between how humans live and the natural
environment in which they live.
The proposition that humans are out of temporal sync with nature and
their environment sums up the tendency to conceive of an oppositional
human-environment relation. It is my reading however that with concep-
tions of such opposition an unexpected tension presents. I can identify this
tension in how Adam on the one hand describes a “global, ecologically
networked interconnectedness” of which humans are a part (401; my
emphasis). This recognizes a worldwide association not just between dif-
ferent groups of humans but between humans and the environmental
(ecological) realm. It also posits such interconnectedness as an aspect of
human existence to which industrialization must be more sensitive. The
suggestion here is not that human-ecology interconnectedness is a possi-
bility that humanity can proactively choose. Adam’s presentation rather is
that interconnectedness reflects our inescapably ecological origins. We are
a species among other species in an overall earthly system.
By also positing “out of sync time-frames” (401) however between
humans and the rest of this ecological structure, a disconnection under-
pins Adam’s sense of these relations between humans and the environ-
ment. In Adam’s view, the rest of nature is connected in sync while we
148 W. JOHNCOCK
have somehow broken free. This latter position coheres with Adam’s ear-
lier appraisal of climate change as the result of an adversarial relationship
between humans and the natural Earth. In Adam, we thus encounter a
dual perspective. Humans have an obligation to maintain the environment
given that we are an inherent part of the environment. She awkwardly
complements this demand though with the common assertion of combat-
ive relations between our species and the ecological arena on which our
industrialized processes “impose.” I describe these tandem characteristics
as awkward given that if humans are one part of an ecological system, can
we or indeed anything of that system ever alienate itself from its original
(and ongoing) conditions? Can we represent humanity as a part of nature
but at the same time characterize this human aspect of nature as manifest-
ing (industrializing) something that is antithetical to nature? Are humans
as a part of nature able to denature their natural origins?
Stoic Pantheism: Humans as Nature

It is by integrating later Stoic perspectives on nature and change into the
discussion that we can differently reflect on humans’ “connectedness” to
the world. Furthermore we will consider whether natural beings are ever
able to cause unnatural changes to natural conditions.
Passages where the ancient Stoics express literal concerns about the
environmental impact of human actions are sparse. We find a notable
example however in Margaret Graver and Anthony Long’s translation of
Seneca’s letters. This concerns where Seneca criticizes the habitation of
humans around natural landmarks:
Now I turn to address you people whose self-indulgence extends as widely

as those other people’s greed. I ask you: how long will this go on? Every lake
is overhung with your roofs! Every river is bordered by your buildings!
Wherever one finds gushing streams of hot water, new pleasure houses will
be started. Wherever a shore curves into a bay, you will instantly lay down
foundations. Not satisfied with any ground that you have not altered, you
will bring the sea into it! Your houses gleam everywhere, sometimes situated
on mountains to give a great view of land and sea, sometimes built on flat
land to the height of mountains. Yet when you have done so much enor-
mous building, you still have only one body apiece, and that a puny one.
What good are numerous bedrooms? You can only lie in one of them. Any
place you do occupy is not really yours. (Seneca 2015a, 89.21)
Not only are instances of direct discussion by the ancient Stoics on the
human-environment relation rare but there are also relatively few modern
inquiries into Stoic philosophy’s relevance to environmental issues. Kai
Whiting and Leonidas Konstantakos recently raise this point of the “lim-
ited amount of work done by modern Stoics” on environmental topics
(Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 4). What analysis there is on the inter-
section between Stoicism and environmentalism tends to be concerned
with Stoic pantheistic perspectives of our relation to the rest of world. I
will review this kind of commentary now in order to distinguish my con-
tribution to Stoic-themed discussions on the environment.
Firstly, I should explain what pantheism means in a Stoic context.
Michael Levine (1994) and Whiting and Konstantakos (2019) exhibit a
consistency across much Stoic scholarship in conceiving of Stoic panthe-
ism as referring to a divine impulse that is present in all parts of the
“whole.” Both works cite Huw Parri Owen’s famous characterization to
support this position, which defines pantheism as where “god is every-
thing and everything is god or that the world is either identical with god
or, in some way a self-expression of his nature” (Owen 1971, 8).
The Stoic pantheistic outlook begins in the earliest eras of the school.
Alfred Pearson’s “Introduction” in The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes
argues that the Stoics after Cleanthes are considered to take a pantheistic
outlook in which “God and the world are identical” (Pearson in Zeno
et al. 1891, 22). Elsewhere in the fragments of Cleanthes we see Cicero
state that Cleanthes was “a pantheist, and identified God with matter”
(Cicero in Zeno et al. 1891, Fragment 17).7
God, as the Stoic “logos,” is here what we have seen described as the
rationality of nature that connects everything.8 The Stoics in this regard
use different terms to refer to logos such as God, Zeus, reason, and intel-
lect. Whiting and Konstantakos are nonetheless correct that a logocentric
divinity is for all such Stoic references “a natural presence (a material
soul) … permeating the whole” (Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 2; my
emphasis). Given the identification of an omnipresent God with(in) this
all-encompassing nature, Whiting and Konstantakos further note that we
can best describe the Stoic pantheism as a “naturalistic theological” world-
view (5). If we live in a way which accords with the Stoic God’s rationality,
we cohere with the Stoic maxim to live in accordance with nature.
The pantheistic logocentric element of the Stoic natural world is the
cause of much debate. Lawrence Becker (2017) claims that Stoicism’s
logocentric foundations are not something we should casually dismiss. As
150 W. JOHNCOCK
Massimo Pigliucci (2017c) explains, this does not mean that Becker dis-
counts the worth of decoupling Stoic philosophy from theology. Stoicism’s
theological logocentrism is dismissible rather for Becker only if we can
provide a new account of the Stoic logos. From such orientations, Whiting
and Konstantakos express concern about an anti-theological/anti-
pantheistic shift that they identify in modern Stoics such as Irvine (2008),
LeBon (2014), and Pigliucci (2017b, 2018).9 Their concern is with how
this trend argues that maintaining Stoicism’s pantheism is not possible
given modern scientific sensibilities. Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez explic-
itly state, for example, that most “modern Stoics are not pantheists, but
accept the contemporary scientific account of the world” (Pigliucci and
Lopez 2019, 59).10
For Whiting and Konstantakos, these issues manifest because modern
scholars are uncomfortable with using the term “theology” in conjunction
with the Stoic pillar that is “nature.” This is especially the case when we
are dealing with a scientifically investigable nature. The suggestion here is
that pantheism’s inherently theological parameters problematically invoke
an association with spiritually transcendent religious parameters. The con-
sequent modern discomfort with the theological component of Stoicism is
said to have “derived from a cultural understanding of ‘god’ which is
dominated by monotheistic interpretations and the superstitious and
supernatural baggage that such beliefs imply” (Whiting and Konstantakos
2019, 8). If you are going to use Stoicism and science to discuss a topic
like climate change, the concern is that the theological component of
Stoic pantheism might compromise Stoicism’s perceived relevance to the
evidence-based underpinnings of modern climate study.
The ancient Stoics though would not have distinguished as we pres-
ently do between religious thought and scientific inquiry. For orthodox
Stoicism God is implicated in and as the world rather than relegated to a
position of its separate overseer. The assertion here follows the impression
of pantheism offered by Dirk Baltzly (2003) that the Stoic God reveals its
divinity, a perfect rationality, in physical processes and scientific facts
(Whiting and Konstantakos 2019, 7).
This point is consistent with the empirical outlooks of the Stoics that
we have reviewed earlier in this book. It is via these co-incorporated theo-
logical and empirical principles in ancient Stoicism that Whiting and
Konstantakos disagree with Becker’s atheistic approach to replace the
Stoic call to “live according to Nature” with the demand to “live accord-
ing to the facts” (Becker 2017, 46). The primary condition for Whiting
and Konstantakos’ contestation is that the ancient Stoics were already

asserting a life in accordance with facts. A naturalistic theology is in the
Stoics’ view both entirely rational and empirically knowledgeable. The
Stoics’ “naturalist theological framework” is thus already inherently
scientific:
Stoic theology is more like (modern) science than other theological perspec-
tives because the material Stoic god is more aligned with what atheists or
agnostics might refer to as the “scientific worldview.” (Whiting and
Konstantakos 2019, 8)
This position sees no problem with using ancient Stoic pantheistic per-
spectives for modern climate science considerations. The work of certain
modern Stoics (Boeri 2009; Jedan 2009; Long 1996; Striker 1996) is also
recognized for its assertions that the orthodox Stoic view of theology is
essential to Stoicism’s ongoing coherence. Such arguments contribute to
the impression that the Stoic God does not contradict scientific pursuits in
the natural environment by being spiritually untouchable. Whiting,
Konstantakos, Angeles Carrasco, and Luis Gabriel Carmona further
explain that the orthodox Stoic pantheistic perspective is rather “intrinsi-
cally grounded in physical reality and thus action, not simply thought”
(Whiting et al. 2018, 3). To this end, an environmentally conscious mod-
ern Stoic is also “a religious Stoic” who must learn to “give up the alleged
transcendental god for an immanent one” (15).11
The earlier referenced Dirk Baltzly is also comfortable with appraising
Stoic pantheism in a way that co-accommodates theology and natural sci-
ence. Baltzly’s assertion in fact is that the pantheistic outlook of the Stoics
only manifested as a result of their scientific proclivities. From their empiri-
cally based appreciations of a divinely ordered universe, Baltzly asserts that
pantheism is a “conclusion that I believe the Stoics reached largely a poste-
riori on the basis of their scientific understanding of the world” (Baltzly
2003, 3). Baltzly recognizes ontological and ideological elements to this
Stoic perspective. Ontologically, everything that exists constitutes a panthe-
istic unity. Ideologically this unity is divine in a way that makes it appropri-
ate to take up a religious attitude toward it (4). Because this unity is divine,
God must necessarily be omnipresent within the world’s material reality. To
support this position Baltzly cites Diogenes Laërtius’ characterization of
Stoic principles (that we comprehensively engage in the next chapter) in
which everything in the universe is either that which acts or is acted upon:
152 W. JOHNCOCK
That which is acted upon is unqualified substance, i.e. matter; that which
acts is the reason [logos] in it, i.e. god. For this, since it is everlasting, con-
structs every single thing throughout all matter. (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF,
2.300, in L&S, 268)
Long and Sedley’s translation here of the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta

(SVF) engages a passage from Diogenes’ The Lives of Eminent Philosophers.
Charles Yonge’s translation of this passage from Diogenes’ work similarly
describes how the Stoics:
…think that there are two general principles in the universe, the active and
the passive. That the passive is matter, an existence without any distinctive
quality. That the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say,
God. For that he, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter, makes
everything. (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68)
The belief in an activation of matter by a universally present logos evokes

for Baltzly, as well as Gretchen Reydams-Schils (1999), an idea from
Plato’s Timaeus (2008a). For Plato, the Forms, the Demiurge, and the
World Soul are active agents, whereas the Receptacle takes on the form of
a passive materiality.12 Baltzly notes an adaptation of this in the Stoic ver-
sion. The Stoics collapse the three active principles into a single active
element, God, which is present in all matter:
They [the Stoics] also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind,
and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. And that … he
turned into water the whole substance which pervaded the air; and as the
seed is contained in the produce, so too, he being the seminal principle of
the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed
by himself in the production of those things which were to come after; and
then, first of all, he made the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. And
Zeno speaks of these in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Chrysippus
in the first book of his Physics. (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68)
God interpenetrates the entire material world. This omnipresent divinity of

materiality indicates for Baltzly that in Stoicism “matter and god are two
ways of thinking about one and the same body” (Baltzly 2003, 10). The
body of God is the physical world. For the Stoics inquiries into the physical
world are thus inquiries into the divine. Hence the co-accommodation of
science and theology. We must be careful though not to assume that this
pantheistic materiality simply refers to a natural arena of flora and fauna.
Michael Levine indeed notes that “there is a tendency to picture pantheists

(other than Spinoza), outdoors and in pastoral settings. This has roots in
the Stoics’ veneration of nature” (Levine 1994, 121).
An issue with this conception of Stoic pantheism is that not all environ-
mental or ecological elements are equal for the Stoics just because their
God pervades all of nature. Stoic pantheism is not an ontology of existen-
tial equality. What is instead pantheistic about Stoic nature is primarily
rationality. It is via this conception of pantheistic rationality that we will
debate the Stoic belief in a human-nature interconnectedness. As it stands,
Adam’s reading of the human-nature relation contains certain tensions
that I anticipate the Stoic view can address.
I have noted that a pantheistic rationality for the Stoics manifests in the
orderings of the material universe. In Chap. 2, we discussed how these
ordered constitutions are identifiable in the regular physical patterns of the
world. We might recall that such reliable patterns are for Epictetus the
radiating presence of a rational God:
How else, after all, could things take place with such regularity, as if God
were issuing orders. When he tells plants to bloom, they bloom, when he
tells them to bear fruits, they bear fruit, when he tells them to ripen, they
ripen. (Epictetus 2008, 1.14, 3)
That a key ingredient of Stoic pantheism is rationality will inform how I

bring ancient Stoicism and a modern environmentally oriented conscious-
ness into discussion. We will encounter issues here with the belief of “deep
ecologists” that all of nature is equal. This indeed is Baltzly’s angle when
arguing that the Stoic naturalistic theology is not “congenial” (Baltzly
2003, 15) to deeply egalitarian impressions of ecological life. In fact, more
than one commentator differentiates ancient Stoicism’s rationalized nature
from the sense of nature proffered in modern ecologically concerned per-
spectives. To explain this crucial point I will briefly outline what deep ecol-
ogy means before incorporating prominent Stoic-inspired responses.
Stoic Pantheism Is Inconsistent with Deep

Ecological Egalitarianism
The “deep ecological movement” is said to have been conceived by
Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Arne Naess who in 1973 intro-
duced the phrase “deep ecology” to environmental literature (Drengson
154 W. JOHNCOCK
2012). Deep ecology is distinguishable from “shallow ecology.” For Naess

the latter is concerned only with the symptoms of environmental degrada-
tion such as “fighting against pollution and resource depletion” (Naess
1995, 3). The deep ecology movement rejects this “human in-
environment” perspective. Deep ecology instead endorses a “biospherical
egalitarianism” (4) that will regard human existence as just one of many
equal components of a global ecosystem. This view shares features with
Adam’s earlier-reviewed outlook. I say this because Adam’s commentary
posits that humans have misconceived of themselves as hierarchically posi-
tioned in relation to nature and therefore feel entitled to recklessly use and
abuse its “resources.”
Given Stoicism’s mandate of living in accordance with nature, compari-
sons between its philosophies and those of the deep ecological movement
are not surprising. Jim Cheney provides one well-known claim that ancient
Stoicism and deep ecologies share an affinity (Cheney 1989, 294). William
Stephens however vehemently contests this reading. The rational rather
than the ecologically egalitarian emphases of Stoic pantheism mean for
Stephens that Stoicism’s impression of the natural environment “couldn’t
be farther from the biocentrism and the anti-anthropocentrism of deep
ecology, despite Cheney’s claims to the contrary” (Stephens 1994, 278).
The Stoic relationship with the material natural arena is instead for
Stephens preoccupied with the task to “perceive and affirm the rational
and beneficial arrangement of the universe and to seek to understand it
through the systematic study of logic and physics” (276). Alan Holland
similarly suggests that given the pre-industrial era in which they existed,
ancient Stoic motivations could hardly have matched the circumstances
that motivate deep ecologists (Holland 1997, 151).
An appreciation of the hierarchy of rational creatures that Stoics such as
Epictetus observe will further emphasize this distinction. For the ancient
Stoics there is little sense of an equal ecological status and right to life or
preservation. Holland raises the Stoics’ belief that we have encountered in
previous chapters in a “hierarchy or ‘ladder’ of value, with humans some-
where near the top, lower than God but higher than all other creatures”
(161). This makes the respective content of Stoic philosophy and deep
ecology incompatible for Holland. Ecologically oriented views centralize a
mandate of “biospherical egalitarianism” (159). As we see with Epictetus,
a Stoic perspective is conversely that nonhuman animals are created to
serve humans:
And so for the beasts it is enough to eat, drink, sleep, breed and do whatever
else it is that satisfies members of their kind. But for us who have been given
the faculty of understanding, this is not enough. Creatures whose constitu-
tions are different have different ends and functions accordingly. So, for
creatures whose constitution is exclusively designed for use, use on its own
suffices; but where the capacity to understand that use is added, the creature
will only reach its end by bringing that capacity into play. God created some
beasts to be eaten, some to be used in farming, some to supply us with
cheese, and so on. To fulfil such functions, they don’t need to comprehend
impressions or make distinctions among them. Man was brought into the
world, however, to look upon God and his works—and not just look, but
appreciate. And so it is inexcusable for man to begin and end where the
beasts do. (Epictetus 2008, 1.6, 14–20)
Whiting and Konstantakos also recognize Stoicism’s “incompatibility”

with biocentrism’s position that “humans are not inherently superior to
any other species or the living organism that Earth constitutes” (Whiting
and Konstantakos 2019, 4). This gives the human-nature relation its pecu-
liarly Stoic character. What eventuates is an impression of Stoicism that is
both logocentric and anthropocentric. We see the world through the uni-
verse’s general (logocentric) rational nature. Concurrently though we
enjoy a specific (anthropocentric) kind of rational nature that is privileged
over less-rational aspects of the world.
This rationality that Epictetus connects to our capacity to “appreciate”
is what distinguishes humans from less-rational nonhuman animals and
other entities. What this means for Stephens is that the Stoics deny the
inherent value of things in the ecological arena, such as “the value a flower
or a tree or a whole species of flower or a whole species of tree has in itself
(or with respect to an ecosystem) independent of a valuer” (Stephens
1994, 278). The valuer of such entities can in this reading only be human
beings (or certain other animals) who attribute such entities with value.
Because for Stephens “deep ecologists do maintain the ‘inherent value of
things’” (283) their movement sits counter to Stoic perspectives. It is in
this sense that Dirk Baltzly not only describes how “Stoic pantheism is
breath-takingly anthropocentric” but laments that this “has not prevented
some modern interpreters from trying to recruit them [ancient Stoics] to
the green camp” (Baltzly 2003, 15).
This is not to say that ancient Stoic philosophy and modern environ-
mental ethics are entirely unable to be brought into dialogue. Holland
indeed notes the resilience required in ideological battles regarding
156 W. JOHNCOCK
combatting climate change and that “the very fortitude that the term ‘sto-
icism’ now conjures up could be put to the service of environmentalism”
(Holland 1997, 163). Christopher Gill similarly discusses why “Stoic ethi-
cal ideas help us respond more effectively to the current environmental
crisis” (Gill 2016, 119). For Gill this effective response is bound up in the
features of Stoicism’s pantheism which concern virtue. Via Stoicism’s pan-
theistic outlook we appreciate our interconnectedness with a transitioning
natural environment, incorporating “the Stoic beliefs that human beings
form an integral part of nature as a whole and that human ethical life
should consist in part in bringing our life into harmony with nature”
(119). Any consequent dialogue between Stoicism and environmental
ethics for Gill involves an extension to the way we conceive of virtues, for
in his view we typically only “tend to think about them [virtues] in terms
of our relationship to other human beings” (120). This is a point also
raised by Whiting and Konstantakos in describing the importance of a
virtuously inclined relationship not only with other humans but also with
the “environment of which we are all part” (Whiting and Konstantakos
2019, 12). It is within this context of the pantheistic whole that a Stoic
engagement with environmental ethics recognizes our membership not of
a species specifically but of an entire nature. Adam’s earlier commentary
would of course agree with this point. In her estimation, we are blinded
by a species-specific orientation that leads us to neglect our relations
with nature.
This theme of the human relationship with a whole nature guides my
own perspectives on how to generate discussions between Stoicism and
environmentally inclined discourse. I agree with Holland and Gill that
Stoicism has great practical contributions to make regarding activating the
general human motivation “to repair the damage that we have done to the
natural environment” (Gill 2016, 125). I too am interested in practically
applying this imperative to very specific questions of sustainability.
This kind of application might follow the example of Konstantakos,
who asks whether a Stoic “would save the elephants” (Konstantakos
2016). Rather than focus in this chapter though on Stoic philosophy’s
relations to the particular forms or effects of climatic and environmental
change, my contribution here to this field of debate targets the parameter
of change itself. In asking in this chapter whether climatic change is natu-
ral, I want to compare a later Stoic conception of pantheistic material
change with Adam’s impression that we have caused unnatural changes
to nature.
Change Is Inherently Natural

For the second-century Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus
Aurelius (121–180 ACE), change is a fundamental and unavoidable aspect
of the world. His Meditations (largely written during military campaigns13)
discusses change in terms of the virtuousness that is engendered by remain-
ing indifferent to it. While I work primarily with Maxwell Staniforth’s
translation of Marcus’ Meditations (1964) in this and other chapters, I will
regularly incorporate more recent translations by Gregory Hays (Marcus
Aurelius 2002) and Robin Hard (Marcus Aurelius 2011) in order to com-
pare different readings of Marcus’ terminology.
Marcus identifies the inescapability of change and transition as appli-
cable to both his existence as an individual human and to that of the entire
world. Just as the world’s “substance” changes constantly and uncontrol-
lably so does one’s own form. These forces that bring about all changes
lead Marcus to characterize himself as being “made up of the causal and
the material” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.13). Gregory Hays’ translation
perhaps even more directly targets this notion of substance than Maxwell
Staniforth’s here, in describing how we are “made up of substance and
what animates it” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.13).
Given the constant refrains of “materiality” and “substance” in Marcus’
work, I should remind us that we are not dealing with a typical under-
standing of matter. Marcus’ philosophy exhibits the nuanced appreciation
of nature’s matter that we have seen from the Stoics in which material
substance carries a pantheistic rationality.14 Indeed in discussing nature
alongside materialist themes we must remain attentive to how the Stoic
discussion of nature is not simply a reference to an ecologically physical
environment. We will rather be sensitive to how nature for the Stoics com-
prises a universally rational constitution of which we are a part. Consistent
with this Stoic focus on the human relation with the entirety of universal
being, our concern now in this chapter is with the Stoic part-whole rela-
tions that Marcus targets regarding change.
For Marcus an individual’s material or physical changes provide an
insight into their relationship with the entire universe (the “Whole”).
Each individual entity represents one part of this Whole. We need to think
broadly in order to appreciate what Marcus is saying about all aspects of
the universe. As we define how the bodies or parts change that constitute
this Whole, it is imperative for Marcus that “whether atoms or a natural
order, the first premise must be that I am part of the Whole which is
158 W. JOHNCOCK
governed by nature” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 10.6).15 Our changes as

parts are not isolated nor incidental. Localized changes for Marcus are
rather symbolic of nature’s perpetually original condition. Material transi-
tion is entirely natural. Furthermore such transition is expected because
nature is rationally ordered matter.
Marcus declares in this sense that the changes of the Whole’s individual
parts should not alarm us. He criticizes the outlook that is surprised by
change, for “how absurd it is to combine the assertion that the parts of the
Whole are naturally subject to change with surprise or resentment as if this
change was something contrary to nature” (10.7). Identifying that change
is the “originary condition” of the world will bring solace to the Stoic
thinker. In seeing how our body or the things of the world of which we are
fond change shape and character, Marcus asks us to remember that we and
they were only ever made of the transitional substance of the universe. Our
constitutions are composed of and conditioned by this universal change
itself. As this universal material changes form it is entirely understandable
that “every part of me will be assigned its changed place in some part of
the universe, and that will change again into another part of the universe,
and so on to infinity” (5.13). It is also worth noting Robin Hard’s transla-
tion here which asserts not simply that for Marcus our parts will take new
or changed positions but more emphatically that these new positions are
“assigned by change” itself (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.13).
Already this indicates the different stakes from the modern argument
that we have presented earlier. For Adam, human life and our industrial
materials contaminate a separately established world-purity. Conversely for
Marcus, the manifestation of humans and any productions which radiate
from humans are expressions of the one same world. There is no perma-
nently prior pre-human purity. The material that constitutes humans and
the material that humans exude into the world can only ever be parts of
and derive from that very world. It is all the same substance. This acknowl-
edges a common constitution to all selves, all parts, and all things. Marcus
describes this common constitution emphatically as a “universal sub-
stance” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 12.32), which facilitates his argument
that all things in the universe are in some way always already “meshed
together” (7.9).16 Such common meshing is inescapable and seemingly
not something industrialization could transcend.
As prominent as this point is within Marcus’ Meditations, it would be
disingenuous not to acknowledge that there is an element of his
perspective which might contradict this sense of enmeshed human-nature

relations. This concerns how Marcus describes the individual human as
sometimes not living in accordance with the “unity” of nature. In this
context Marcus separates such an individual “away from the soul of all
rational beings … separating himself from the principle of our common
nature” (4.29).
As encountered in other chapters an existence lived in accordance with
this common rational nature is for Stoicism one that is not dependent on
externalities over which we have no control. To live appropriately and
rationally is to only depend on what is internal to the self. The curiosity as
we have noted is that the internality of the self is concurrently a universal
rational nature which extends beyond the self. What Marcus is positing in
the preceding paragraph is that conversely, the irrational individual who
“depends on others and does not possess within him all he needs for life …
fails to recognize … the universe” (4.29). The afflicted individual is in this
mode “splintered” or separated from universal nature and is what Robin
Hard’s translation describes as “a person who has no knowledge of what
it [the universe] contains” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 4.29). This is not sim-
ply because the individual fails to recognize the universe but because they
fail to recognize the universe in themselves.
While I include this sense of alienation for Marcus, there is a key differ-
ence between his interpretation of a separation from nature and Adam’s
reading of the same phenomenon. Adam conceives the entirety of modern
humanity to currently be “out of sync” with a worldly nature. All humans
are in danger of extinction as a result of the collectively lax responses to
climate changes. Adam’s position is that in the modern industrialized era
the default or normative human status is to exist in opposition to a con-
taminated natural environment that is reacting against us. Marcus’ sense
of separation from the natural Whole is conversely of an individuated
abnormality. We see this when he informs such an individual that “you
have made yourself an outcast from the unity of nature” (Marcus Aurelius
1964, 8.34). The default status for the human in Marcus’ philosophy dif-
fers significantly from Adam’s view, as the just discussed Stoic enmesh-
ment within the natural unity of the Whole. We are naturally inclined to
be rationally in sync with nature. This means that when Marcus empha-
sizes that our natural state features a dependency exclusively on what is
internal to the self, such internality is a nature that is dispersed among or
enmeshed with an entire changing universe.
160 W. JOHNCOCK
Change as Death Is Natural and Harmless

For Marcus therefore a perpetually materially changing world is natural
and rationally expected. In considering the different forms of this perpetu-
ally transitioning universe however, we cannot simply say that changes in
climates are as rationally oriented as all other physical changes. What if
increasing global temperatures, for example, are the result of irrational
actions and hence from a Stoic perspective cause us harm? We are building
to this kind of consideration. Before we get there though we must con-
front this notion of harm. Themes of climate change conjure connotations
of seemingly the ultimate form of harm; death (both at an individual and
a species level). Interestingly though Marcus’ Stoicism does not always
conceive of our material death as a harmful or irrationally unnatural change.
As reviewed in Adam’s social theory, the “out of sync” relations between
humanity and the natural realm indicate that we are “running out of time”
(Adam 1993, 402). The time that Adam believes we are running out of is
twofold. Firstly, it refers to the point beyond which it will be too late to
maintain a climatic stability of the planet. Secondly, it indicates the death
of our species, the end of our species’ time, that will eventuate without
such stability. Adam endorses characterizations as a result which fear that
climate change and “environmental damage” is indicative of how we are
“consuming and polluting our way to extinction” (Adam 1998, 84).
Marcus’ Stoic interpretation of death at both individual and collective
levels is conversely not of an aspect of being that warrants fear. This is
because all that death represents in his Stoicism is nature’s originary and
perpetual transition. As parts of a universal nature humans come and go,
change and mutate, as readily as other parts of the universe. Even the
death of one’s child is for Marcus not something by which we should be
shocked. He notes in Meditations how inspired he is by Epictetus’ argu-
ment that “nothing is ominous” about any death because it “points to a
natural process” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 11.34). William Stephens clari-
fies in response that of the fourteen children that Marcus had in 30 years
of marriage only six would live to be adults. When reading Meditations it
is evident that in dealing with his own experiences his signification of
death as natural change becomes “a lesson Marcus needed to repeat”
(Stephens 2012, 17).
Marcus incorporates earlier notions of pantheism on this topic. He
states to anyone not wanting to “die” or bemoaning that their relatives
might pass away that as “you have subsisted as a part of the Whole,” even
after death you will merely reintegrate “into that which gave you birth: or
rather you will be changed, taken up into the generative principle of the
universe” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 4.14).17 Adam’s concern about the
ramifications of a human imprint on a fragile nature (Adam 1998, 23)
contrarily seems fixated on maintaining what exists in the present or a
recent pre-industrial past. Marcus’ sense of human life as inevitably tem-
poral expressions of that nature is alternatively not so oriented. The fragil-
ity of this current environment could in this view not necessarily be
something against which nature requires safeguarding. An environment’s
degenerative transitions might instead exemplify nature’s regenera-
tive, ongoing process of mutating, dying, and re-originating.
What occurs to your constitution upon death in this Stoic interpreta-
tion is therefore not consistent with our usual understandings about the
perishing of the physical body. Nor is it in concert with Adam’s fear that if
the climate changes dramatically we will be obliterated and absent from
the world. What is at play in Marcus’ Stoicism is instead a process where
after “death” you become universally “scattered” (Marcus Aurelius 1964,
10.6). This scattering occurs among a world-as-nature from which you
and the human species came. This does not mark the end of an individual’s
or a species’ nature but instead heralds how each individual and each spe-
cies has materialized “one further part of nature’s will” (9.3). Any subse-
quent death of any life really just reflects transition. As Marcus demands
regarding the transitions of part-whole relations, “the parts of the Whole,
all that form the natural complement of the universe, must necessarily per-
ish—and ‘perish’ should be taken in the sense of ‘change’” (10.7).
Adam’s view is the orthodox view in climate discourse. The adverse
effects of human industrialization will not only harm the planet but poten-
tially bring about the end of the human species (not to mention many
other species). This signifies change as an external agent that can enact a
future absence for humans and environments. By conversely engaging the
Stoic pantheistic reading of an internal connectedness between all parts of
a Whole—the aforementioned “meshing together”—humans and envi-
ronments are coincidental with change.
Marcus’ pantheism makes us reconsider when humans and our effects
can be properly defined as existing outside nature. Adam’s position is that
via industrialization what materially and culturally manifests from humans
somehow operates outside and upon nature. We have reviewed how this
commentary touches upon something that lurks within the modern con-
sciousness of climate change. If environmental transition rapidly
162 W. JOHNCOCK
continues, we become increasingly likely to die because of it. Nevertheless,

if even modern Stoics who shun Stoicism’s pantheistic element still sub-
scribe to the orthodox Stoic position that we are part of a grander nature,
is it ever Stoically possible to characterize our death as anything but a
universally natural and rational transition?
Change Can Be Irrational and Harmful

Regarding this natural transition, Marcus claims of nature that it has no
reason to ever do itself wrong (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 6.1). We will begin
this final section by running with this idea that there is “no external cause”
to nature that “can force it to create anything harmful to itself” (10.6).
My particular query is whether we should read this in a way that the cli-
mate change caused by the parts of nature that are human might not
necessarily be harmful to nature.
If indeed this was the case, such climate change would not be harmful
to humans either. The effects of climate change would simply be a hall-
mark of nature’s human kinds of changes. According to this reading,
Marcus would be demanding that we should not resent nor fear anything
brought about by nature’s mutative and transitive processes. Climate
change as we are often told affects our whole world’s environment. In the
preceding discussion, we see however that for Marcus “nothing which
benefits the Whole can be harmful to the part, and the Whole contains
nothing which is not to its benefit” (10.6). Does this mean that if the
Whole contains nothing that is harmful, and climate change is contained
in the Whole, that climate change is not harmful?
The simplicity of this reading is seductive. It is however too reductive
to interpret that any change which occurs in the Whole is beneficial rather
than harmful to the Whole in Marcus’ Stoicism. We have seen the panthe-
istic conditions of Marcus’ Whole. To live in accordance with the will of
Whole nature is to live in accordance with the will of God. Not all our
actions will always be in accordance with nature/God though. We have
reviewed that humans will act irrationally in Marcus’ view and these acts
will harm both oneself and the broader natural Whole. Returning to the
citation that began this section, Marcus says that nature “cannot force” the
creation of something harmful to itself. This does not mean though that
humans will never irrationally cause harm of their own misguided volition.
When we do act irrationally, our actions and our subjectivities will in some
way be outside and not “contained” in the Whole accordingly.
In determining whether actions that have accelerated climate change

are irrationally oriented and therefore unnatural and harmful, we should
not be worrying about whether they will fast-track our ecologically induced
death. If Marcus was to engage the topic of possibly irrationally caused
climate change, he would instead evaluate the irrationality of such actions
according to their relationship to a Whole nature of which we are a part.
In encouraging us to take up the “cosmic perspective” (5.24) Marcus does
not direct us to worry about our own life or even that of our species.
Robin Hard’s translation complements our sense of this perspective by
interpreting that Marcus intends us to “think of substance in its entirety …
and of time in its entirety,” rather than focus on our specifically minor roles
(Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.24). To act rationally for Marcus is to cohere
with a universe by always appreciating that we are component parts of it:
…even the most trivial action should be undertaken in reference to the end.
And the end for rational creatures is to follow the reason and the rule of that
most venerable archetype of a governing state—the Universe. (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 2.16)
As noted in preceding chapters, orienting ourselves universally brings per-

sonal happiness in the sense that happiness comprises a generally rational
and virtuous nature. This orientation requires our relaxation to a “state of
passive acceptance of what universal nature brings” (12.32). Do not inter-
pret this notion of passivity straightforwardly. Marcus still implores us to
be actively responsible for aligning our lives with a universal rational
nature. If we are not actively interested in benefiting our world we will
incur and cause the harm that moderns might identify with the apathy that
allows environmental destruction to perpetuate. In such instances we are
not contained in the Whole.
An example of this view for Marcus might be where he states that the
“soul of a man harms itself” when it allows itself to become “a separate
growth in revolt from Nature … a sort of tumour on the universe”
(2.16).18 This sense of the detachment of one party from the other in the
human-nature relationship also permeates Adam’s account of nature’s
“retreat” and “retaliation” from human harm (Adam 1998, 30). A certain
coherence could appear to emerge accordingly between Marcus and Adam
on the supposed separation of humans and nature.
What Marcus is describing though is not a revolt caused by our harmful
intrusion to the world environment. The direction of harm is not simply
164 W. JOHNCOCK
from us toward a world. The human-nature separation instead occurs

when we harm ourselves by being creatures who “give in to pleasure or
pain” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 2.16). We are not a “tumour” on the world
because we are an alien introduction to an otherwise natural setting.
Marcus instead describes us as this separate growth because we do not
align ourselves with our Stoic rational nature. Given the self-orientation of
this harm, Adam’s notion of the revolt does not adequately exhibit how
climate change inducing actions could be unnaturally irrational for the
Whole for Marcus.
Perhaps a better example is in Marcus’ repeated terminology around
the interconnected natural harmony of everything. This monistic sense of
being for Marcus means that in the “whole of things there is one har-
mony: and just as all material bodies combine to make the world one body,
a harmonious whole, so all causes combine to make Destiny one harmoni-
ous cause” (5.8). Gregory Hays’ translation of this position is also notable
in describing all bodies as comprising “a single harmony … comprising all
purposes … in a harmonious pattern” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.8; my
emphasis). With this conception of component parts to an overall rational-
ized harmony or pattern a modern environmentalist could argue that
actions which disrupt such harmony are irrationally harmful and unnatu-
rally oriented. The disruption of usual climate patterns is after all one of
the most regular indicators proffered regarding climate jeopardy. When
describing furthermore the relations which constitute one’s rational
responsibilities, Marcus lists “[f]irst, to your environment; second, to the
divine cause which is the source of all that happens … third, to your fel-
lows and contemporaries” (8.27).
If we neglect such responsibilities we cause irrational harm to ourselves
primarily but also to the universe. For modern Stoic commentators such
as Whiting and Konstantakos many aspects of industrialized human behav-
ior do conflict with these kinds of responsibilities. Such behaviors in their
view therefore fit the categories of irrational and harmful. With harm-
reduction in mind, Whiting and Konstantakos make the consequent
demand that “modern Stoics ought to call for environmental action” in
order to better align oneself and other humans with “‘the will of god’ (the
in-built order and rationality of the universe)” (Whiting and Konstantakos
2019, 5).
Human responsibilities to the whole are here different to the responsi-
bilities other creatures have. With this point, we return to the theme ear-
lier encountered of the concurrent logocentrism and anthropocentrism
underpinning Stoic ethics. Humans embody both a universal rationality

and a particularly humanized rationality. In arguing that human rational-
ized virtue for the Stoics can only manifest via specifically human actions,
we are again required for Christopher Gill in terms of climate questions to
work “towards a view of virtue and happiness that is consistent with our
understanding … of our human life as an integral part of nature as a
whole” (Gill 2016, 126). William Stephens also discusses that our per-
spective on the human relationship to the environment must be sensitive
to the “unique capacities and unique responsibilities of human beings”
(Stephens 1994, 286). While humans exist in a wholly rational universe,
we have reviewed how for the Stoics these unique human capacities and
responsibilities refer to our relatively elevated position in the universal
rational hierarchy. Stephens accordingly asks rhetorically regarding the
basis of human actions in relation to climate change; “from what other
than reason can a sound and viable environmental ethic be con-
structed?” (286).
This perspective reduces our original question in this chapter of
whether climate change is natural to the conclusion; yes, but only if ratio-
nal (and therefore natural) actions cause it. According to converse per-
spectives found in the preceding commentaries, it is more rational to be
concerned about the human responsibilities to an overall material har-
mony than it is to simply accept all climate change as natural. For Anthony
Long this recognition of our responsibilities is consistent with Marcus’
position regarding the ongoing reliable ordering and prosperity of all fea-
tures of nature:
The goals of nature, in typical Stoic understanding of the expression, are the
optimal functioning of the living beings that populate the planet—the fertil-
ity and fruits of crops, the healthy behaviour of animals according to their
species, and the deployment of human reason in ways appropriate to oneself
and one’s company. (Long 2018)
The pragmatic worth of this discussion is not to suggest that only a Stoic
perspective on environmental issues is valid. What Marcus instead contrib-
utes is an appreciation of a transitioning world in which humans and
human effects are always embedded. This encourages a reflection on the-
ses of the separation of humans and nature. Instead of installing adversarial
logics and terminologies, via Stoicism we might ask why we, as nature,
bring about these changes to nature and thus also to ourselves? The
166 W. JOHNCOCK
sobering effect of this insight for modern thinkers bound to more typical
readings of climate change is that it could ask us to consider why we create
the conditions that might accelerate the “demise” of our own species. If
we are, as Marcus claims, just parts of a whole dispersing and scattering
nature, why does this nature or whole manifest in human forms that appar-
ently expedite our own scattering?
Thinking adventurously and relatively conversely regarding this ques-
tion, could it also be that as a natural form we are somehow aware that
such demise would never be an entire obliteration of whatever it is that
makes us who we are? Are we actually cognizant that the climate-induced
death of our species would simply be a reconfiguration of a universe and a
universal substance of which we are? Climate change discussion when
infused with these Stoic perspectives could possibly expand in scope. This
would concern how we comprehend death and interconnection. Such a
direction would complement the abundance of works that are alternatively
concerned with identifying strategies to combat climate change and to
prolong the current specificities of human existence. In reviewing themes
of death through questions of the human-climate relation, this method
would furthermore navigate the debate about climate change specifically
toward questions of time. This as we have seen is a direction that Adam’s
social theory prompts. This Stoic interrogation of Adam’s perspective
could in this regard serve as a complement to her call for a greater discur-
sive attention on the time-parameters of climate change.
Notes
1. For a recent example of this appraisal, see Justin Worland’s “How Climate
Change Unfairly Burdens Poorer Countries” (2016).
2. Robert Nicholls, Frank Hoozemans, and Marcel Marchand provide a use-
ful introduction to this topic in “Increasing Flood Risk and Wetland Losses
Due to Global Sea-Level Rise: Regional and Global Analyses” (Nicholls
et al. 1999).
3. This is a presiding theme in climate change discourse. Anthony McMichael
explains how such discourse declares that “global environmental change is
the erosion of Earth’s life-support systems” which manifests as a “threat to
the health and survival of the world’s living species—including our own”
(McMichael 1993, xiii). For a more recent illustration of this correlation
between climate change and human extinction see Anderson (2017).
4. In 1992 Adam conceived the still active Time and Society academic journal.
5. This characterization of time is not new. Elizabeth Grosz offers one of my

favorite discussions of the interpretation that “time is more intangible than
any other ‘thing’” (Grosz 1999, 1). Spatial things in the physical world are
readily tangible and consequently seem to be accountable. Time contrarily
operates with a relative invisibility and mystery, lurking as “a silent accom-
paniment, a shadowy implication” (1).
6. The argument that we are running out of time to prevent catastrophic
climate change goes beyond Adam’s work. As a further prominent exam-
ple, see Giorel Curran’s “Ecological Modernisation and Climate Change
in Australia.” Curran uses the terminology “running out of time” (Curran
2009, 212) to refer to the adverse human relationship with industrially
induced, ecological and climatic change.
7. This is a version of text (Cicero 1997, 1.37) from Cicero’s De Natura
Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) (1997).
8. The closing lines of Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus refer to a “Universal Law”
which earlier in the Hymn is described as “Reason harmonized.” This is
probably why Keimpe Algra calls its closing passages a “prayer for rational-
ity” (Algra 2003, 176). For Algra the Hymn projects the sense of the
revealing of God through “the power of judgement,” so each human is
provided with the occasion to “perfect one’s own reason” (176).
9. For background on Pigliucci’s position also refer to his chapter “God or
Atoms?” (Pigliucci 2017a, 79–93).
10. Mark Vernon’s reading exhibits consistencies with both sides of this debate.
In responding to Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus (Cleanthes and Thom 2005)
Vernon maintains Stoicism’s inherent pantheism while opposing it from
modern scientific insights; “the ancient view of nature is not the same as
the modern scientific view, which is mechanical and dead, unlike the
organic, living, soul-filled cosmos ancient ‘pantheism’ implies … Cleanthes’
Hymn to Zeus needs to be read as metaphysical poetry not modern scien-
tific theory” (Vernon and LeBon 2014). Seneca reports that Cleanthes’
view was that the poetic style of the Hymn was the best way to express
philosophical insights because “our thoughts are amplified by the stringent
requirements of verse” (Cleanthes in Seneca 2015a, 108.9). For a consid-
eration of Seneca’s personal investment in this style of philosophy, see
Peter Anderson’s commentary on how poetic and rhetorical techniques
infused Seneca’s own philosophical expression (Anderson in Seneca 2015b,
xiii–xv).
11. See also Fisher (2016) for a publicly directed endorsement of “Traditional
Stoicism” that centralizes the immanence of a logocentric divinity.
12. In The Symposium Plato develops the distinction between the Forms and
sensible material or bodied objects (Plato 2008b, 211a–b). This theory
receives its most comprehensive attention though in Plato’s Republic
(Plato 2012).
168 W. JOHNCOCK
13. As Edwin Bowen states of Meditations, if it “seems fragmentary and …

lacking logical sequence” this is because of the “circumstances of its com-
position. For it was written on the eve of battles or in the midst of business
engagements” (Bowen 1950, 78).
14. The kind of materialism forwarded by Stoic perspectives which precede
and overlap with Marcus’ era can perhaps be traced to Heraclitus. Diogenes
Laërtius reports that Heraclitus was known at the time to have “written a
book on Natural Philosophy” featuring an “important theory concerning
the universal world and all that is contained within it” (Diogenes Laërtius
1853, 9.10). Heraclitus interprets that the metaphysical perspective of
“constant flux” is instead an interchange of material elements. That “fire is
an element” means in Diogenes’ estimation that one of the “main princi-
ples” for Heraclitus is that “everything is created from fire, and is dissolved
into fire” (9.6). Heraclitus’ physics here correlates with impressions pre-
sented in early Stoicism that describe the process of worldly, material
becoming as follows; “For that fire, when densified becomes liquid and
becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when con-
crete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth
itself becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that every-
thing else is produced” (9.6). Diogenes reports that this position inspired
Stoics who “undertook to interpret his book” (9.11).
15. Marcus’ mention of “atoms” is to some extent probably a reference to the
Epicurean perspective that the world is constituted by undifferentiated,
indivisible particles or atoms. As Aetius reports, for Epicurus “the atom is
so called not because it is the minimal [particle], but because it cannot be
divided” (Aetius, Text 77, 1.3.18, in Inwood and Gerson 1994, 88). This
is a theory largely inherited from Democritus. Aetius again reports how-
ever that in terms of the properties of an atom, “Democritus said that there
were two, size and shape, but Epicurus added weight to these as a third”
(88). The Epicurean position of discrete atoms sits largely contrarily to
Marcus’ monistic sense of co-implicated part-whole relations.
16. See also Robin Hard’s translation of an “interwoven” relation (Marcus
Aurelius 2011, 7.9).
17. The regenerative aspect of our substantial relation to the universe is empha-
sized in Gregory Hays’ translation of this passage in which Marcus instructs
that “you have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what
produced you. Or be restored, rather. To the logos from which all things
spring. By being changed” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 4.14).
18. Or what Gregory Hays’ (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 2.16) and Robin Hard’s
(Marcus Aurelius 2011, 2.16) translations both describe as an “abscess on
the universe.”
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Thrive in a World out of Your Control. New York: The Experiment Publishing.
Plato. 2008a. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford and
University Press.
Penguin Books.
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 1999. Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist
Readings of Plato’s Timaeus. Turnhout: Brepols.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 2015a. Seneca: Letters on Ethics. Translated by Margaret
Graver and Anthony Long. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press.
———. 2015b. Seneca: Selected Dialogues and Consolations. Translated by Peter
Anderson. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.
Stephens, William. 1994. Stoic Naturalism, Rationalism, and Ecology.
Environmental Ethics 16 (3): 275–286.
———. 2012. Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum.
Vernon, Mark, and Tim LeBon. 2014. The Debate: Do You Need God to Be a
Stoic? Modern Stoicism, November 26. https://modernstoicism.com/
the-debate-do-you-need-god-to-be-a-stoic/.
Whiting, Kai, and Leonidas Konstantakos. 2019. Stoic Theology: Revealing or
Redundant. Religions 10 (3): 193.
Whiting, Kai, Leonidas Konstantakos, Angeles Carrasco, and Luis Gabriel
Carmona. 2018. Sustainable Development, Wellbeing and Material
Consumption: A Stoic Perspective. Sustainability 10 (2): 474.
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Time, February 6. http://time.com/4209510/climate-change-poor-countries/.
CHAPTER 8
What Causes Your Behaviors? Zeno

and Pierre Bourdieu on the Body
Only Bodies Exist

When considering what directs our individual behaviors or actions, we
might refer to the decision-making processes associated with the mind.
This interpretation accommodates how external prompts and objects in
the world steer our decisions. Conscious or subconscious responses to
such prompts or objects in this view enact associated behaviors. Taking a
particular bus, constructing a sentence with a certain formality, running
from a dangerous looking dog, and myriad other examples reflect deci-
sions that take shape according to how we mentally manage our environ-
ment and experiences of it. In reflecting upon this management, we can
seek the causal links between thoughts or decisions about situations and
the behaviors that are based on those thoughts or decisions.
Our behaviors are coded through a cacophony of experiences, knowl-
edge, memories, and expectations.1 In attempting to decode why some-
one behaves as they do, often the focus will be on questions concerning
what “they were thinking” or by what “they were motivated.” The con-
crete, visual quality of the physical act becomes a potential insight into the
not-physically-visible mental compulsions behind such acts. From this per-
spective arise impressions of a “mental pilot” of our actions.2
Inquiries concerning the causality and physicality of actions and behav-
iors take shape differently however in one of Stoic philosophy’s originary
ideas. The idea in question comes from the earliest formal Stoic, Zeno of
Citium (334–262 BCE). Only fragments provided by later writers have

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_8
174 W. JOHNCOCK
survived of his work (as the diversity of the voices that brings Zeno to us
reflects). What we can seemingly be certain of though is that Zeno created
the Stoic school after arriving in Athens.3 In developing Stoic principles,
Zeno adhered to a preference for straightforward relations between
thought and causal life. It is in considering the specific relationship
between cause and action that he duly categorizes what can possibly act or
cause action under one particular kind of entity; bodies.
To explore this position—that only bodies can act—it is first necessary
to appreciate the ideological context from which it emerges. Here we will
benefit from familiarizing ourselves with preceding thoughts from Plato.
The connection between Zeno and Plato in fact takes many forms. Zeno’s
long-lost but most famous text, Republic, reportedly outlines an ideally
egalitarian Stoic society and was described to have been developed as a
response to Plato’s more famous work of the same name.4
Specifically regarding Zeno’s exclusive correlation of cause-and-action
with bodies, it is necessary to identify how Plato contrarily attacks materi-
alist ontologies in the Sophist. Written not long before Zeno’s birth
(around 360 BCE), for Plato the materialist position is untenable if it
interprets that all that exists is bodied (Plato 1871, 245–2495). Materialism
in this perspective posits that for a “thing” to exist, that thing as bodied
must be physical/sensible. Anything that cannot be touched cannot be
bodied and thus does not exist, whereby for Plato the materialist is said to
“obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or han-
dled have being … because they [materialists] define being and body as
one” (245).
An adoption of the materialist position would rule out for Plato the
possibility that souls exist. Plato is unwilling to accept this ramification.
He accordingly presents to the materialists the counter-argument that if
only bodies exist then their position excludes souls. Additionally says
Plato, the materialist must exclude concepts such as virtue and justice that
are evidently also not physically bodied (247). By convincing the material-
ists to accept a more moderate doctrine in which souls do exist but are
separate from bodies, Plato believes he will strategically force the conces-
sion that something other than bodies is able to exist. If the materialists
concede that souls exist, then in terms of the body “that which may be
present or may be absent will be admitted by them [the materialists] to
exist” (247). The result would be to compromise the entire claim of the
materialists that bodies are all that exists.
8 WHAT CAUSES YOUR BEHAVIORS? ZENO AND PIERRE BOURDIEU… 175
In believing to have pre-emptively garnered this concession from the

materialist position, Plato develops a model of existence that goes beyond
bodies. More broadly, Plato defines existence as what can act or be acted
upon, in that “anything which possesses any sort of power to affect
another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment … has
real existence” (247). This classification accommodates the immaterial
soul’s capacity to act and the receptivity to be acted upon.
Zeno’s intervention to this discussion begins from a position that is
consistent with the materialists (and therefore in contradistinction to
Plato). The original Stoic position here is that being or existence refers
only to what is bodied. Aristocles brings us the insight that in this regard
for Zeno clearly only bodies exist (Aristocles, SVF, 1.98, in L&S, 273).6
Rather than then conceding to Plato that phenomena such as souls either
do not exist or do exist but are not bodied, Zeno maintains that actually
souls do exist because they are also bodied.
Zeno in fact agrees with the condition that we have just observed Plato
install regarding the equation of existence with the dual capacity to act and
receive action. This condition comes to define in Zeno’s school the two
Stoic principles regarding the constitution of the universe as (1) that which
acts and (2) that which is acted upon. According to Cicero’s reading in
Academica (On Academic Skepticism), however, for Zeno this capacity to
act and be acted upon is solely attributable to bodies. That the soul exists
for Zeno means that it must simply provide an example of a body that acts
and is acted upon, contrary to Plato’s assertion of the soul’s non-bodily
separateness (Cicero 1967b, 1.39).
Zeno emphasizes that this embodied capacity to act or be acted upon
applies as much to obviously tangible objects as it does to seemingly less
tangible objects. The reason for this is that what seems to be less tangible
is in fact not less tangible. Aspects of the universe such as soul, virtue, and
intelligence are for Zeno bodied. If as Cicero reports this Stoic position is
to demand that only bodies have the capacity to act and be acted upon
(1.39), then as Aristocles reflects even God must for Zeno be corporeal
(Aristocles, SVF, 1.98, in L&S, 273).7 This conclusion seems odd, so we
should investigate what exactly God is in this Stoic conception. Our dis-
cussion here will encompass the early Stoic belief in a pantheistic world
that we have alternatively reviewed in other chapters according to how it
manifested for later Stoics.
176 W. JOHNCOCK
God and the Self-Moving Principle

Beyond the specific topic of bodies, we first need to comprehend the gen-
eral Stoic position of active and passive principles. What exists in the world
is said for Zeno to consist of a common substrate or substance (Calcidius,
SVF, 1.88, in L&S, 269).8 As we have covered in the previous chapter,
Diogenes Laërtius reports of this common substance that what is acted
upon, the passive principle, is “unqualified substance, i.e. matter”
(Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.300, in L&S, 268) (Diogenes Laërtius 1853,
7.68). Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Physicists further defines the Stoic
impression of this passive principle as that which “is without motion from
itself and shapeless, and so has to be moved and shaped by some cause”
(Sextus Empiricus 2012, 1.75).9
Because this matter cannot form or cause motion itself, an active prin-
ciple is required. Matter, the passive principle, here needs what the Stoics
call “God” in order to take the forms or activations that it does. We should
begin to see the seeds of Stoic pantheism emerging accordingly. Consistent
with our previous encounters with Stoic pantheism, this God is not an
external agent of activation. God rather is eternally internal to matter as its
omnipresent active principle:
…the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For
he, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter, makes everything.
(Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68)
The later Stoic commentator Galen has concerns about the Stoic impres-
sion of corporeal causation. Robert Hankinson remarks that this is because
for Galen “the Stoics invoke not only causes of becoming; they introduce
causes of being as well” (Hankinson 1999, 482). If only bodies exist, and
bodies both act or cause and are acted upon or caused, then every body
contains its own cause for coming into existence and existing. The prob-
lem is that this cause must then contain its own cause, and so on. Hankinson
cites Galen’s concern about this immanence of the active principle that:
If every single thing requires a containing cause without which it cannot

exist, that cause, as it is an existent, must inevitably have another containing
cause itself which must in turn have yet another—and so on ad infinitum.
(Galen in Hankinson 1999, 482)10
In responding to Galen’s concern, we can note that the eternal character-

ization of the active principle (God) is important. Sextus identifies in this
regard that for the Stoics an agent or power which acts is either self-
moving/acting or moved/acted by something else. If the active agent is
moved or acted upon by something else, this requires a third agent, and
then a fourth agent for the third, and so on. This is the issue that Galen’s
analysis raises.
Asserting that this is “absurd,” Sextus instead notes the belief that the
active principle for the Stoics is an agent which “in itself is self-moving.”
This self-moving is an eternal principle because if there is no cause of its
motion from outside it by a preceding agent then there is “no cause of its
motion from a definite time.” The result for the Stoics is that an active
principle must be “in motion from eternity” and its power to cause
“changes is everlasting” (Sextus Empiricus, SVF, 2.311, in L&S, 269).
Cicero is also intrigued by this feature of ancient metaphysics, whereby in
De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) he reviews this vision of
God as an “immanent and dynamic force in nature” (Cicero 1997, 1.10).11
The nature of Stoic self-moving causation hinges as we might now appre-
ciate on a pantheistic appreciation of God and the world. The bodied Stoic
God is not a reference to a deity sitting up in the clouds with an ever-aging
corporeality. It is rather an indication of how God permeates all bodies as
the active principle of matter.
The purpose of this early Stoic argument is not to redefine constitu-
tions or compositions of the body which acts or is acted upon. We can still
maintain that such bodies have length, breadth, and depth.12 The Stoic
intention (particularly for Zeno) rather is to demand that what is incorpo-
real (not corporeally bodied) cannot act on or in the world.
This is not to say that for Zeno incorporeals cannot emerge from cor-
porealities and corporeal action. The primary point instead is the adjudica-
tion that incorporeals cannot themselves be causes. Incorporeals are
dependent in this regard on causally agentive corporeal functions and enti-
ties. Sextus duly reports in Against the Physicists that as Zeno posits:
…every cause is a body which functions as cause to a body of something

incorporeal—for example, the scalpel (a body) as cause to flesh (a body) of
the incorporeal predicate “being cut.” (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 1.211)
Given that only bodies exist, it is not that what is incorporeal is dependent
upon what is corporeal and self-moving for an incorporeal “existence.”
178 W. JOHNCOCK
This dependency rather is simply that which affords the incorporeal, as

Zeno describes here, its state of predication. We should flag this distinc-
tion between existence and predication as we will return to the topic of the
incorporeal predicate at a later point.
From this earliest of Stoic eras we therefore encounter the argument
that only bodies can act or can cause. Behavior has bodily originations and
explanations. How, we can now ask, would such a claim sit with the ini-
tially considered assumption in this chapter that our bodily behaviors and
acts refer to causes that we might believe are not physical or bodied? This
of course was a reference to our mind and its inherent knowledge, memo-
ries, and expectations. Considering the Platonic discussion which pro-
ceeded, we might now suggest that this reference to non-bodied causes
could include elements beyond the mind, such as the apparently abstract
qualities of the soul, justice, and wisdom.13
It seems appropriate to suggest that principles around what is just and
unjust, for example, are involved in causing our behaviors. Collective prin-
ciples and mutual agreements concerning justice shape to some extent our
individual consciousnesses and enactments of what social environments
demand. This notes a relationship between collegial orientations and indi-
vidual orientations and introduces a communal involvement to our con-
siderations in this chapter regarding what causes our behaviors.
In order to explore this involvement while maintaining an interest in
Zeno’s bodily causal model we will now have to ask whether these mutual-
ized and collegial principles could also be embodied. To this end, we will
engage the sociological perspectives of Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002).
There is a particular reason that Bourdieu is relevant here. As examined in
the chapters featuring Durkheim and Giddens, contemporary structuralist
sociologies of which Bourdieu’s is a prominent example argue that there
are collective causes to individual acts, decisions, memories, and knowl-
edge. By integrating Bourdieu to this discussion, I am interested in
whether the sociological inclination to posit collective causes to personal
navigations intersects with Zeno’s conception of bodily action. Such an
intersection will of course require a bodily characterization of the collec-
tive cause. As a discussion of the possibility of this unfolds through
Bourdieu, it will in fact be in terms of the body that we will consider cor-
relations of the socially symbolic body with the individual material body.
This in turn will inform how we view from a sociological perspective
Zeno’s argument that all acting and acting upon is bodily.
Collectively Causal Bodies

Bourdieu is generally interested in the concealed structures of the social
world that produce and are reproduced through an individual’s behaviors.
This relates to what for Bourdieu is the universal imperative of sociological
analysis. In The State Nobility he affirms that:
The goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the
different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the “mech-
anisms” that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation. (Bourdieu
1996 [1989], 1)
Via this identification of what Bourdieu describes as a “structural repro-

duction,” populations normalize certain behaviors over successive genera-
tions. Individuals reiterate these behaviors that preceding populations
have collectively sanctioned. There is a blurring as a result between an
individual’s behavior and the social frame that coerces such behavior.
Bourdieu’s work studies whether the distinction between the objectivity
of a society’s structured influence on individuals, and the subjectivity of an
individual’s agency, is actually ambiguous. He describes the social element
as “objective” given that no individual in a social context transcends that
context’s collectively structured jurisdiction.
In The Logic of Practice Bourdieu opposes conceptions of the individual-
social relation in which an individual is a passive entity that social structure
completely or deterministically shapes (Bourdieu 1990a [1980], 52).
Bourdieu instead wants to explore how individuals also constructively par-
ticipate in social structure. In this sense, we see similarities between
Bourdieu, and Giddens’ earlier-reviewed criteria for structuralism. This is
remembering as we see in Chaps. 2 and 6 that structuralist perspectives
generally do not satisfy these criteria in Giddens’ evaluation.
Bourdieu is particularly careful not to simply invert the reductive
assumption that social structure produces individuals. He also wants to
avoid conversely arguing that human behaviors are the result of autono-
mous, individual causation. This latter interpretation would not in his
view address the collective reproduction and normalization of behaviors.
Bourdieu duly condemns subjectively oriented psychological studies which
hierarchize notions of individual causation. The error here in Bourdieu’s
estimation is that a “fall into subjectivism is incapable of giving an account
of the necessity of the social world” (52).
180 W. JOHNCOCK
Having established this precautionary methodology, Bourdieu then

enquires into what causes us to act or behave in the way(s) we do. As he
consequently traces socialized influences and causes within subjective
actions there is the temptation to read Bourdieu as an example of a socio-
logical structuralism that posits the determination of the individual by
overwhelming social structures. I will remind us though of Chap. 6’s rec-
ognition that while Giddens criticizes many structuralist positions of this
perspective, he does not deem that Bourdieu’s warrants such a portrayal.
We must accordingly be careful in engaging this aspect of Bourdieu’s soci-
ology. There is more occurring than the reductionist interpretation of a
one-directional socially structural, conditioning of an individual’s behav-
ioral production.
Bourdieu instead appreciates a greater complexity to the individual-
social relation through his focus on the role and status of the body. This
attention to the body is a hallmark of Bourdieu’s The Logic of Practice,
stating that an individual’s position within a social structure emerges
through their bodily practice (9, 10, 57–58, 66–79). As we will soon
unpack, the body in this method of analysis represents a site that is both
symbolic and practical or actual. This dual mode is attributable to how the
body captures the interaction between the individual’s practices and the
social structure in which the individual exists.14
In returning to Stoicism we can observe that for Zeno the body is also
always a “site” of causal interaction. This claim can be substantiated
through Stobaeus’ presentation of Zeno’s explicit definition of a cause as
“that because of which” (Stobaeus, SVF, 1.89, in L&S, 333). A body
manifests for Zeno as a particular “that because of which” in any causal
phenomenon. In this view, the body also represents the location or point
of the event from which the “because” in the causal sense is possibilized.
Causation occurs because of a precise body at a precise bodily location.
The location is hence the site on which the “because” of any cause is
dependent. That location/site as we have reviewed in Zeno’s thesis is
bodily. Without bodies in Zeno’s Stoicism, there would be no causes or
actions to which we could trace “becauses.”
Predicates manifest from these bodily causal phenomena. Brad Inwood
observes of Zeno’s cause-predicate relation that a “cause is something
because of which something happens [or comes into being], for example
‘being prudent’ happens because of prudence” (Inwood 1985, 97). Our
predicated status of “being prudent” thus manifests to varying degrees of
prudence as “states or movements of a material soul” (97). Inwood
reminds us that for early Stoicism while prudence is a state of a material

cause, it is still independent of a material cause. This reminder refers to the
incorporeality of predicates that we have seen Zeno assert via Sextus
Empiricus (Sextus Empiricus, SVF, 2.311, in L&S, 333). That the causes
of prudence are materially bodied but prudence itself is not bod-
ied, prompts Inwood to ask whether it is an “embarrassment” that the
Stoics were unable to accommodate “material accounts of psychological
states” (Inwood 1985, 97). In casting his critique wider than the Stoics,
he notes that this is a common conclusion of psychological materialists. As
earlier flagged we will soon reconsider this distinction of the incorporeality
of predicates, from the bodied constitution of the “because of which.” To
do this we will have to open the possibility of a socially structured compo-
sition of predication.
Bourdieu articulates how the body becomes this “because of which”
point of intersection between the individual and the social structure
through the term “habitus.” Evoking Zeno’s double status of the body as
that which acts and is acted upon, correlatively for Bourdieu the body is
described as what concurrently structures and is structured by. Specifically
the body structures and is structured by socialized contexts of institution-
alized and normalized behavioral practices. It is via this “double act” of
acting/structuring and being-acted-upon/being-structured-by that the
body reiterates and develops the bodily practices that its social environ-
ment has instilled. Crucially for Bourdieu the social environment is con-
currently structuring and structured by these bodily sites of practice,
defining habitus as:
…systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures pre-

disposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which
generate and organize practices. (Bourdieu 1990a, 53)
Our ways of bodily positioning in a social field become the generative basis
of structures that are structuring in terms of how they guide bodily prac-
tices. Simultaneously such structures are structured in that our acquisition
of the power to affect what is collective about behavioral practice is bound
up in the acquisition of the behavioral practices themselves. Hence, we
arrive at Bourdieu’s all-encompassing reference to the “structured struc-
turing structures.” Just as to be bodied for Zeno is not simply to be able
to act but also comprises the receptivity of being acted upon, similarly
bodies for Bourdieu are mutually causal and caused entities. In being
“organized” socially the body concurrently “organizes.”
182 W. JOHNCOCK
Despite this similarity, I note a relatively important distinction between

Zeno’s and Bourdieu’s conceptions of the body in terms of their respec-
tive scopes. Zeno’s concern is with the universalizing causal processes of
all worldly bodies. Bourdieu’s focus is instead specifically with the social-
izing causal processes of human bodies. Regarding Zeno’s outlook, see for
example where Diogenes Laërtius reports that Zeno’s references to the
natural realm of bodies are “sometimes that which keeps the world
together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth”
(Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.73). Comparably Sextus Empiricus has earlier
in Against the Physicists brought us Zeno’s account of bodies as including
both human and nonhuman entities (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 1.211).
While Bourdieu might not entirely discount this characterization of
bodies his specific attention is on socialized human bodies. This keeps
with the sociological tradition of fulfilling the charter of any human sci-
ence to focus on human phenomena. Such a mandate emerges in his
description of how the durable and transposable dispositions of habitus
comprise all ways of human bodily being such as walking, talking, sitting,
moving, and so on. Such dispositions manifest within each individual
human as symbolic templates for the behaviors and actions of all individuals-
as-humans populating a certain social structure (Bourdieu 1990a, 58).
An emphasis on the distinction between certain localized social struc-
tures is pivotal to Bourdieu’s argument. Different classes and communities
normalize different bodily acts. For Bourdieu this positions all such acts as
symbolic templates which frame an individual’s commonality with a spe-
cific group of individuals who occupy similar social positions and share the
same habitus (58–61). This brings to life his earlier portrayal of the goal of
sociology that we have reviewed from The State Nobility. In Bourdieu’s
application, sociology attends to the deep structures of different “social
worlds” that together comprise a “social universe.” For Bourdieu the lens
is on the entire social universe. For Zeno it is on the universe in its entirety.
In being attentive to the terminology deployed by Bourdieu it is worth
noting that in The Logic of Practice he describes each of these social worlds
as a “field” (Bourdieu 1990a, 66–68). A field refers to the particularity of
the social structure that perpetuates its population’s bodily practices.
Given that an individual already belongs to a field in order to acquire its
practices, the acquisition of these bodily practices takes on an objectively
natural impression. If you have ever thought that individuals of a certain
culture or social class share the same bodily traits, for Bourdieu the theory
of localized fields explains why. The body enacts and is enacted by a
particular politic(s). From this insight, we can explore what it respectively

means for Bourdieu and Zeno that as bodily causes we belong.
Bodies Which Belong

Bourdieu demands not only that the generalized sense of the body within
a field causes the bodily behaviors of individuals within that field. Also
important in Bourdieu’s view is that through the body one is marked as
belonging to a field. The body causes one to belong. It embodies belong-
ing. This belonging is not only an emotional sense of collectiveness or
togetherness engendered by common identifications. Belonging is also a
practical action with corporeal causes and conditions. A bodily belonging
as habitus for Bourdieu illustrates how the social body produces an indi-
vidual body that was already involved in the causal production of the social
body from which it manifested. In this regard, it could be that the body
produces the belonging to which it belongs.
We might see a certain parallel between this sense of bodily self-
production and Galen’s earlier concern that Stoic bodies contain their own
causes for existing. The current theme of belonging indeed also condition-
ally intersects with this feature of bodily causal interaction. We have seen
that for Zeno only a body can act or be acted upon. Stobaeus brings an
extension of this point of Zeno’s to our attention by illustrating how for
Zeno causing and caused bodies share a mutual “belonging” as a result. In
terms of causing and caused bodies Zeno is clear that “it is impossible that
the cause be present yet that of which it is the cause not belong” (Stobaeus,
SVF, 1.89, in L&S, 333; my emphasis). Galen’s issue about how Stoicism’s
bodies feature their own “containing causes” is here most apparent. The
active principle is perpetually present in both the acting and the acted bod-
ies given that as Thomas Bénatouïl describes, “God, as self-moving cause,
cannot stop moving and start again later” (Bénatouïl 2009, 30).
This ever-present dynamic relation between bodies for Zeno evokes in
my interpretation the shared presence of bodies which occupy and pro-
duce each other in Bourdieu’s definition of a field. Bodies that are seem-
ingly not directly present to each other in Zeno’s argument still nevertheless
must belong to each other through their shared causal relations and con-
ditions. As we have reviewed in this and previous chapters, this shared
condition is the pantheistic “active principle” which comprises each of
their bodily constitutions. From this, I argue that the notion of a common
belonging between bodies is a feature that Bourdieu has separately
184 W. JOHNCOCK
employed at the level of social structure. Bourdieu’s sociology requires

that all bodies are responsible for collective structuring. This is a responsi-
bility that also acts as a dispersed framework by which such bodies are
structured. Direct and indirect, present and absent, bodily relations condi-
tion how all such bodies belong to a field. Such bodies furthermore per-
petually and actively self-structure (self-move) by structuring (moving)
the social structure that structures them. This mimics what Bénatouïl and
Sextus both describe as the omnipresent self-moving impetus of what we
now characterize as bodily belonging.
What though about the ongoing issue of predicates? Where do they
belong if anywhere in all this? Zeno is not necessarily concerned with social
structures of bodily causation but with a universe of causal belongings that
comprises causal bodies. These bodies exist. The predicates that these
bodies cause are incorporeal and do not strictly exist. Such predicates nev-
ertheless are always caused by bodies which by the earlier definition always
causally belong. If predicates are always with such causally belonging bod-
ies then can we in some way argue that the entirety of bodily belonging
extends beyond the existing bodies to the predicates of such bodies?
The potential belonging of predicated incorporealities to bodily causa-
tion matters in terms of how we maintain a dialogue between Zeno and
Bourdieu. The distinction between corporeal and incorporeal “caused
phenomena” is one reason that I have described the intersection between
Zeno’s and Bourdieu’s impressions of belonging as “conditional.” Even
though causing and caused phenomena mutually “belong” in Zeno’s
Stoicism, only actual bodies are capable of causal production. The non-
bodily predicates of bodies manifest as incorporeal features of bodies, not
as causal agents or participants with bodies.
This is the conventional reading of the Stoic position. It almost cer-
tainly reflects Zeno’s intention as far as we know. Via Bourdieu though I
wish to briefly explore how a more inclusive sense of bodily causation and
predication might be identifiable through his sociology. The concurrently
structuring and structured body is the condition of Bourdieu’s sense of
social belonging. These conditions of belonging likewise condition this
structuring and structured body. As Bourdieu reminds us during In Other
Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology “the body is in the social world
but the social world is also in the body” (Bourdieu 1990b, 190). A coun-
ter-intuitive co-location of the body is apparent that will be important in
my consideration of the structural bodily belonging of predicates.
A predicate refers to an aspect of what something or someone does.

Bourdieu’s social structure involves what an individual body does as it
helps define what a social body does. This mutually directed structural
process not only causes individual bodily predicates but is likewise caused
by these bodily predicates. We can say this because for Bourdieu the body
is a structural consciousness of how each body “does being a body.” Each
body’s doing of bodying is its doing of bodily predicates, all of which are
co-constitutively feeding through individual and structural bodies.
We can further reflect that this marks the fundamental logic of his the-
ory of self-perpetuating fields. The body enacts the field that predicates
bodies collectively. Each body perpetuates the predicates of all bodies of a
similar habitus. It is through the visible durability of certain predicates that
what comes to be the body is “presupposed by socially successful action”
(190). Because these predicates are actions or doings that occur in social
and individual bodies, I argue that in Bourdieu’s theory we must be recep-
tive to the possibility that the predicate is likewise bodied and causal. This
of course is not a reading that Zeno’s Stoicism would accommodate.
Despite this differentiation, what we gain from comparing Zeno’s
Stoicism and Bourdieu’s sociology is an insight regarding an ongoing
human interest in the theme of bodily causes. According to Zeno’s school
of thought, causal existence comprises bodily conditions and entities so
unconditionally that bodies cause everything. There is no separate mental
pilot or intangible director of bodily action. For Bourdieu’s structuralism,
causal existence comprises humanly socialized bodily conditions and enti-
ties to the extent that the term “social body” is not an abstract term. A
social body rather indicates a real or practical co-production of individual
and collective corporealities. Notably regarding the histories of philosoph-
ical and sociological thought, both theses counter traditions in which the
body is at the mercy of an unbodied cause (such as an immaterial mind).
To be bodied for Zeno and for Bourdieu is to be a causal agent.
Notes
1. In exploring the mechanics of how we learn to act by causally linking men-
tal decisions with prior experiences, we might turn to the influential con-
structivist thesis of Swiss clinical psychologist Jean Piaget (Piaget 1952).
2. In one sense this simply conjures the mindbody split as classically posited
by René Descartes in the second volume of his Meditations (1968 (1641)).
Also relevant here is the social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz. Schütz
186 W. JOHNCOCK
installs transcendent conditions between conscious intentions and material

bodies; “not only are intentional acts directed upon another person’s
stream of consciousness transcendent, but my experiences of another per-
son’s body, or of my own body … fall into the same class” (Schütz 1967
(1932), 100).
3. David Sedley’s chapter “The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus”
informs us that the “founder of Stoicism, Zeno, came to Athens from the
town of Citium (modern Larnaca) in Cyprus” (Sedley 2003, 8).
4. Anthony Long (2013) provides one of the more comprehensive compari-
sons between Zeno’s Republic and Plato’s Republic. In determining why it
is appropriate to interpret that “we have such evidence concerning Zeno’s
response to Plato’s Republic,” Long considers whether a “promising start-
ing point is to assume that Zeno saw an anti-Platonic pose as an effective
way of drawing attention to the distinctive merits of his, Zeno’s, own
approach to political philosophy” (Long 2013, 118). Long evaluates that
Zeno disagrees with Socrates’ conception of a just or good city as pre-
sented in Plato’s Republic (a point likewise argued by Andrew Erskine
[Erskine 1990, 27–33]). Long also identifies that Zeno diverges from
Plato on other themes such as the “mortality of the soul” and what is cor-
poreal/bodied.
5. A reminder that this is a reference to a section number.
6. See Michael Frede (1999, 302–303) for a discussion of how this notion
that “only bodies exist” relates for the Stoics to the truth status of proposi-
tions regarding “what is.”
7. This conception of material immanence and corporeality has a philosophi-
cal antecedence to the Stoics. The pre-Socratic Heraclitus extends a mate-
rial state to God. Concerning the relation between the Absolute and the
relative, or between God and the phenomenal world, Heraclitus describes
a series of universal contraries which appear to coincide in and as God. In
a fragment attributed to Heraclitus as read by Hippolytus, “God is day
night, winter summer, war peace, plenty hunger—all the contraries, this is
what is meant, and He undergoes changes … receives different names
according to the scent of each single one” (Hippolytus in Fränkel 1938,
231). How the whole universe of various “scents” coincides with one God
is explored by Hermann Fränkel. To determine the materially changing
component of God’s presence, we must for Fränkel ask “how precisely, in
what way and manner, does God unfold Himself in the universe?” (Fränkel
1938, 232).
8. While the Stoics define this world as the “whole” this does not mean that
the world constitutes “everything” in the Stoic “universe.” The everything
also comprises what Chrysippus and other Stoics call the “void.” The void
is an “infinite” and “incorporeal” realm which encompasses the world
“outside” the world (Stobaeus, SVF, 2.503, in L&S, 294). The incorpore-
ality of the void determines that it “neither is acted upon in any respect nor
acts but is simply capable of receiving body” (Cleomedes, SVF, 2.541, in
L&S, 294). A “place” within the spatial world is occupied by a body and is
finite. The void conversely marks aspects of space which could be occupied
by bodies but are not. For the Stoics this does not conflict with Aristotle’s
insistence in Book IV of his Physics that there is no void within the world.
It is however necessary in Stoicism, and contradictory to the Aristotelian
position, for there to be unoccupied space outside the world. In the Stoic
view, the theory of the void accommodates the conflagrative burning-
expansion and cooling-contraction processes comprising the continuum of
universal change. Reports are that for Zeno “‘all’ will still be subject to this
conflagration: Everything which burns and has something to burn will
burn it completely” (Alexander Lycopolis, 19, 2–4, in L&S, 276). Philo in
On the Indestructibility of the World states that alternatively for Chrysippus
the conflagration involves the world changing into “light” (Philo, SVF,
1.511, in L&S, 277).
9. See Long and Sedley’s translation (Sextus Empiricus, SVF, 2.311, in L&S,
269) or R.G. Bury’s translation of Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Professors
(1949) for similar readings.
10. See also Gill (2010, 51–55) for a discussion on Galen’s estimations of Stoic
impressions of causation.
11. Elsewhere in On the Nature of the Gods Cicero also describes how “a ‘rea-
son’ which pervades all nature is possessed of divine power” (Cicero
1967a, 1.14).
12. According to Diogenes Laërtius, there is a connection between Stoic phys-
ical theory and the Euclidian, geometrical, definition of objects. Diogenes
notes of the natural philosophy that is developed by the Stoic Apollodorus
that “a body … is extended in a threefold manner; in length, in breadth, in
depth; and then it is called a solid body” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.68).
13. See Plato’s Sophist, in particular the discussion on the possibly independent
existence of these aspects of the self (Plato 1871, 246).
14. Quite topically in terms of our earlier considerations regarding Stoic and
Platonic materialisms, it is this kind of attention that leads David Schwartz
to describe Bourdieu as a materialist; “Bourdieu is a materialist in the
sense that he roots human consciousness in practical social life” (Schwartz
1997, 39). Bourdieu never declares an ideological coherence with Stoicism.
The everyday level at which he identifies the structural composition of our
behavior is nevertheless consistent with the Stoic concern about philoso-
phy having a practical relevance.
188 W. JOHNCOCK
References
Bénatouïl, Thomas. 2009. How Industrious Can Zeus Be? The Extent and Objects
of Divine Activity in Stoicism. In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo
Salles, 23–45. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 1996 (1989). The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power.
Translated by Lauretta Clough. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1967a. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods).
Translated by Harris Rackham. Cambridge and London: Harvard University
Press and William Heinemann.
Heinemann.
———. 1997. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Translated by
Peter Walsh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Descartes, René. 1968 (1641). Meditations. Translated by F. Sutcliffe. London
and New York: Penguin Books.
Erskine, Andrew. 1990. The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. Ithaca
and London: Cornell University Press.
Fränkel, Hermann. 1938. Heraclitus on God and the Phenomenal World.
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association
69: 230–244.
Frede, Michael. 1999. Stoic Epistemology. In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic
Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and Malcolm
Schofield, 295–322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gill, Christopher. 2010. Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism. Oxford and
Hankinson, R.J. 1999. Explanation and Causation. In The Cambridge History of
Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfield, and
Malcolm Schofield, 479–512. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clarendon Press.
Long, Anthony. 2013. Plato and the Stoics on Limits, Parts and Wholes. In Plato
and the Stoics, ed. Andrew Long, 80–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Piaget, Jean. 1952. The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International

Universities Press Inc.
Plato. 1871. Sophist. In The Dialogues of Plato: Volume IV, 281–408. Translated
by Benjamin Jowett. London: Oxford University Press.
Schütz, Alfred. 1967 (1932). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Translated by
George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Schwartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Sedley, David. 2003. The School, from Zeno to Arius Didymus. In The Cambridge
Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood, 7–32. Cambridge and New York:
Sextus Empiricus. 1949. Sextus Empiricus IV: Against the Professors. Translated by
R.G. Bury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 2012. Against the Physicists. Translated by Richard Bett. Cambridge:
PART IV
Collective Ethics
CHAPTER 9
How Do We Regulate Our Affection

for Others? Hierocles and Claude
Lévi-Strauss on Kinship Circles
Circles of Intimacy: Bringing People Closer

When interacting with the various people in our lives, rules around degrees
of familiarity seem to shape how such interactions occur. Our behaviors
toward people that we consider to be “closer to us” are typically different
to the less affectionate ways we give ourselves to people with whom we are
not as familiar. Immediate family and old friends fall into the former cat-
egory. New acquaintances and professional colleagues might conversely
belong to the latter category. Differentiated behavioral expectations mani-
fest through these classifications.1
One form of these behavioral expectations relates as indicated to the
standardization of levels of affection. As the different types of interper-
sonal relationships we have during our lives increases, decisions present
regarding the various affections we need to offer each. This goes beyond
the question of why we need friends or acquaintances.2 The focus here is
instead on how we distinguish between the people with whom we are
merely acquainted and the people that we believe we are “closer to.” In
differentiating between such groupings, we can reflect on the kinds and
levels of affections that we offer toward people depending on their relative
status to us. From this consideration, a study opens in this chapter that is
concerned with the source of the differentiation of our affections. What
directs us to bring some people closer and to keep others at arm’s length?
The site of the regulation of affection is here the interest. Do we indi-
vidually determine how affectionate we should be to people in our lives

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_9
194 W. JOHNCOCK
based on our own unique experiences? Alternatively do we enact socially

conditioned regulations about how appropriate a certain level of affection
is for a certain type of associate? Another possibility is that these affection-
regulations are naturally biologically coded around interpreted probabili-
ties that the person to whom we give the affection will provide us with
something we require. This could be security, food, companionship, sex,
and so on. The regulation of affection could of course involve subjective
and social and natural/biological drivers all at once.
The differing regulation of our affections is a topic on which the
second-century Stoic philosopher Hierocles expresses a firm position. We
do not know much about Hierocles’ life. Ilaria Ramelli notes that such was
the uncertainty surrounding his identity that before the nineteenth cen-
tury he was indeed confused with the fifth-century Alexandrian
Neoplatonist philosopher of the same name (Ramelli in Hierocles 2009,
xix).3 Of his work though, we have recent English translations from David
Konstan of Hierocles’ Elements of Ethics (Hierocles 2009), of Stobaeus’
extracts from Hierocles’ On Appropriate Acts (Hierocles 2009), not to
mention assorted fragments.4
In the “Introductory Essay” to Hierocles’ works, Ramelli explains how
he was writing not just for the Stoic school but toward a larger audience
(Ramelli in Hierocles 2009, xxx). Within Hierocles’ broadened focus is a
discussion of our relations with members of our family, compared to the
relations we have with the rest of the population. Stobaeus reports from
Hierocles’ treatise “How Should One Behave toward One’s Relatives?”
(found in the aptly titled On Appropriate Acts) that for Hierocles our
interpersonal relations are conceivable as sets of concentric rings which
encompass us:
…each of us, most generally, is circumscribed as though by many circles,

some smaller, some larger, some surrounding others, some surrounded,
according to their different and unequal relations to one another. (Stobaeus,
Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91)
Each circle refers to the common degree of familiarity we share with the
people in it. The closest relation however (the closest/inner circle) is for a
person’s connection with his/her own mind. The next closest circle like-
wise maintains a focus on the self by including “the body and whatever is
employed for the sake of the body” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91).
Following this, the third circle contains our immediate family, “parents,
9 HOW DO WE REGULATE OUR AFFECTION FOR OTHERS… 195
siblings, wife, and children” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). The next
circle features our extended family, itself surrounded by increasingly larger
circles representing members of our “tribe” and then “fellow citizens”
(4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91). After this comes the circle that includes
people from neighboring towns, then that of people from the same coun-
try. The outermost circle refers to the “entire race of human beings”
(4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 91).
Having established this graphical representation, Stobaeus informs us
that Hierocles turns his attention to the relative responsibilities that we
carry regarding the people in any circle. Hierocles here argues that a prop-
erly developed personality, what Long and Sedley translate as a “well tem-
pered” individual (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673, 11, in L&S, 349),
has the “task” to bring closer those individuals from the outer circles. The
purpose of this is that our interactions with such individuals should reflect
more closely the relations and interactions that we share with individuals
from our inner circles. According to Long and Sedley’s translation, this
means that we should “keep zealously transferring those from the enclos-
ing circles into the enclosed ones” (4.671, 7–673, 11, in L&S, 349).
Konstan similarly translates the imperative from Hierocles to “draw the
circles … together … with an effort to keep transferring items out of the
containing circles into the contained” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in
Hierocles 2009, 91). As we will now consider, Hierocles warns that this
endeavor will not be easy.
What manifests through this image of the concentric circles is for schol-
ars such as Malin Grahn-Wilder the “most famous argument for Stoic
cosmopolitan ethics” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 277). Grahn-Wilder appreci-
ates a certain egalitarian imperative to Hierocles’ encouragement that we
should reduce the differences in the way we treat our fellow humans, com-
pelling an “equality between all humans, as both ethical agents and objects
of moral action” (277).5 While Hierocles encourages this equalization of
relations, he is well aware that it is not our normal outlook. He notes
accordingly that our relations with family members are more instinctively
affectionate and close than those we have with other people.
In consequently “making an effort about assimilating” those people
from our outer circles, Hierocles demands that we must remain conscious
of overcoming the natural fact that “a greater distance in respect to blood
will subtract something of goodwill” or affection (Stobaeus, Anthology,
4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93). A method proposed by Hierocles to
conquer this inevitable distance concerns how we address those in our
196 W. JOHNCOCK
outer circles. The ethos of this approach is undoubtedly well intentioned.

Its application sounds rather odd though. This is because Hierocles sug-
gests that we begin calling our “cousins, uncles, and aunts ‘brothers,’
‘fathers,’ and ‘mothers’” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93).6
Hierocles acknowledges that this is a considerable change to our proto-
cols regarding interactions. The point he is expressing is nevertheless clear;
we should all work toward making anyone outside our most immediate
circles feel as though they are a more intimate part of our lives. The con-
sequent contraction of all our kinship circles will for Hierocles “cut down
the distance in our relationship toward each person” (4.84.23, in Hierocles
2009, 93). Hierocles broadcasts the moral obligation of such a pursuit in
describing how it is something every well-developed individual should ful-
fill. He even defines any contraction of our kinship circles that eventuates
as meaning that we will “arrive at fairness” (4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009,
93). Given the Stoics’ prioritization of practical action, a “fair” direction
should not simply be theorized or discussed but actually enacted.
Despite this practical outlook, I have concerns as indicated about how
executable such an endeavor might be. There is something counter-
intuitive about how practical it would be to broadly deregulate affective
boundaries. Julia Annas doubts such an approach would change anything
anyway because “calling someone your mother does not produce the feel-
ings you have for your mother” (Annas 1993, 268). There is after all
something about the already existing regulations regarding differentiation
of affection which reflects how we feel. Hierocles effectively calls for us to
contradict these collectively instilled and felt standards. Given these collec-
tive elements, in determining the practicality of his call we will expand on
our opening thoughts regarding whether our affective boundaries are sub-
jectively, socially, or naturally biologically registered.
Socially Relative Kinship Rules

We can open comprehensive considerations of the socially pragmatic pos-
sibilities of Hierocles’ imperative to draw those from our outer circles
closer to us by integrating its central theses with the structural interpreta-
tion of kinship forwarded by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
(1908–2009). Lévi-Strauss investigates why humans actively seek to
develop affectionate relations, both sexual and non-sexual, with people
outside their immediate circles. This is a theory that Lévi-Strauss discusses
most extensively in The Elementary Structures of Kinship.7 Consistent with
his generally structuralist readings of subjective phenomena, Lévi-Strauss

is interested in exploring how kinship can be appreciated in a socially sys-
temic way. This will complicate the traditionally held perspective that
descent from a common ancestor exclusively defines kinship.8
Lévi-Strauss firstly wants to understand the individual’s drive for sexual
affection that impels them to go beyond their most immediate familial and
social circles of kin. Such a consideration requires in his view to attend to
the rejected concept of a nature|culture split or what he describes as the
“repudiated distinction between nature and Society” (Lévi-Strauss 1969
(1949), 3). Lévi-Strauss accordingly critiques positions which do not
agree that “everything universal in man relates to the natural order, and
is characterized by spontaneity” whereas “everything subject to a norm
is cultural and is both relative and particular” (8). His intention is not
to join the chorus which contests the reality of a nature|culture division.
Lévi-Strauss rather wants to endorse a specific aspect of this division. The
specific perspective that Lévi-Strauss supports is that what is natural is
uncontrollably instinctive and contrasted from a regulated social or cul-
tural order.9
Lévi-Strauss observes that while many culturally derived rules are spe-
cific to particular contexts, there is the presumption that incest prohibition
enjoys a universal standing. The impression of its universality reflects how
humans almost take it for granted as “a rule, but a rule which, alone
among all the social rules, possesses at the same time a universal character”
(9). This is not to say that the definition of what defines a “relative” (those
people with whom we must not sexually interact in order to avoid trans-
gressing incest protocols) will not differ between societies. Indeed cultural
differences around the issue of who constitutes family sometimes generate
the misguided perception in Lévi-Strauss’ view that “every society is an
exception to the incest prohibition when seen by another society with a
stricter rule” (9). The assumption however of the universality of the incest
prohibition generally flourishes despite this variability. This is largely
because, in almost all observable societies, there exists some form of this
prohibition. Its perceived universality is conceptually linked to its ubiqui-
tous demand to go beyond a certain circle of familial connections for sex-
ual interaction and affection.
Lévi-Strauss’ observation that different societies differently define what
constitutes a “close relative” helps us to highlight the relative constitu-
tions of Hierocles’ circles. For Hierocles our circles do in fact exhibit the
signs of being relative constructions. This refers to how the circles and the
198 W. JOHNCOCK
people within them are configured according to the “different and unequal
relations to one another” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles
2009, 91). Another of Annas’ concerns emerges here that usually our rela-
tion to our parents is a “paradigm of partial relation” in that “because of
my commitment to particular people” we “favour and cherish them more
than others” (Annas 1993, 268–269). By shifting our treatment of many
people to bring them closer, an impartiality or egalitarianism across all
circles does not eventuate. What instead manifests as Annas notes is more
instances of “increased partiality” for people drawn into the closer circles
(269). The Stoic imperative is that we should increase the size of our inner
circles. We should be more affectionate to more and more of our fellow
humans. From Annas’ evaluation though, this would increase rather than
decrease instances of partial rather than impartial social relations.
The arguments of Hierocles and Lévi-Strauss have different motiva-
tions. For the Stoic there is a concern with generally dispersing affection
and respect among one’s fellow humans. We have indeed seen that this
directive compares not simply our relations with other people but also
involves the relation we have with ourselves. Mauro Bonazzi defines this
as the command “to feel the same degree of appropriation towards all
rational beings as one feels to oneself” (Bonazzi 2017, 146). Conversely
for Lévi-Strauss, his anthropological focus is on protocols primarily con-
cerning sexual affection. There is little attention from Lévi-Strauss on
one’s self-orientation. He instead is concerned with the social codification
of subjective sexual orientations.
Despite this distinction, I wish to identify how both positions pivot on
the conditional demand of what the preceding discussion identified as a
behavioral “should.” For Hierocles, a well-developed Stoic individual
should attempt to reduce the differences in relations between people from
one’s outer and inner circles. Hierocles knows that this will not feel like a
natural thing to do. His associated commentary nevertheless frames it as
an act that would be entirely within our nature. Hierocles fundamentally
believes in our communal instincts and that “our entire race is naturally
disposed to community” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.67.21, in Hierocles
2009, 73; my emphasis). In explaining how our communities manifest he
posits marriage and family as the underpinning elements. His sense of
what is naturally communal about family becomes apparent when he
describes of our family members how “nature” and the “nature of things”
has “nicely brought each of us into the world with, in a way, an ally”
(Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.20, in Hierocles 2009, 89–91). So deeply does
he value family that he says it would be “madness … to wish to be joined

with those who bear no affection toward us” (4.84.20, in Hierocles 2009,
89–91). By encouraging us to bring more people into our closer kinship
circles though, it appears that Hierocles does believe that it is in our nature
to create more such allies. As we have reviewed repeatedly in this book,
what for a Stoic is in our nature to do, is what we should do.
Lévi-Strauss is also concerned with the “should” of our behaviors. He
is of course concerned though with how our behaviors should keep people
from certain kinship circles at an affectionate distance rather than bring
them closer. Indeed contrary to general Stoic beliefs about nature direct-
ing our actions, for Lévi-Strauss nature is not the driver of our behavioral
“should.” He posits rather that there are socially constructed prohibitions
or protocols underpinning how we should or should not behave toward
our various kinship circles. We will now consider how his impression of
socialized or culturalized standards excludes rather than accommodates
suppositions of nature’s impulses.
Incest Prohibition Is Cultural Not Natural

Lévi-Strauss targets presumptions of a natural instinct against incest. The
prohibition of incest is interesting for Lévi-Strauss because of its tandem
composition. It comprises both the “universality of instinct” and the coer-
cive reality of a social “law and institution” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 10). It
is this latter element which inspires his inquiry into what he believes is
the actual source of the prohibitive imperative. In returning to the ques-
tion of natural or social derivation, he notes that human, sexual life is
“external to the group.” This externality from any human population is
attributable to sex being in his view an expression of nature that holds
little regard for subsequent social conventions (12). Counter to this neat
nature|culture division though, Lévi-Strauss also recognizes that being
sexual often “requires the stimulation of another person” (12). This seem-
ingly indicates for Lévi-Strauss that there is regularly something socially
or interpersonally conditioned about forms of sex and sexuality. In Lévi-
Strauss’ estimation therefore kinds of sex and sexuality gain their signifi-
cance according to varying social configurations.
In working through a series of preceding theories on incest, Lévi-
Strauss confronts the interpretation that the prohibition of incest is exclu-
sively instinctively natural. His confrontation with this position firstly
requires observing that the “horror of incest” only manifests after a
200 W. JOHNCOCK
“kinship relationship is known, or later established” (16). Incest prohibi-

tions could thus not be entirely natural in his view as such kinship relation-
ships are socially constructed. For Lévi-Strauss this seems to mean that prior
to the “horror” and consequent prohibitive force that socially manifests in
response to incest-sex-acts, there is something instinctive about human sex-
ual desire which actually manifests incestuous behavior. The source of the
incest prohibition “cannot be instinctive” because incest instinctively does
occur before humans prohibit it (16). The incest prohibition thus emerges
after the social conception and identification of kin, according to sets of
rules and protocols that respond to an already naturally occurring act.
What we might find concerning about Lévi-Strauss’ perspective is that
the human tendency toward incestuous behavior is what is instinctive. We
will see this point re-emerge later via a Stoic interlude with Chrysippean
theory. That incest does exist, that it is apparent and occurs in the natural
realm of which humans are a part, indicates for Lévi-Strauss that the source
of its prohibition occurs at a stage beyond that of a primary or natural
instinct. The collective impulse to prevent what is already naturally occur-
ring is in his view a socially derived intervention into a natural phenomenon.
This requires the construction of a contentious (in my view) nature| cul-
ture division. For Lévi-Strauss an impulse and resulting action is natural.
The regulation to prevent that impulse is conversely not natural. I want to
ask Lévi-Strauss why the regulatory impulse to prevent the impulse can-
not also be natural? Why is the impulse to act incestuously natural but the
impulse to prevent incestuous behavior not natural? Both impulses come
from the same creature or species or environment. Part of Lévi-Strauss’
response will be that the impulse to act incestuously is irrationally biologi-
cal. The regulation to prevent the impulse however is a collectively ratio-
nalized rule constructed to protect the species from itself:
The origin of the prohibition of incest must be sought in the existence … of

this danger for the group, the individuals concerned, or their descen-
dants. (18)
The polarization of natural and social stages seemingly dominates Lévi-

Strauss’ anthropology. His perspective however does recognize a seamless
quality shared between natural conditions and the socially derived incest
prohibition. The relative universality of the incest prohibition, for instance,
indicates for Lévi-Strauss a perpetuation of nature’s development. It is
only because nature manifests with incestuous relations, yet leaves open
the possibility for cultural intervention against these relations, that the
prohibition manifests whatsoever, “without any discontinuity” (31). This
continuity is also apparent in his description of the imposition of rules of
incest prohibition as both “pre-social and social” (12; my emphasis), or in
other words as both naturally universal and culturally rationalized.
Such a point is not incidental in the context of any consequent discus-
sion with Stoicism. As we have seen in preceding chapters there is an
ongoing Stoic position which holds that the natural realm is a rational
realm. Not only is the world naturally rational for the Stoics, but indeed
they also equate this rationality with civility (Becker 1998, 112; Stephens
2007, 85). Seemingly contrarily for Lévi-Strauss there is a developmental
divide between the impulsively natural and the rationally socialized stages
of the transition underpinning the incest prohibition. Could there never-
theless be in Lévi-Strauss’ sense of their mutual continuity the suggestion
of a common trace to both stages that might evoke the Stoic characteriza-
tion of a rational and rationalizing nature?
The majority of Lévi-Strauss’ thesis might appear to refute such an
interpretation. He states that the incest prohibition’s belonging to a world
of rules and “hence to culture” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 24) means that it is
exclusively a socialized phenomenon. The incest prohibition’s possibly
ubiquitous presence within human cultures is retrospective as a “social
reflection upon a natural phenomenon” (13). Never in fact are the prohi-
bition’s social or cultural origins more apparent he claims than in how it
“varies greatly from group to group” (29). Such variation is correlated
with the perceived contingency or contextuality of social phenomena in
contradistinction to the singularity of natural inevitability. The conceptual
separation of what is naturally singular from that which is socially multiple
is here integral to Lévi-Strauss’ anthropological perspective.
Lévi-Strauss concludes from these considerations that the incest pro-
hibition actually has a grander relevance in symbolizing an overall
human transition. This transition ascribes to all humans the characteris-
tic of being part of the species’ collective liberation from a pre-civilized,
purely natural state. The rule prohibiting incest is for Lévi-Strauss an
indication of a forward-moving development that unites much of
humanity “in its universality and the type of relationship upon which it
imposes its norm” (12). We can now compare Lévi-Strauss’ claim here
that the human species collectively carries along each human’s personal
developmental process, with the Stoic conception of individual devel-
opmental responsibility.
202 W. JOHNCOCK
Hierocles charges the responsibility for drawing people from one’s

outer circle more closely to one’s inner circle to the individual themselves.
We have seen how David Konstan translates this adjustment to our social
relations as where “we would arrive at fairness if, through our own initia-
tive, we cut down the distance in our relationship toward each person”
(Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93; my emphasis). The
initiative is personally originated. I am also fond of Long and Sedley’s
translation of this passage which describes what Konstan interprets as
“arrive at fairness” instead as where “the right point will be reached …
through our own initiative” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in
L&S, 349). Either “fairness” or “the right point” captures the drive
toward an egalitarian set of relations within the Stoic cosmopolitanism
that we have reviewed.
The phrase “our own initiative” used by both Long and Sedley and by
Konstan is our current focus though. It implies a break with socialized
expectations of us, or at least a break with how we are socially conditioned.
Rather than automatically acting as expected when encountering people
with whom we are not relatively close, Hierocles implores us to be person-
ally proactive. By showing this initiative and breaking the normalizing
chains by which we maintain interpersonal distances we will, for the Stoic,
live as we “should.” The parallel directive Lévi-Strauss observes to venture
outside our inner kinship circles for certain affective relations has social
origins and is not personally activated. Such decisions do not represent our
own initiative but a certain adherence to that which is socially normative.
What is a hallmark of collective development for Lévi-Strauss is for
Hierocles instead an individual developmental change, a personal “effort
we must make” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93).
Notions of collective development carry with them implications of
chronologically linear transition. The human transition from a natural
state to a cultural state for Lévi-Strauss represents a subsequent, social
inscription on a natural phenomenon that is “historically anterior to cul-
ture” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 31). What Lévi-Strauss describes as the previous
state of “nature’s indifference to the modalities of relations between the
sexes” is characterized in his thesis as being reshaped via how culture sub-
sequently “defines its modalities” (31). While nature supposedly leaves the
alliance or union between sexually active individuals to chance, it is
“impossible” Lévi-Strauss asserts for culture “not to introduce some sort
of order” (32). The incest prohibition which orders only certain (sanc-
tioned) sexual associations here expresses the “transition from the natural
fact of consanguinity to the cultural fact of Alliance” (30). Exogamy,

which permits marriage only with people from outside an individual’s
immediate social group, duly becomes socially normalized.
For Hierocles, the demand to show affection (albeit of the non-marital/
sexual kind) to people outside our inner circles is instead as we have
reviewed a personally structured responsibility. It is for the Stoic “incum-
bent” on the individual to warm to “people from the third circle as if they
were those from the second” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in
L&S, 349). For Lévi-Strauss, conversely the normalization of exogamous
relations or “alliances” is a socially structured development and impera-
tive. This seems to be an essential difference between their respective calls
to develop affections with people beyond our inner circles. We will now
consider though whether a common intention for both these outlooks is
the goal of social cohesion.
Expanding One’s Inner Kinship Circle Is

Socially Beneficial
Levi-Strauss substantializes his theory on the social structuration of such
alliances via what he perceives in myriad cultures to be the circular
exchange of women. These exchange relations are in his opinion pivotal to
the normalization of exogamous relations. To this extent, he posits that
exogamy’s “fundamental principle is a regular circulation of marriage pres-
tations between groups” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 323). His consequent “alli-
ance theory” is built on this insight of a reciprocal exchange or “circulation
of women” between groups (323). This circulatory trade of women and
other “valuables” or “objects” builds inter-group connections. These con-
nections in turn create a more expansive and therefore more powerful
combined social entity.10
As with Lévi-Strauss’ note on how the incest prohibition manifests dif-
ferently across cultures, we can observe the different forms that these
exchange relations take. In what Lévi-Strauss defines as the “elementary”
structures of kinship, the exchange of women is directly determined by
existing social institutions and even compensated by trade items (478).
Where a possible sexual partner in another group is contrarily not straight-
forwardly assigned through trade, more “complex” structures of kinship
emerge (478). Here I wonder if Hierocles would be willing to define the
relationships between the people in one’s inner and outer circles according
204 W. JOHNCOCK
to similar comparisons of directness and complexity? This kind of termi-

nology could possibly be incorporated within his Stoic perspective where
he reminds us how we “must make an effort” to bring closer those indi-
viduals who currently we hold afar (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.84.23, in
Hierocles 2009, 93; my emphasis). A comparative reading of Hierocles
would require that we characterize people already within our inner circles
as in direct relation to us. Conversely, we could characterize as “complex”
the development of closer relations with people from our outer circles.
This would focus on the associated exertion that we see in his description
of “making an effort” (or what for Long and Sedley’s translation means
“trying hard” [Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349]).
The differentiation between direct and complex kin constructions mat-
ters for Lévi-Strauss because as the protocols of such exchanges solidify
over time, social structures and groups become reinforced. Exogamy’s
demand that people go beyond their immediate kinship circle for intimate
affection here preserves the overall intimacy and integrity of the group to
which they originally belong. Avoiding such relations with a fellow mem-
ber of one’s kin prevents the group from fragmenting disharmoniously for
Lévi-Strauss. Exogamy maintains a group’s internal cohesion by soliciting
external affection and “provides the only means of maintaining the group
as a group, of avoiding the indefinite fission and segmentation which the
practice of consanguineous marriages would bring about” (Lévi-Strauss
1969, 479). The anthropologist believes that if a biological unit was to
mate within its own kin circle there would be the risk of them becoming
“established as a closed system” (479). By having no reason to venture
outside the familial circles, that biological group would stand apart from
the rest of society. As such a practice became increasingly widespread a
society overall would comprise disconnected biological units. The imposi-
tion of a prohibition that forces individuals to extend their affection and
sexual attention beyond their inner circles however induces a socially col-
lective unity that evidences “the dominance of the social over the biologi-
cal, and of the cultural over the natural” (479).
With this commentary, it becomes apparent that for Lévi-Strauss the
imperative to affectionately interact with those outside our immediate kin-
ship circles is a socially productive mechanism. It is not simply a socially
prohibitive regulation. As marriages occur between individuals from differ-
ent groups so the associated members in each group become connected.
Exogamy in this guise has the “means of binding together” otherwise
disconnected individuals (480). The prohibition of incest presents in this

perspective not just a negative “rule prohibiting marriage with the mother,
sister or daughter.” Instead, we conceive how according to Lévi-Strauss it
is a socially productive “rule obliging the mother, sister or daughter to be
given to others” (481).
This identifies a positive social ontology in Lévi-Strauss’ impression of
the incest “prohibition.” Similarly there are for Hierocles socially produc-
tive conditions in mandating that we more fondly interact with people
outside our usual groups. For Hierocles the greater social intimacy that
eventuates justifies the individual motivation to overcome the tendency of
only circulating around one’s inner circles. This latter tendency refers to
the general belief Hierocles recognizes that a “greater distance in respect
to blood will subtract something of goodwill” (Stobaeus, Anthology,
4.84.23, in Hierocles 2009, 93), or in Long and Sedley’s translation will
“remove some affection” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S,
349). It is Hierocles’ opinion that if we reduce the “distance of the rela-
tionship with each person,” a society of more closely bonded individuals
will manifest (4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 349).
Despite this comparative point, we must recognize an issue that emerges
if we attempt to uncritically blend Lévi-Strauss’ and Hierocles’ respective
conceptions of a socially connected world. For Hierocles, by “transfer-
ring” individuals from our outer to inner circles the intention is to reduce
the distances between all such circles. Offering to those people who we
currently treat almost as strangers “our affection for them all” would in
Hierocles’ terms “stimulate and intensify the indicated contraction of the
circles” (4.671, 7–673.11, in L&S, 350).
What would the ramifications be though for the anthropological con-
text we are observing if all circles become contracted? Would the effective-
ness of the incest prohibition that Lévi-Strauss investigates be compromised
in relatively small populations? I ask this given that by increasing an indi-
vidual’s inner kinship circles the size of the population deemed to be out-
side their family unit and with whom they can mate would seemingly
shrink. This could be a problem in smaller societies. We have seen that
increasing the population of every person’s inner circle would increase
social relations for Hierocles. This socializing element of Hierocles’ thesis
of concentric circles is for Becker crucial to the motivation for the thesis
(Becker 1998, 74–76). What I would like to consider in response however
is whether this would actually compromise socialization by making
206 W. JOHNCOCK
incestuous relations more difficult to avoid in certain populations. In

addressing this question we will be working from within Lévi-Strauss’ ear-
lier thought that exogamous relations maintain rather than damage an
overall social cohesion.
The just-mentioned concerning eventuation might not occur if the
people invited to an individual’s inner circle were not actually viewed as
family but rather just treated as well as family members. We have seen Julia
Annas note that this is in fact the problem with Hierocles’ argument
because this is all that would ever occur anyway. Annas here draws inspira-
tion from Aristotle’s insight in Politics II that spreading the sense of family
only weakens the overall family feeling. In Politics II’s “Commentary”
chapter Trevor Saunders portrays this point as Aristotle’s indication of a
“thinness of ‘family’ relationships” (Saunders in Aristotle 1995, 114). Sex
with people only “thinly” treated as family might not necessarily arouse
accusations of incest. Then again, it very well could.
I will note in passing here that for certain Stoics any actual incest that
occurred might not be an issue. Chrysippus is in fact reported to endorse
incest. The Stoic Plutarch recounts in his On Stoic Self-Contradictions how
in Chrysippus’ Exhortations it is advised that “sexual intercourse with
mothers or daughters or sisters have been discredited without reason”
(Plutarch, SVF, 3.753, in L&S, 430). The basis for this argument is that
incest occurs in the natural kingdom, the very point that Lévi-Strauss has
in fact raised earlier. Apparently for Chrysippus, given that humans are
part of this natural arena we “should look to the beasts and infer from
their behaviour that nothing of this kind is out of place or unnatural”
(3.753, in L&S, 430).
We must be careful however with interpreting that this means
Chrysippus is straightforwardly endorsing incestuous practices. Chrysippus
instead uses incest in this manner to exemplify what is contingent about
socialized customs. The point here is that what society says is bad (such as
incest) is not essentially bad or a guide to what warrants a Stoic’s invest-
ment. For a Stoic only what is “bad by nature” is essentially bad. John
Sellars takes my perspective here too, arguing that incest acts “would have
been strictly speaking ‘indifferent’ according to the Stoic classification of
things good, bad, and indifferent, and thus not positively recommended
at all” (Sellars 2009, 100).
In classifying incest prohibition as socially constructed rather than as
naturally directed, Lévi-Strauss is not endorsing incest either. In his per-
spective, I indeed believe that we find an insight that rules out the concern
that from a bloated inner kinship circle a rampant incest might ensue in
smaller populations. This solution is already operating within Lévi-Strauss’
presentation of the incest prohibition itself. Specifically this regards the
earlier reviewed complexity of exogamous relations.
Lévi-Strauss notes that as a result of elaborate orderings of exogamy
which lack direct marital arrangements within one group, “more and more
numerous local groups constitute indefinitely more complex systems”
(Lévi-Strauss 1969, 479). As such groups form more indirect and numer-
ous alliances, their members are less likely to engage in inner-kinship-circle
sexual relations even inadvertently. This is because of the reconstitution of
such circles. “No sooner” is an alliance established between two groups
than “it is disintegrated” (480). The groups are no longer separately closed
off but merge into a greater population. Even within smaller populations
therefore, as one’s inner kinship circles become larger, they are simultane-
ously opened to the novel connections and associations the newly drawn
people bring. By increasing the external pool of mates for all members of
the merging groups, collectively structured exogamous agreements emerge
which address the potential issue. Increased incest would not manifest
when the imperative is to draw in people for affection from beyond inner
kinship circles. The crucial point here for Lévi-Strauss though is that it is a
social group, not an individual, that has initiated the process of reaching out.
This disintegration is a socially productive reintegration. It does not
compromise existing social structures but breeds novel associations from
within them. As more numerous relations connect social groups, exogamy
comes to represent a “continuous pull towards a greater cohesion, a more
efficacious solidarity” (480). What Hierocles describes as the intensified
contraction of one’s inner circles also results in the expanded reproduction
of those circles in terms of an increase in size and originality. As a result of
this ongoing reconfiguration, it would never really be the same inner cir-
cles that are inviting contraction through newly dispersed affections.
“Dispersed affection” indeed seems an appropriate term under which
to collect the most consistent themes to have emerged in the respective
theories of Hierocles and Lévi-Strauss. The drive to affect and to be
affected by people who typically function beyond our immediate (kinship)
circle is for both thinkers a collectively productive mechanism. This means
that what is a socially enacted responsibility also manifests as a responsibil-
ity to the self. Perhaps it is in this sense that the personal initiative of which
Hierocles speaks is also socially radiated. The regulation of affection is not
an external social prohibition imposed on or by an individual but a univer-
sal and collective rationalization.
208 W. JOHNCOCK
Notes
1. These classifications often distinguish between people who are family
members and those who are friends. Such a distinction in turn fuels debates
regarding what constitutes our “kin.” Lewis Morgan (1871) offers a tradi-
tional anthropological definition of kinship according to rules of biological
descent. David Schneider alternatively expands kinship to a system of sym-
bols and meanings that includes friends (Schneider 1984, 53–54). Ethan
Leib counters Schneider’s type of perspective by arguing that “if a relation-
ship is one of kinship, it cannot also be classified as a friendship” (Leib
2011, 15–16). This distinction is necessary for Leib to discriminate the
social contributions that friendship and kinship relations respectively make.
Paige Digeser responds that this sharp distinction between friendship and
kinship is “less a matter of principle and more a matter of strategy” that
reflects Leib’s investments in the relative legal recognitions afforded to dif-
ferent relationships (Digeser 2016, 202).
2. Seneca’s ninth letter “On Philosophy and Friendship” from Letters from a
Stoic gives a utilitarian impression of friendship as servicing personal devel-
opment. For Seneca the practicing Stoic and “wise man, self-sufficient as
he is, still desires to have a friend if only for the purpose of practicing
friendship and ensuring that those talents are not idle” (Seneca 1969, 9.9).
Aristotle provides another interesting ancient perspective on friendship in
two books of The Nicomachean Ethics. Here he explains that there is no
doubt we need friends. More complex debates in his opinion concern
“under what circumstances do we need them most? Is it in good fortune,
or in bad fortune that we have the greater need of friends?” (Aristotle
2004, 9.11.1171a20–24).
3. Hermann Schibli explains in Hierocles of Alexandria that not only do we
lack biographical information on Hierocles but that we are also without
much information on Plutarch, with whom Hierocles appears to have stud-
ied. Despite this, we can establish a relationship between the two through
the reports of other ancients. That Hierocles “pays express homage” to
Plutarch is asserted by Schibli, for whom later “Platonic doctrines indicate
that the influence of Plutarch on Hierocles’ philosophical formation was
considerable” (Schibli 2002, 6).
4. As Ramelli notes in her Introduction to the original translation of
Hierocles’ texts, there is enough distinction between the styles of the
Elements and Stobaeus’ extracts that scholars are convinced they belong to
two different works (Ramelli in Hierocles 2009, xxix–xxx).
5. Julia Annas describes this as where “the aim is to think of all humans
impartially, giving them all equal concern” (Annas 1993, 268). See later in
this chapter for Annas’ doubts regarding whether such egalitarianism
would eventuate.
6. See Brennan (2005, 154–168) for a discussion of how this interpersonal

feature of Hierocles’ theory speaks to broader Stoic considerations about
oikeiôsis. Oikeiôsis involves one’s self-regarding or self-preserving inclina-
tions. Brennan accordingly describes how oikeiôsis informs “my directing
my impulse towards the preservation of that thing I recognize myself to
be” (156). In commentating on Elements of Ethics Gretchen Reydams-
Schils also describes this work as the “best evidence on the highly sophisti-
cated Stoic notion of ‘appropriation’ (oikeiôsis), which stipulates that by
nature and from birth, animals and human beings come equipped with a
self-awareness and self-love that guides them toward self-preservation”
(Reydams-Schils 2010, 566). Becker is conscious though, as are Reydams-
Schils and Brennan, that there is more to this account of socialized oikeiôsis
than “self-love alone” (Becker 1998, 74–76).
7. Readers familiar with either foundational sociology or the second chapter
of this book would recognize this title’s similarity to Durkheim’s The
Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]). Lévi-Strauss intends
this play on words. In “History and Anthropology,” the introductory
chapter of his Structural Anthropology, Lévi-Strauss approves as a “classic
study” (Lévi-Strauss 1963 [1958], 5) the anthropological investigation
found in Durkheim and Marcel Mauss’ Primitive Classification (1967
[1903]). Despite this endorsement, in The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Lévi-Strauss commentates that Durkheim shares a “historicizing” fault of
nineteenth-century evolutionists such as Herbert Spencer. This fault of
Durkheim’s is to “attempt to establish a universal phenomenon on, an
historical sequence, which is by no means inconceivable in some particular
case but whose episodes are so contingent that the possibility of this
sequence being repeated unchanged in every human society must be
wholly excluded” (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 22). From this Lévi-Strauss criticizes
Durkheim’s theory of incest prohibitions (19–23), presenting his contrary
interpretation that we engage in this chapter.
8. For analyses about which “descent groups and categories” typically occupy
kinship discourses concerned with the primacy of ancestral parameters, see
Holy (1996, 71–123) and Ensor (2013, 109–198).
9. This coheres with Lévi-Strauss’ general belief in the division of nature and
culture. In The Savage Mind when discussing the cultural exchange of
women, he differentiates between the homogenous woman “as far as
nature is concerned,” and the qualitatively pluralized woman that is
“declared to be heterogeneous from the point of view of culture” (Lévi-
Strauss 1966 [1962], 123). That culture structures the conceptual correla-
tion of women with nature provides for Lévi-Strauss an insight into the
“control” of nature by culture. This interpretation of a cultural domination
of nature is evident in Lévi-Strauss’ Tristes Tropiques where he posits that
210 W. JOHNCOCK
Jean-Jacques Rousseau “poses the central problem of anthropology, viz.

the passage from an unbridled nature to an ordered society” (Lévi-Strauss
1992 [1955], 229). Lévi-Strauss identifies this progression from nature to
culture in the way that Western culture (himself as the anthropologist)
imposes itself onto more “primitive cultures” (Brazil’s Nambikwara tribe
that he researches). I comprehensively review this interpretation, via
Derrida’s critique of it (Derrida 1976 [1967]), in my book Naturally Late
(Johncock 2019).
10. In The Savage Mind Lévi-Strauss tempers this characterization of women
as objects that hold a certain exchange value. There he observes that
women are not exactly the same as socially manufactured goods. Rather, as
natural creatures whose “exchange value” is subsequently culturally con-
structed, “the ‘system of women’ is, as it were, a middle term between the
system of (natural) living creatures and the system of (manufactured)
objects” (Lévi-Strauss 1966, 128).
References
Aristotle. 1995. Politics. Books I and II. Translated by Trevor Saunders. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
New York: Penguin.
University Press.
Clarendon Press.
Derrida, Jacques. 1976 (1967). Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Spivak.
Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
Digeser, Paige. 2016. Friendship Reconsidered: What It Means and How It Matters
to Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Durkheim, Émile. 1995 (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated
by Karen Fields. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durkheim, Émile, and Marcel Mauss. 1967 (1903). Primitive Classification.
Translated by Rodney Needham. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ensor, Bradley. 2013. The Archaeology of Kinship: Advancing Interpretation and
Contributions to Theory. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Grahn-Wilder, Malin. 2018. Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Holy, Ladislav. 1996. Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship. London and Ann
Arbor: Pluto Press.
Johncock, Will. 2019. Naturally Late: Synchronization in Socially Constructed
Times. Lanham and London: Rowman and Littlefield International.
Leib, Ethan. 2011. Friend v Friend. The Transformation of Friendship—And What
the Law Has to Do with It. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963 (1958). Structural Anthropology. Translated by Claire
Jacobson and Brooke Schoepf. New York: Basic Books.
———. 1966 (1962). The Savage Mind. Translated by George Weidenfeld and
Nicolson Ltd. Letchworth: The Garden City Press Limited.
———. 1969 (1949). The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Translated by James
Bell, John Richard von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham. Boston: Beacon Press.
———. 1992 (1955). Tristes Tropiques. Translated by John Weightman and
Doreen Weightman. London and New York: Penguin Books.
Morgan, Lewis. 1871. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family.
Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution.
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2010. Philosophy and Education in Stoicism of the
Roman Imperial Era. Oxford Review of Education 36 (5): 561–574.
Schibli, Hermann. 2002. Hierocles of Alexandria. Oxford and New York: Oxford
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Schneider, David. 1984. A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press.
Bloomsbury.
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Campbell. London and New York: Penguin.
Continuum.
CHAPTER 10
Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius

Rufus and Julia Kristeva on Gendered Labor
All Genders Should Receive the Same Education

A way that we might assess a society’s egalitarian qualities is through the
dual parameters of education and gender. “Egalitarian” in this context
refers to the identification of (1) who within society receives the opportu-
nity to access education, as well as (2) the anticipated outcomes that are
associated with any education received. This latter element concerns how
someone can apply their education to gaining a role or employment based
on that education. The degree therefore to which we might consider edu-
cational structures to be egalitarian is determined by who can be educated
and how they can use their education.
Notions of gendered egalitarianism in education do not cohere with
the interpretation that men have dominated most institutions for genera-
tions. Two gender disparities condition this impression. Firstly, the num-
ber of important figures to have emerged from fields including science,
politics, commerce, and philosophy, and whose work continually defines
such fields, is heavily weighted in favor of men.1 Secondly, access to the
kinds of formal studies that provide access to these fields has not always
been available to women. This restricted access has inhibited educational
and vocational opportunities for generations of women in fields that men
unsurprisingly have monopolized by default.2
In considering a tradition of the exclusion of women from educational
and vocational structures, you might not associate the ancient periods of
Western civilization with conversely progressive positions. It is however

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_10
214 W. JOHNCOCK
when exploring the middle to later eras of ancient Stoicism that we sur-
prisingly encounter via Gaius Musonius Rufus (20–30—90–101 ACE) an
apparently egalitarian perspective in terms of gender politics. This is spe-
cifically attributable to his position that women and men deserve to receive
the same education.3
Musonius’ outspoken position on this topic can be contextualized by
appreciating his propensity for reportedly holding relatively contrarian
perspectives and priorities. As documented by historians of the era,
Musonius was banished two or three times from Rome for teaching phi-
losophy during a period that was not receptive to such inquiry.4 Following
these periods in exile Musonius would teach philosophy to a slave,
Epictetus. Epictetus as is well known refers to Musonius as his master in
his own writings.5 From this relationship, certain parallels can be drawn
between Musonius’ philosophy and that of his soon to be famous pupil.
Such consistencies include Musonius’ “Epictetus-like” focus on the practi-
cal element that philosophy should offer. Stobaeus reports that for
Musonius, in developing a frame of knowledge we should prioritize “prac-
tical and clear” proofs (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.125, 1, in Musonius
Rufus 2011, 23). It is within this practical outlook that Musonius becomes
notable for attending to notions of gender equality in education.
In presenting his philosophy on educational egalitarianism, we see that
Musonius fields a question from his audience regarding whether daugh-
ters and sons should receive identical instruction. Musonius responds
affirmatively that they should (2.31.123, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 31).
The reasons for giving women the same education as men concern what
Musonius identifies as being undeniably similar about both genders.
Musonius makes no distinction between the genders in terms of the capac-
ity to think rationally. This is an important point given the esteemed posi-
tion that rationality holds in the Stoic hierarchy of states of the self. The
Stoic belief in a pantheistic universe indeed should orient toward the
impression that women are as capable as men of living rationally. If the
universe is rational, and it is in human nature to be inclined toward this
universal state, then it is as natural for women as it is for men to be ratio-
nal. It is perhaps according to this kind of Stoic “fact” about human exis-
tence that for Musonius it is a logically rather than an empirically derived
proof that women have “the same reasoning power as men” (Stobaeus,
Anthology, 2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). Not only do
women have equal reasoning capacities as men, but furthermore Musonius
believes that we must recognize that women have the same senses as men,
10 CAN EDUCATION BE EGALITARIAN? MUSONIUS RUFUS AND JULIA… 215
as well as many of the same body parts (2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus

2011, 28).
Gretchen Reydams-Schils notes in one regard that this equation comes
from an ancient tradition that sees women’s and men’s bodies as structur-
ally analogous (Reydams-Schils 2005, 154). In another regard however of
which Reydams-Schils is keenly aware, certain ancient philosophical views
such as those of Epictetus often differ markedly from this tradition with
which such views were contemporaneous. The beard, for example, in
Epictetus’ perspective either identifies a philosopher (Epictetus 2014, 1.2,
29) or is nature’s design whereby “we can distinguish the male from the
female by this means” (1.16, 10). It is indeed also Musonius’ position that
“the beard should not be shaved since it is a protection provided by
nature” and an “emblem of manhood” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 3.6.24, 1, in
Musonius Rufus 2011, 81). This discussion evidences Musonius’ some-
what ambiguous interpretation of bodily similarity.
Perhaps more momentous than themes regarding the body in Musonius’
perspective is that the similarities between women and men extend to
them sharing a drive toward an important Stoic “end”—a “desire for vir-
tue” (2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28). I should qualify his use
of the term “desire” here. In the “Emotions” section of this book, we
explore how we become virtuous according to the Stoics by living virtu-
ously, not by wanting/desiring to be virtuous.6 Despite this distinction, in
Musonius’ above description of the relationship with virtue there does not
appear to be the sense that women would be misguided by what he
describes as “desiring” it. What Musonius acknowledges rather is that just
like men, women naturally possess the capacity to recognize the impor-
tance of virtue. This for Martha Nussbaum is indicative of Musonius’
broader impression that between men and women “there are no signifi-
cant innate differences with respect to the basic aptitude for learning
morality” (Nussbaum 2002, 290).
While developing these apparently progressive perspectives, Musonius
questions the belief that it is more appropriate for men than women to
study philosophy. Philosophy after all is concerned with the art of living
honorably (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 2, in Musonius Rufus 2011,
28). Stobaeus here reports that Musonius offers a definition in which
honor and virtue are synonyms and that their effects radiate beyond indi-
vidual selves. Men and women in Musonius’ estimations are equally hon-
orable, self-controlled, courageous, and just, and can inspire each other to
be so. As a result, it is not only appropriate and beneficial to women that
216 W. JOHNCOCK
they receive the same philosophical instruction at an early age as men do.

This also suits a society concerned with the welfare of all its citizens. If
every citizen regardless of gender can direct their life virtuously then soci-
ety as a whole will tend toward a collective virtuousness.
For modern readers concerned with ongoing gender inequalities these
features of Musonius’ position are surprisingly refreshing. Classical histo-
rian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix (1981) presents Musonius’ concern about lib-
erating women from class oppression as novel. Michel Foucault is equally
interested in the originality of Musonius’ contribution to discussions
about women’s equality, particularly in marriage settings (Foucault 1985
(1984)). These appreciations amplify when we consider how ancient the
era is in which Musonius wrote.
It is however the way that Musonius justifies these practical applications
of women’s philosophical and educational opportunities that presents
apparent issues with his egalitarian intentions. The reason for attending to
such issues in this discussion concerns their comparative relevance to mod-
ern social theory’s interest in similar topics. Through this comparison, I
will contribute a new angle to thought which attends to the compromised
qualities of Musonius’ position on gender.
Not an Entirely Egalitarian Outlook on Education

The first point in this discussion concerns how Musonius argues that
women trained in philosophy would be more “just” than untrained or
uneducated women. The contentious aspect of this portrayal is found in
Musonius’ position on the application of a female’s education. For
Musonius, an educated woman could apply their newly acquired “just-
ness” to the service of the men and children in their immediate life.
In this approach we might start to sense that unequal expectations
emerge regarding how Musonius is framing the justification for men’s and
women’s access to educational opportunities. As Stobaeus continues to
recount, for Musonius the educated woman is “a careful guardian of hus-
band and children, entirely free from the love of gain or grasping for too
much” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 4, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29).
A first gendered distinction and perhaps consequent hierarchy thus
becomes apparent. Women and men in the Stoic thought of Musonius are
both capable of learning philosophy. They are also both receptive to philo-
sophical training informing their virtuousness. For women however, we
should measure such education in its benefit to women’s roles as a wife
and a mother (2.31.126, 4, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 294). Musonius

appears to firmly hold this belief.
In one regard Nussbaum is sympathetic to Musonius when she reviews
this point. Nussbaum notes the probability that in this mode Musonius
was responding to and “reassuring” husbands who were possibly con-
cerned that their newly philosophizing wives would become “stubborn
and bold” (Nussbaum 2002, 296). In another regard though, Nussbaum
reminds us that Musonius’ affirmative response to the earlier question of
whether sons and daughters should receive the same education, doctors a
Platonic example that the training of male and female dogs should be the
same because they have the same functions (Plato 2012, 451B). Nussbaum
interjects that Musonius neglects to mention that the reason Plato does
not assign differently sexed dogs different functions is that in Plato’s view
the female’s temporary “pregnancy and lactation does not entail a lifelong
division of functions” (Plato 2002, 286). For Nussbaum’s eventual cri-
tique of Musonius’ supposed commitment to women’s emancipation from
lifelong gendered roles, this is no inadvertent oversight:
The omission fits well with Musonius’ reluctance to challenge traditional

spheres of activity and this interest in perpetuating a female form of life
shaped around household management and child care. (Nussbaum
2002, 286)
We have reviewed Musonius’ view that philosophy is for women a tool to

help them fulfill their traditional role of caring for their family. Stobaeus
communicates that Musonius is emphatic about this value of the philo-
sophically educated woman to a family structure. Musonius duly asks rhe-
torically; who aside from such women “would love her children more than
life? What woman would be more just than such a woman as this?”
(Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 4, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). Beyond
her role as a mother, the woman who has received a philosophical educa-
tion is indeed described as being more “self-motivated and persevering …
to serve her husband with her own hands, and to do without hesitation
tasks which some consider appropriate for slaves” (2.31.126, 5, in
Musonius Rufus 2011, 29).
The work of Musonius differs from that of his contemporaries in explic-
itly addressing the importance of access to a philosophical education for
women. The effect though of this education in how it is subsequently
deployed is not necessarily as socially egalitarian as we might have initially
218 W. JOHNCOCK
anticipated. This is a point that scholarship on Musonius readily identi-

fies.7 In stating this, it must be acknowledged that any kind of emancipa-
tion for women from the regularly socially structured role of “domestic
pseudo-slave” was probably never Musonius’ intention in broaching such
a subject. What is instead of primary importance in his philosophy is a
greater recognition of the practical ends that a philosophical education
should serve any individual. For women specifically, this would mean that
studying philosophy would simply assist them in executing their tradi-
tional roles better or more virtuously.
The benefits of the philosophically educated woman seem less to be
about constructing more worthwhile subjectivities and lives for women
and more about contributing to the servitude the male and children of
each family unit will receive from a virtuously minded female. Musonius
lists the domestic advantages that the philosophically astute woman would
provide. Complementing this he anticipates the better social standing that
such a woman’s new philosophical status would facilitate for her husband.
Sending one’s wife to get educated would be wise it seems for Musonius
as “a woman like this would be a great advantage for the man who has
married her,” not to mention “a source of honor for those related to her”
(2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). The socially structural ben-
efits for a male in having a philosophically educated female partner become
explicit.
There is the possibility here as Nussbaum again briefly considers, that
because Musonius’ audience comprises concerned males, his work is actu-
ally “urging a quite radical educational step and sugarcoating it with reas-
surances to the husband” (Nussbaum 2002, 297). This seems unlikely
though, something we have seen Nussbaum also notes, given how con-
vincing Musonius’ commitment is to the idea that a philosophical educa-
tion should not disrupt instilled gender roles. The philosophically educated
woman would not be able to deploy her “philosophical knowledge” to
pursue a different kind of life or vocation. This would unsettle family sta-
bility for Musonius in that “there is no way I would expect women who
pursue philosophy to cast aside their appropriate tasks” such as “sitting at
home spinning wool” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 6, in Musonius
Rufus 2011, 29). Philosophy will serve a man’s socially structured identity
in terms of the associated capacity to “be a good citizen” in the public
arena. For women though the benefits derived will be largely concerned
with her performance in the domestic realm. A philosophical education
will certainly help a woman to live in accordance with “justice.” Musonius
underpins the correlation however between the just life and the female’s
life in terms of traditional restrictions. On this point, he clarifies rather

grandly that “a woman would not manage her household well, if she does
not do it with justice” (2.31.123, 2, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29).
We thus arrive at a point of considerable tension regarding how we read
the philosophy of Musonius. He presents a clear belief in the egalitarian
foundations of access to philosophical education. Within this belief how-
ever are overt double standards in how opportunities are to be practically
enacted. Stobaeus reports Musonius proclaiming that “to honor equality”
(2.31.123, 7, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29) is one of the primary virtues
that philosophy and Stoicism instills. Equality seems quite conditional or
qualified though in Musonius’ perspective given that men would still
dominate a public arena from which women are relatively marginalized.
This is ironic as Malin Grahn-Wilder notes, for in Musonius’ view women
do not lack practical reason because “they lack any natural ability” but
because they just “lack practice” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 192). Musonius’
very conditional intervention does not appear to offer women the oppor-
tunities to obtain such practice.
By interrogating this tension in Musonius’ position the originality of
my discussion will emerge in my attention on a further gender-divisive
inequality that I identify within his Stoic perspective. Raising this inequal-
ity will direct my engagement to a topic that has not been explicitly
explored by existing literature on Musonius’ relevance to gender theory
(Aikin and McGill-Rutherford 2014; Grahn-Wilder 2018; Nussbaum
1994, 2002; Reydams-Schils 2005). This inequality, which I call the “time
inequality,” concerns the gendered politics of socialized time. I believe this
issue deserves contemporary attention when appraising his approach to
gender equality. This is because of the continuing effect of this time
inequality in the modern era.
Equalized Time Is Not Egalitarian Time

We can explore this time inequality in a current context through the phi-
losopher and social theorist Julia Kristeva (1941–). Kristeva’s insights are
important not simply in terms of what her own writings offer directly but
also more broadly because of the influence she has had on subsequent
thinkers. This dispersed influence is perhaps reflective of the prolific and
varied character of Kristeva’s output. Her perspectives populate an array of
fields including art history, linguistics, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and
social theory.8
220 W. JOHNCOCK
My development of a dialogue between the works of Musonius and

Kristeva will indeed sit alongside her own passing engagements with
Stoicism in exploring the roots of the “semiological sciences.” In
“Psychoanalysis and the Polis” Kristeva posits that we can trace the birth
of interpretation and semiology to Epictetus’ claims that humans are des-
tined not only to contemplate God and his works but to interpret them
(Kristeva 1982, 79). Reflecting on how “to interpret” means “to make a
connection,” Kristeva links the interpretative capacity to the relational
outlook of structuralist linguistics. Because structuralist theorizers of dis-
course are in this sense for Kristeva “rationalizers of the social contract in
its most solid substratum (discourse), linguists carry the Stoic tradition to
its conclusion” (Kristeva 1980 [1977], 24).9
It is however in her poststructuralist conceptions of women’s relation-
ships with time that I believe her capacity to be a discussant with the
themes present in Musonius’ positions about gender become apparent.
Kristeva argues that feminist inquiries into the topic of time must address
how women are restrictively conceptually aligned with the temporality of
natural, biological, and cyclical repetition. Particularly because of assump-
tions about a female subservience to biological function, Kristeva demands
in her famous essay “Women’s Time” that:
Female subjectivity would seem to provide a specific measure of … the

cycles, gestation, the eternal recurrence of a biological rhythm which con-
forms to that of nature. (Kristeva 1981, 16)
The correlation of women with “circular” maternal and physiological tem-

poralities arguably has its roots in impressions of childbearing and the
menstrual cycle. Kristeva highlights conceptual juxtapositions of this sup-
posedly circular tempo from the linear and progressive temporality of
commercial and political institutions, “in other words, the time of history”
(17). All such technological and social institutions in Kristeva’s argument
have been so dominated by men that the temporalities of progress and the
temporality of masculinity are conventionally equated. The interpretation
is that such rhythm occurs separately to the limited repetitive temporality
of women.
Feminism’s first wave fought for the inclusion of women into these
institutionalized rhythms. The focus here was on women’s participation in
linear temporalities of progress and equality. Kristeva introduces her dis-
cussion of this strategy by arguing that “the women’s movement, as the
struggle of suffragists and of existential feminists, aspired to gain a place in

linear time as the time of project and history” (18). She laments though
that these linearly social, political, and historical projects institutionally
represented civilizing breaks from humanity’s prior, natural state. Because
this was a natural state conceptually aligned with the ahistorical female-as-
reproducer, any inclusion for women in projects deemed to be subse-
quently and developmentally civilizing remained conditional.10
We might draw a comparison here with Musonius’ conditional integra-
tion of the educated female in the sphere of male-dominated structures.
This integration is “conditional” given that for Musonius there was never
the expectation that opening educational opportunities for women would
see them break from their traditional, naturally assigned roles (Stobaeus,
Anthology, 2.31.126, 3–6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 28–30). We have
seen him state that he would not expect women to relinquish the practical
utility of their domestic services, even upon becoming philosophically
educated. This focus on the practical arrangements of everyday undertak-
ings means for William Irvine that Musonius provides “us with a window
into daily life in first-century Rome” (Irvine 2011, 11).11
The ongoing cultured demand for women to retain their domestic
roles likewise indicates in Kristeva’s account their quite conditional inte-
gration into established social structures. An acceptance of women into
public and professional life during first-wave feminism was tempered
with the ongoing alignment of women with a state of nature that such
structures were symbolized to be superseding. Women could now receive
education and professional responsibilities but not at the expense of their
“naturally assigned” roles as caregivers (Kristeva 1981, 30). As we shall
soon consider in terms of time, this effectively restricts women’s exis-
tence in the public realm in a way that mirrors Musonius’ expectations
that educated women would still remain at home. The distinction
between expectations of the social and developmental involvements of
men versus women is apparent in both Musonius’ thesis and Kristeva’s
commentary.
Given the futility of fostering women’s inclusion within existing societal
structures, Kristeva notes that rather than attempting to function within a
temporality that had continued to exclude women, the second wave of
feminism shifted focus. This new direction demanded recognition of the
qualitatively different forms of time for each gender. This did not deny or
suppress what according to Kristeva women uniquely embody regarding
time. Such an approach instead highlights the economic and social values
222 W. JOHNCOCK
of these female temporalities, giving a voice “to the intrasubjective and

corporeal experiences left mute by male-dominated culture in the past”
(Kristeva 1981, 19). The egalitarian drive of feminism here thus changes.
From first wave’s call that the time of all citizens is equal and should be
treated accordingly, the second wave argues that the time of the genders is
different and that an appreciation of such differences would actually be
socially and economically beneficial for all. It is from these kinds of consid-
erations that what I identify as the “time inequality” emerges.
Specifying Women’s Time

This call to recognize what is irreducibly female about time is how sec-
ond wave feminism situates itself outside historical time structures without
acceding to the threat of marginalization from current social or political
strata (Kristeva 1981, 19). Such a development should ideally lead for
Kristeva to a third stage in which women’s time inserts more prominently
into society’s institutionalized consciousness. This insertion would not be
the result of an acknowledgment of previously hidden similarities between
male and female temporalities. Neither would it be because of the capacity
of females to fulfill what were the established, male-inclined temporalities.
What is at stake rather is a recognition of the collective benefits that are
already occurring and would continue to occur from the structural inte-
gration of male and female temporal specificities (20). By instead ignoring
the differences in the ways that male and female temporalities manifest, it
is my argument that a “time inequality” lurks in Musonius’ work. I can
begin to explain what this time inequality is via Kristeva’s insights on
women’s time.
Musonius’ proposal to insert women into existing institutionalized
structures of the ancient era is conditioned by his affirmation that “there
is not one type of virtue for a man and another for a woman” (Stobaeus,
Anthology, 2.31.123, 2, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 31). Rudimentarily we
should celebrate this egalitarian outlook. The issue with it though is that
its indication of equality does not reflect the associated lived experiences
of time for men and women in which there are, conversely, differently
gendered virtues imposed. While Kristeva is not discussing Musonius’ phi-
losophy, it is my interpretation that this kind of homogenization of value
or quality between genders is what Kristeva interprets as preventing
women from receiving the social freedom and status that men receive. We
have seen her argue that if the only goal of feminist interventions is the
insertion of women into existing linear time then this actually exacerbates
the marginalization of women from aspects of social and political time.
This is largely due to the institutionalized devaluation of what is specific
about the lived time of women (Kristeva 1981, 18–20).
Musonius actually provides an example of what Kristeva would argue is
adversely specific about women’s time when detailing how ancient wom-
en’s newly found education does not translate to a liberation from tradi-
tionally assigned domestic roles. This relates to the time that we have
noted women must spend laboring at home (Stobaeus, Anthology,
2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29–30). Grahn-Wilder reviews that
this requirement coheres with Musonius’ endorsement of how the “tradi-
tional division of labor between ‘outdoor’ and ‘indoor’ duties corresponds
with the physical capacities of men and women” (Grahn-Wilder 2018,
270). If the perception is that women are not suited to outdoor labor then
this diminishes expectations that they will spend time in pursuits beyond
the private domestic realm.
Intertwined with this differentiation between indoor and outdoor
roles is the earlier reviewed, specific obligation that Musonius ascribes to
educated women to continue to spin wool at home. By appreciating the
relevance of the wool spinning example to the indoor|outdoor distinc-
tion, David Engel identifies a key example “where Musonius’ stance is
not utterly egalitarian on the subject of daily activity” (Engel 2000, 380).
There are indeed contradictory indications underpinning Musonius’ posi-
tion on the indoor|outdoor distinction in Engel’s estimation. Musonius
observes that the generally different physical strengths of women and men
means that women are more suited to indoor tasks. Musonius nevertheless
also recognizes that there exist physically weaker men and stronger women
and that “all human affairs have a common basis and are therefore com-
mon to both men and women, and nothing has been exclusively reserved
for either” (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.123, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011,
32). While this sounds unconditionally egalitarian, Engel responds that
given the rigid division of indoor and outdoor roles that Musonius assigns
even to educated women and men, “it must be asked just how deeply
attached he was to such a bold pronouncement” (Engel 2000, 381).
Beyond notions of pure physicality, this should remind us of Kristeva’s
demand that the specificity of women’s time is that which has traditionally
been correlated with a nature excluded from the collective outdoor space
of public and cultural developments.
224 W. JOHNCOCK
This exclusion in Kristeva’s opinion has in the modern era evolved into
conditionally inserting specifically female temporal experiences into public
structures. Expanding on the similar point from the previous section, I can
now say that this insertion is conditional in terms of time. Women’s time
is itself conditional time because it is never women’s own. The time of
women is given either to professional labor structures that men still domi-
nate and possess or to a domestic realm in which they subserviently con-
tinue to bear the burden of labor. What results is a collision of temporalities
for professional women who work while bearing this domestic labor, not
to mention the specifically female rhythms of maternity and childbirth:
An increasing number of women not only consider their maternity compat-

ible with their professional life … but also find it indispensable to their dis-
covery … of the complexity of the female experience. (Kristeva 1981, 30)
In this mode women fulfill the requirements for inclusion within male-
dominated social and political linear time while concurrently managing
their uniquely female temporal assignments. These temporal assignments
go beyond the relatively brief maternal responsibilities to perpetually
include domestic care and laboring responsibilities. It is in being sensitive
to the consequent juggling act between these dual and very different tem-
poralities that Kristeva conceives of “women’s time.”
We must be careful to not assume that “women’s time” is a reference
to one universal, natural rhythm, to which all women are deterministically
and biologically bound. Kristeva rather conceives of women’s time to help
identify how women are uniquely, almost suffocatingly, implicated in the
production of modern socialized rhythms. This “suffocation” is
partly attributable to the multiple roles granted to women by first-wave
feminism. Women’s relatively recently acquired professional commitments
that occur within historical linear time must be made to fit the numerous
domestic demands on their time for which they are still responsible in
home units.12 Such roles must additionally be integrated with the time
burdens of maternity, for example, that only women bear. The time
involved in maternal processes is a responsibility that will always exist given
that as Kristeva notes, even for feminist groups “the refusal of maternity
cannot be a mass policy” (30).
The correlations that can be drawn with Musonius’ description of the
roles and responsibilities of philosophically educated women duly become
apparent. As reviewed we might initially be tempted to commend
Musonius for acknowledging that women share the same capacity for
learning as men (Stobaeus, Anthology, 2.31.126, 1, in Musonius Rufus
2011, 28). There is an egalitarian impetus to this call for the same access
to education for women and men. It is only when the practical application
of this education unravels that we see in the ancient Stoic context how the
hierarchical division of male time from women’s unpaid labor time
remains. For both Kristeva’s critique and Musonius’ own position, the
opening of institutionalized structures to women does not change the
existing demands on women’s domestic labor-time. We can recall that for
Musonius the woman studying philosophy should not expect as a result of
her newfound knowledge or study demands to stop spinning wool or
completing other services for her husband (2.31.126, 6, in Musonius
Rufus 2011, 29–30).
It is worth noting that Musonius also asserts that men studying phi-
losophy should not abandon their other responsibilities. The imperative
for Musonius regarding philosophically active students is that “there is no
way that I would expect women who pursue philosophy—or even men, for
that matter—to cast aside their appropriate tasks and concern themselves
with words only” (2.31.126, 6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29–30; my
emphasis). It is however in the details of these “appropriate tasks” that we
see the specifically restrictive conditions that are placed on women in terms
of the subsequent social activation of their education.
Women’s participation in the social fabric primarily involves the “appro-
priate tasks” of attending to domestic/home affairs rather than contribut-
ing to public philosophical debate. Never is this more evident than when
Musonius cautions that women studying philosophy is not tolerable if
“they abandon their house-keeping and go around in public with men and
practice arguments, act like sophists, and analyze syllogisms” (2.31.126,
6, in Musonius Rufus 2011, 29). A woman who has the chance for educa-
tion in the ancient Stoic era would, as with Kristeva’s observations of the
modern woman, be busy enough in any case juggling the time demands of
study labor and domestic labor. The equally educated man might not
experience clashes of different time responsibilities to the same extent if he
is responsible for fewer of those domestic responsibilities. Philosophically
educated men are for Musonius instead encouraged to “practice their
arguments in public.” This is a requirement of the practical orientations
and applications of Stoic philosophy’s core principles that we have seen
Musonius mandate for men not women. Indeed it complements earlier
insights about the impression that indoor rather than outdoor pursuits are
226 W. JOHNCOCK
suitable for women. Philosophy in the practical contexts of the ancient

Stoics is very much outdoors and publicly inclined.
While for Musonius the philosophically educated woman would be
more “just” than her uneducated female counterpart, there is seemingly
little that is “just” about the demands on time that the educated women
would consequently experience. In fact if the educated woman applied her
developing Stoic outlook to her lack of time, such Stoicism might only
further normalize or sediment her subjugation. I state this because now
that such a woman would have trained in a Stoic consciousness, if she was
to complain about any consequent lack of time this could appear to con-
tradict the indifference to unfavourable circumstances her training instilled.
Furthermore, it might contribute to any ancient societal doubts regarding
the suitability of women to philosophical endeavor.
This is potentially an inflammatory concluding point. It does not favor-
ably portray the Stoics’ capacity to fulfill their mandate of practically apply-
ing philosophical study. I must nevertheless make this point. Not only
would the philosophically educated, Stoic woman feel like she had less
time than she ever had, but she might also be less likely to complain about
it or even feel wrongly treated by it. This is because any adverse response
to her situation could as noted appear to compromise her now instilled
Stoic virtuousness. Through the interchange between Musonius and
Kristeva, we get a vivid sense of how women of all eras must enact the
Stoic persona even if they have not received its formal philosophical train-
ing. A time-poor woman would according to the notions of Stoic virtue
that we encounter more comprehensively in other chapters need to remain
indifferent to what is beyond her control. In this case the phenomenon
beyond her control would be time, her own time.
Notes
1. Linda Brodkey and Michelle Fine interpret that this gender disparity means
that science affords males the belief that they alone legislate the human
knowledge of reality (Brodkey and Fine 1992, 80). Janet Kourany reframes
the debate by attending to the differences in gender disparities between
various academic fields (Kourany 2012, 251). In Reflections on Gender and
Science Evelyn Keller considers whether modern gender disparities simply
continue the composition of Plato’s Academy (Keller 1985, 25). See
Yeandle (2017) for a more recent discussion of the perpetuation of phi-
losophy’s male domination.
2. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) informs that “millions of girls around the world are still being
denied an education” (UNESCO 2013). Its report identifies a global trend
in which “two thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are
female” (2013). This prevention of access to basic education also occurs at
a tertiary level, particularly in fields that lead to “skilled” vocations.
D. Kelly Weisberg argues that historically “one of the paramount concerns
of any skilled profession is the regulation of access to the profession”
(Weisberg 1977, 485). Weisberg complementarily highlights the struggle
women have had “to gain entrance to the legal profession” (485).
Madeleine Arnot, Miriam David, and Gaby Weiner also recognize the
structural exclusion of women from secondary and tertiary education pro-
grams. Their focus furthermore comprises which state policies have been
implemented to address these inequalities (Arnot et al. 1999, ix).
3. There are brief examples of other Stoic philosophers also arguing for equal
appreciations of men and women. Diogenes Laërtius reports that in his
Republic Zeno makes the demand that we perceive men and women as
equal given that they are “in common among the wise” (Diogenes Laërtius
1853, 7.66). Epictetus in Discourses posits that of a wise man he sees “no
reason why he should not marry and have children” and that “his wife will
be wise, like him” (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 68). Diogenes additionally
advises of Antisthenes’ tendency to assert that “virtue is the same in a man
as in a woman” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 6.5). Given that Antisthenes was
a student of Socrates, and taught Zeno’s teacher Crates of Thebes, this
provides a possible link between Socrates’ views on women and the per-
spectives of the earliest Stoics. Plato’s Republic indeed details how Socrates
proposes that women are as “philosophic” as men (Plato 2012, 6.1.456a)
and as capable of fulfilling the city’s most prominent roles such as “guard
and other duties” (6.1.451d). Donald Dudley doubts such a link between
Socrates and Zeno however. Dudley claims that the Stoics fabricated
accounts connecting Antisthenes to Zeno to create the impression of an
unbroken sequence between Socrates and Zeno (Dudley 1937, 2–4). Of
relevance to all the above is Malin Grahn-Wilder’s chapter “The Stoics on
Equal Educability of Girls and Boys, and the Origin of Gendered
Characteristics” taken from her Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy.
Musonius’ assertion in Grahn-Wilder’s view regarding the equal treatment
of women and men “follows naturally from premises commonly accepted
by Stoic thinkers from Zeno to the Romans” (Grahn-Wilder 2018, 10).
4. James Dillon provides a comprehensive account of Musonius’ “three
rounds of exile, two under Nero and one under Vespasian” (Dillon 2004,
6). The way that Musonius responds to each of these periods of banish-
ment motivates Dillon to describe such experiences as revealing “of the
228 W. JOHNCOCK
congruence of his teaching and living” (6). One such banishment sends
Musonius to the notoriously desolate island of Gyara or Gyaros. Despite
this “Musonius lived cheerfully” (6) whereas other exiles had to be con-
demned to less brutal locations.
5. Cynthia King records in the “Translator’s Introduction” to her presenta-
tion of Musonius’ thought that he taught Epictetus after having been
exiled by Vespasian and then returning under the rule of Titus (King in
Musonius Rufus 2011, 13). Epictetus describes on multiple occasions the
relationship with his Stoic master Musonius. One such example in
Discourses is where Epictetus recalls how “Musonius used to test me by
saying, ‘your master is going to afflict you with some hardship or other’”
(1.9, 29). See also Reydams-Schils (2017, 157) and Long (2002, 13–17)
for further explanations of the Musonius-Epictetus connection.
6. Diogenes Laërtius’ commentary on Chrysippus exemplifies this point.
Chrysippus clarifies that a life in accordance with nature will be virtuous
and happy; “the chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to nature”
(Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). This counters the interpretation that pos-
its virtue or happiness as ends to target. Happiness is “supervened” through
being virtuous, which itself is supervened through a life “corresponding to
one’s own nature and to the universal nature” (7.53).
7. I am not the first commentator to offer this reading of Musonius’ thought.
Scott Aikin and Emily McGill-Rutherford’s article “Stoicism, Feminism
and Autonomy” (2014) addresses aspects of Musonius’ theory in ways that
are not dissimilar to the discussion I have presented. Edward Arnold’s
Roman Stoicism (1911) also reveals these issues, as does Elizabeth Asmis’
chapter “The Stoics on Women” (1996). For a broader discussion of the
complications of applying Musonius’ philosophy to modern feminist the-
ory, see Martha Nussbaum’s chapter that we have already encountered—
“The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and
Roman” (Nussbaum 2002).
8. Fletcher and Benjamin (1990) provide one of the more useful collections
of commentaries on Kristeva’s many foci.
9. Kurt Lampe gives a comprehensive account of Kristeva’s interest in
Stoicism from a semiological perspective. Not incidentally given our choice
of Stoic protagonist in this chapter, Lampe here integrates other features of
Musonius’ philosophy such as his positions on eating meat (Lampe
2016, 34–35).
10. Marlene LeGates’ In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society
illuminates the reasons for this problematically conditional success of first-
wave feminism. Legates’ chapter “Issues in First-Wave Feminism” (LeGates
2001, 237–280) particularly helps us to understand how the first wave’s
inadequacies bred the differently oriented, second wave.
11. More adventurously, Brad Inwood asserts that because of these publicly
practical orientations Musonius was likely not a Stoic philosopher whatso-
ever. Inwood characterizes him instead as a “generic philosopher” and
“public intellectual” (Inwood 2017, 257).
12. For Rita Felski this means that women are now included in, rather than
marginalized from, linear time. This in her estimation is no advantage as
women now have to be more concerned with linear time and “more preoc-
cupied with time measurement, than men” (Felski 2000, 20). The reason
for this greater time-preoccupation is that the modern era has seen women
relinquish few of their time-demanding domestic responsibilities while
now also working full-time professional hours.
References
Aikin, Scott, and Emily McGill-Rutherford. 2014. Stoicism, Feminism and
Autonomy. Symposium 1 (1): 9–22.
Arnold, Edward. 1911. Roman Stoicism: Being Lectures on the History of the Stoic
Philosophy with Special Reference to Its Development Within the Roman Empire.
Arnot, Madeleine, Miriam David, and Gaby Weiner. 1999. Closing the Gender
Gap: Postwar Education and Social Change. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Asmis, Elizabeth. 1996. The Stoics on Women. In Feminism and Ancient
Philosophy, ed. Julie Ward, 68–92. New York: Routledge.
Brodkey, Linda, and Michelle Fine. 1992. Presence of Mind in the Absence of
Body. In What Schools Can Do: Critical Pedagogy and Practice, ed. Kathleen
Weiler and Candace Mitchell, 75–94. New York: State University of
New York Press.
De Ste. Croix, G.E.M. 1981. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World.
London: Duckworth.
Dillon, James. 2004. Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life: A Model of
Teaching and Living Virtue. Dallas; Lanham; Boulder; New York; Oxford:
University Press of America.
Dudley, Donald. 1937. A History of Cynicism: From Diogenes to the 6th Century
A.D. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
Engel, David. 2000. The Gender Egalitarianism of Musonius Rufus. Ancient
Philosophy 20: 377–391.
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University Press.
Felski, Rita. 2000. Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture.
New York: New York University Press.
Fletcher, John, and Andrew Benjamin (ed.). 1990. Abjection, Melancholia, and
Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva: Volume 4. London and New York: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1985 (1984). The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality
Volume 3. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin.
Palgrave Macmillan.
Inwood, Brad. 2017. The Legacy of Musonius Rufus. In From Stoicism to
Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels
Engberg-Pedersen, 254–276. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Irvine, William. 2011. Editor’s Preface. In Musonius Rufus: Lectures & Sayings,
ed. William Irvine, 9–12. Translated by Cynthia King. CreateSpace.
Keller, Evelyn. 1985. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press.
Kourany, Janet. 2012. Feminist Critiques: Harding and Longino. In Philosophy of
Science, ed. James Brown, 236–254. London and New York: Continuum.
Kristeva, Julia. 1980 (1977). Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature
and Art. Edited by Leon Roudiez. Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine,
and Leon Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
———. 1981. Women’s Time. Translated by Alice Jardine and Harry Blake. Signs
7 (1): 13–35.
———. 1982. Psychoanalysis and the Polis. Translated by Margaret Waller.
Critical Inquiry 9 (1): 77–92.
Lampe, Kurt. 2016. Kristeva, Stoicism, and the “True Life of Interpretations”.
SubStance 45 (1): 22–43.
LeGates, Marlene. 2001. In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society.
London and New York: Routledge.
Clarendon Press.
Musonius Rufus. 2011. Musonius Rufus: Lectures & Sayings. Edited by William
Irvine. Translated by Cynthia King. CreateSpace.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic
Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2002. The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and
Roman. In The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient
Greece and Rome, 283–326. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Plato. 2002. Apology. In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo.
Translated by George M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Penguin Books.
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2005. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and
Affection. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
———. 2017. “Becoming like God” in Platonism and Stoicism. In From Stoicism
to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, ed. Troels
Engberg-Pedersen, 142–158. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press.
UNESCO. 2013. Education for All Global Monitoring Reporting: Girls’
Education—The Facts. http://en.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/gem-report/
files/girls-factsheet-en.pdf.
Weisberg, D. Kelly. 1977. Barred from the Bar: Women and Legal Education in
the United States 1870–1890. Journal of Legal Education 28 (4): 485–507.
Yeandle, Heidi. 2017. Angela Carter and Western Philosophy. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
CHAPTER 11
Is It Natural to Be Social? Marcus Aurelius

and George Herbert Mead on Socialization
An Organic Unity
At what point in your life can you say that you become social? Is it when
you first go to school of some kind and begin spending time with other
humans of a similar age and at the same life-stage? Alternatively is it before
that, such as when you learn to communicate by recognizing interactions
between others and taking part as well? Or is socialization more funda-
mentally simply something that begins with your family unit when you are
born? Perhaps even more adventurously could we say that socialization
commences before you leave the womb, in terms of the environmental
and interpersonal sounds and phenomena to which you are unwittingly
exposed?1
This immediately preceding position seemingly interprets that humans
are naturally and unavoidably socially immersed. Such an interpretation
might be correlated with how features of our parents’ environment condi-
tion us even while our embryonic and fetal development is ongoing.
Another reading of it though could be that environmental influences
imposed during the prenatal stage might be unavoidable but they are not
natural. This relates to the belief that such influences include culturally
contingent sounds such as your parents’ car. From this perspective, our
unwitting socialization or enculturation would diverge us at different
times from natural conditions. The variability of this contingency would
make it difficult to define universally natural points of the origin of social-
ization. Different thinkers have explored and endorsed various arguments

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_11
234 W. JOHNCOCK
related to the positions above. Deliberations even point to the direct role
of the parents in influencing at which age or stage of a child’s life socializa-
tion commences.2
For a prominent voice from later Stoic philosophy, we should differ-
ently consider the point of origination of our socialized existence. By
focusing on the preconditions of our lives, Marcus Aurelius directs the
question of the beginning of socialization to what is collegial or shared
between humans and the universe. Raising these universal relations
involves a perspective that continues with themes that we have already
encountered from Marcus. I refer to the dialogue developed between
Marcus and Barbara Adam in Chap. 7’s concern with a worldly ecology
and climate. The consideration there is of our relationship with what uni-
versally encompasses and manifests us.
Anthony Long has recently reminded the contemporary Stoic commu-
nity that ancient Stoicism is by design a philosophy of action oriented
toward collegial benefits. This collegial imperative manifests for Long in
the Stoic mandate that we will later encounter from Marcus of being
“born for community” (Long 2018). Epictetus also provides much inspi-
ration for this sense of our rationalized communal orientation from birth.
God for Epictetus has “constituted the rational animal to have such a
nature” whereby each human neither receives nor develops anything per-
sonally (“cannot attain any of his own particular goods”) without “con-
tributing to the common benefit” (Epictetus 2014, 1.19, 13). From this
impetus, Marcus will develop his own thesis of the inescapable universal
conditions via which socialized orientations manifest for us all.
An engagement with Marcus on the topic of community requires that
we firstly appreciate his conception of a world in which all things are uni-
fied or interrelated. Marcus describes this unified state with various, inter-
changeable terms. These terms include God, Law, Zeus, the Whole, the
Universe, Fate, Providence, and most interestingly for this inquiry; nature.
He duly encourages us to appreciate “the unity of nature” (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 8.34). Nature is a unity that extends to all aspects of the
universe, including those things that are “even at a distance, as with the
stars” (9.9, 2).3
By presenting the natural unity of humans with the universe, Marcus
describes the entire world as “one living creature” (4.40). This is an argu-
ment of composition and substance. As the aforementioned chapter fea-
turing Marcus’ perspective on a changing worldly environment extensively
explores, for Marcus every feature of the world including humans
11 IS IT NATURAL TO BE SOCIAL? MARCUS AURELIUS AND GEORGE… 235
represents a particular manifestation of a single substance. It is from within

and as the universal substance of nature (or the “Whole”) that humans
emerge as parts of it. Nature’s nature as Marcus explains is to produce
itself in various forms or “parts” of itself. There are two ramifications that
I see from a worldly ontology in which all parts of this variously formed
universe are composed of “one substance” (4.40). Firstly, we are each a
distinguishable creature with our own physicality and rationality.
Christopher Gill describes this as how we are each individually whole,
whereby “Marcus recognizes that we constitute a psychophysical whole”
(Gill 2006, 99). In another regard though, what is distinguishably whole
about each of us is not composed separately to the rest of the universe. For
Marcus rather, the internality or specificity of each individual human
nature is also locatable in the substance of an entire nature, where “the
nature of the Whole is what my own nature is” (Marcus Aurelius
1964, 2.9).
If we think about how to locate this understanding of “substance” in a
modern regard we might turn to the kind of phrase which discusses or
evaluates “what someone is made of.” The “made of” involved in this
proposition does not restrict us to the separately touchable or tangible
about the person in question. It instead indicates how we define that per-
son in relation to the world in which they exist. It refers to what kind of
person they are among a sea of personalities.
Marcus’ sense of substance nevertheless does incorporate the material
aspect of our being. This refers to the pantheistic elements within his
worldview that we have encountered in which a divine rational principle
activates the passivity of matter. A rationally activated matter comprises
our whole substance. Indeed Gill has just defined this whole substance as
our psychophysical constitution. It is via physical processes that the com-
mon substance through which the universe is ordered becomes apparent.
According to Marcus’ physics the relative ordering of physical things in
the universe—the fact that flowers bloom according to regular patterns or
that fruits ripen at a predictable pace—exhibits the singular order of a
universal substance. The pantheistic rationality of the universe orders all
things together. This singular constitution means for Marcus that “all
things, distinct as they are, nevertheless permeate and respond to each
other” (4.27).4 Where there is an apparent “response” between things
what is actually occurring is not previously separate things reacting to each
other to establish new common conditions. All things rather are already
commonly composed through their universal substantiality:
236 W. JOHNCOCK
All things are meshed together, and a sacred bond unites them … ordered
together in their places they together make up one order of the universe.
There is one universe out of all things … one substance, one law, one com-
mon reason. (7.9)
This does not yet directly refer to the socialization of humans. We are
beginning though to get a sense of how for Marcus a universal collegiality
exists between all things that a common substantiality conditions. This
common substance is pantheistic-activated matter. The respective consti-
tutions of all things are enmeshed and the universe is “immanent in them”
(6.40). These shared constitutions are pertinent when William Stephens
notes that even though Marcus is keenly aware of cosmic cycles of genera-
tion and destruction (a topic that we have reviewed in Chap. 7), it still
matters that we fulfill “our roles well as parts of the cosmic whole”
(Stephens 2012, 104–106). The inevitability of our localized demise does
not contradict our global relationship with an entire universe.
Marcus duly encourages the individual to constantly recognize their
place in a unified whole, stating that “you should meditate often on the
connection of all things in the universe and their relationship to each
other” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 6.38). The more recent translations of
Gregory Hays (Marcus Aurelius 2002) and Robin Hard (Marcus Aurelius
2011) describe this as reminding ourselves of the “sympathy” we inher-
ently have with all things in the universe. This is for Marcus the rational
outlook for each human. By again observing the intentional “order” of
the world as evidenced in the “interwoven” relationship of things, Marcus
argues that all beings have the “same relation as the various limbs of an
organic unity—they were created for a single cooperative purpose” (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 7.13; my emphasis).5 With this tone of a universally ordered
cooperation we might get an increased sense of what could be socially
ordered or constituted about Marcus’ universe. The question of when our
sociality begins is now steering toward a more “organically” primary point
of origination than we considered in this chapter’s introduction.
An Organism and Its Environment

On this theme of organic interrelatedness as Marcus describes it, we can
pause momentarily to reflect upon Émile Durkheim’s impressions of com-
munity and social structure. I encourage this reflection given that as we
have seen for Durkheim, a collective consciousness coerces individual
orientations like a singular “organism” (Durkheim 1938 (1895), 95).

Evoking Marcus’ just observed portrayal of the organic unity of us all,
Durkheim embraces the comparison of a social system with an organism’s
physical composition. Here Durkheim argues that what is social cannot
“be separated into discrete parts” but instead encompasses “the living
substance in its totality and not the element parts of which it is composed”
(xlviii).
In exploring a bodily theme Marcus similarly encourages individuals to
not characterize themselves merely as separate parts of a unified whole. We
should instead in his perspective be receptive to how each of us constitutes
something like the aforementioned limb in relation to an overall bodily
integrity. Marcus demands accordingly that you not “call yourself simply a
part rather than a limb” given that “part” does not reflect the mutually
common nature of your constitution, as a “limb of the composite body of
rational beings” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.13). While Marcus’ point is
comprehendible, the difference between terms such as part and limb feels
somewhat forced. Samuel Sambursky indeed engenders the sense of
Marcus’ organic collegiality while using the forbidden term “part”; “the
endeavors of the individual as an organic part of the endeavors of society
as a whole” (Sambursky 1959, 115).
Durkheim as noted equates a social body with the imagery of an organi-
cally physical body. This seems to fit quite well with this chapter’s discussion
about the nature of our socialization. It is however best to look beyond
Durkheim on these matters. This is due to how Durkheim generally over-
looks the organo-physiological conditions of socially structured individu-
als.6 Marcus and Durkheim employ the idea of the organic body to describe
common interrelations between individuals. Out of the two, it is only
Marcus, however, who takes the organic component of this discussion to a
literal level of substance. Marcus refers as we have seen to the common
“substance” via which all “limbs” of the organic Whole are unified. In fact,
for Marcus our rationalized material bodies are the evidence of our presence
in a universally enmeshed state. Here he wants to bring to our attention
how “all our bodies (being of one nature with the Whole and cooperating
with it as our limbs do with each other) pass through the universal sub-
stance as through a swirling stream” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.19).
It is in the context of these organismic indicators of the point at which
we become communally oriented that the social theory of George Herbert
Mead (1863–1931) presents as a more useful discussant than Durkheim.
This is particularly apparent in Mead’s unique example of an individual
238 W. JOHNCOCK
organism’s physiological relation to its environment or surrounding struc-

ture when eating. Mead like Durkheim is interested in how one’s mind or
self emerges from a social communication model that is composed of par-
ticular beings. Unlike Durkheim though, one way in which Mead dis-
cusses such communication is via fleshed bodies and organs. This
illustration of social interaction for Mead directly refers to how the physi-
cal effects of gestures and actions radiate environmentally and constitute a
sociality.7
In The Philosophy of the Present when exploring the physical component
of this collective animation, Mead indeed details eating not simply as an
internalization of otherwise external food objects. Mead directs us to how
food objects already constitute to a certain extent an individual organism’s
structural physiology. This is because the individual organism’s physiology
constitutes a part (one object) of an environment of objects in which food
objects also reside. As organism-object and world-of-food-objects interact
so they mutually reproduce. From this Mead asserts that the organism and
the world of objects each become different together (Mead 2002, 93).
The environment, a world of objects, and the individual organism for
Mead reproduce each other. This singular co-constitutive dependency or
relation between an organism and the world/environment marks:
…both the difference which arises in the environment because of its relation
to the organism … and also the difference in the organism because of the
change in the environment. (37)
Given this singular co-relation between the individual organism and its
environment, Mead describes the consequent whole that manifests as “an
ongoing living process that tends to maintain itself” (37; my emphasis).
This element of self-production is crucial in comparing Mead with Marcus’
Stoicism. Implicit within the Meadian characterization of a self- or internal
connection between the organism and the environment is Marcus’ descrip-
tion that the interaction between humans and the world indicates “one
living creature” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 4.40). What I am even further
suggesting is that underpinning both the portrayals of Marcus and Mead
is the belief in a singular nature or life that interacts with itself via plural
forms or organs/organisms of itself.8
It is important to raise this notion of plurality because in this chapter
the primary concern is with the theme of sociality. We are attending to the
question of the commencement of our socialization and are not simply
puzzling over notions of a counter-intuitive singularity. I am anticipating
that the advent of this singularity’s plurality will provide considerable

insights regarding appraisals of when sociality originates. This is because
when he describes an organically singular or self-“life” function, Mead
goes to great lengths to detail the systemic links between its pluralities and
its singularity. To do this he uses the example of an animal in a jungle.
We must appreciate an animal organism according to Mead as a particu-
lar entity and an individual “system of distribution of energies which
makes its locomotion possible” (Mead 2002, 75). The animal’s organis-
mic element, its physiological composition, conducts its own material and
physical movement. There are many (perhaps infinite) such individualized
systems in any given environment. In this regard, there is also an acknowl-
edgment from Mead of how the animal fits into the overall ecological or
environmental structure as one of its many integrated components. The
animal organism and its physical transitions comprise “part of the jungle
system which is part of the life system on the surface of the inanimate
globe” (75). Correlatively we have seen that in Marcus’ terms this singular
life system is “one living creature.”
The impression of a singular site of life informs a question about
whether Mead is inconsistent in describing the globe (meaning the planet
Earth) as “inanimate.” Indeed this term sits awkwardly with the earlier
established aspect of Meadian theory which posits a co-constitution and
shared co-becoming between organism and overall environment. I raise
this contention given how the description “inanimate” positions the
globe/Earth as a passive platform on which organismically expressive plu-
ralized life occurs. Rather than such passiveness being a feature of Mead’s
thesis, there is more generally apparent in his wording a “whole” which
actively co-implicates an “organism and its surroundings” (88). From this
we can view the globe/Earth as one such surrounding entity that is both
differentiated from but also co-implicated with a universally organismic
life. The globe/Earth is concurrently singular and plural, as a living crea-
ture/entity that is differentially composed by and with other living
creatures/entities.
A Universal Community Beyond Humanity

The “living creature” of Marcus’ Stoic perspective that has been incorpo-
rated in this discussion provides a critically comparative lens for Mead’s
impression of an inanimate Earth. This concerns what I identify to be the
communally animating roles of all entities in what for Stoicism is a univer-
sal social environment.
240 W. JOHNCOCK
Marcus follows the Stoic impression of a “great ladder” between differ-

ent forms of life. This ladder hierarchically installs animate beings (most
primarily humans) as “superior to inanimate” aspects of the world (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 5.16). We have in Chap. 7 reviewed how this connects to
the anthropocentric and logocentric features of Stoicism. For Marcus any-
thing that is “inferior” is “made in the interest of the superior” in terms of
the overall good of each to an entire, worldly “community” (5.16).
Humans as rational creatures are superior to other less rational creatures.
A hierarchy of superior and inferior elements within the overall living crea-
ture that is a universal community is therefore undeniably evident in
Marcus’ Stoicism. The complementary impression however is that all such
components are beneficially implicated or “enmeshed” within this liveli-
ness to some extent. Every “thing” participates in the “good” that Marcus
describes of a universal community in which “all things collaborate in all
that happens” (4.40). I am taken by the monistic appreciation that
Gregory Hays’ translation of this passage exhibits, where the singularity of
the universe manifests via “how everything helps produce everything else.
Spun and woven together” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 4.40). From this
unrestricted collaboration we have to ask whether any thing can really be
characterized as entirely inanimate. We can address this topic through
unpacking what constitutes a social participant for both thinkers.
Mead acknowledges that the ecological arena via its organisms and
objects simultaneously comprises systemically plural constituents as well as
a singular organism or system. The importance of this insight for Mead
and for our inquiry into when socialization begins is that it defines the
conditions for what is social. Systemic plurality here refers to sociality for
Mead. Sociality is the concurrent (plural) presence of an entity in more
than one system; it involves the “capacity of being several things at once”
(Mead 2002, 49). An example of this is where, as we have reviewed, an
animal organism presents as a life system of its own energies. Simultaneously
though it is present in a larger environmental (social) system. This dual
systemic presence is for Mead its sociality. Furthermore as the animal
becomes a new individual system (such as when ingesting food from its
environment) its presence in that environmental system also recomposes
that system. This mutual reproduction is a social reproduction.
This is as much a question of temporality as it is of systematicity.
Emergent phenomena such as an animal organism and its environment
concurrently inhabit and co-produce both the new and the old systems.
This systemic and temporal plurality abides by the just discussed definition
of socialization to which Mead subscribes. Sociality becomes via the co-

producing and co-temporalizing relations of the individual animal and the
overall environment. What occurs as animal and environment each become
newly different to what they were before, while maintaining their old indi-
vidual distinguishabilities, is that “in the passage from the past into the
future the present object is both the old and the new” (76–77).
My reading here is that Mead is invoking the understanding of sociality
that we normally hold in terms of human intersubjectivity. Human sub-
jects are in this regard involved in each other’s new subjectivities emerging
while remaining distinguishably individual themselves. Such subjects for
Mead though are not just human. They instead comprise all ecological
entities such as non-human animal organisms and environmental entities.
An individual animal which belongs to more than one system (itself as a
system and environment as a system) does not transcend one system to be
in the other. It only becomes the system that it is because of its relational
particularity within other systems from which it is pluralistically differenti-
ated. This (re-)produces both systems immanently and co-constitutively.
In fact, for Mead an individual entity must be “contemporaneously in dif-
ferent systems to be what it is in either” (86). Regarding applying this
interpretation to human social arrangements specifically we can recognize
that each of us is an individual organic system comprising a certain set of
physiological processes. We also however constitute something communal
as parts of a different kind of bodily system; a collective body. This latter
body refers to a singular grouping from which pluralities continually
manifest.
A corresponding expansion of Marcus’ conception of the “universe as
one living creature” is now possible via this feature of Meadian theory.
This expansion will occur by identifying specifically socialized terms for the
Stoic. Marcus posits a common substance and function between “all” that
exists. This communal function extends beyond what is exclusively human.
Think here of the connected orderings that he has described of flowers
blooming and fruits ripening. The regularity and order of all such things
in the world is crucial to this exhibition of a common nature.
For Marcus this commonality between things conditions what he
describes as a universal family of things. In Meditations he attributes this
familial community to how “all things are interwoven and therefore have
a family feeling for each other” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.38). What
defines this interwoven constitution of things is not simply the common
substance however. That substance is the condition. A community of
242 W. JOHNCOCK
things instead manifests through the ordering of things via regular and
mutually cooperative patterns. As Marcus rhetorically asks of the individ-
ual who doubts that their work participates in a universal community of
life; “can you not see plants, birds, ants, spiders, bees all doing their own
work, each helping in their own way to order the world?” (5.1, 1). When
implicating human endeavor within a universal community Marcus accord-
ingly and persistently argues that our labor or “work” serves and belongs
to that Whole (5.1, 6.42). Indeed in Robin Hard’s translation these
respective labors underpin the “proper running” of the world (Marcus
Aurelius 2011, 5.1).
The “world” is here Marcus’ reference not just to the domain of such
animals and insects but also to the realm of humans. This communal
ordering is indeed a default way of being for all life. We must be careful to
not interpret that this communal order is simply the result of proactive
behaviors and recognitions by humans and nonhumans. It is not some-
thing that has to be subsequently constructed or enacted in the world in
order to prevent an otherwise inevitable chaos and disharmony. Order
instead for Marcus is an indication of the pantheistic universal nature from
which we are born, a timeless “unity, order, and providence” (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 6.10). We and the rest of the universe are born communal.
Mead’s social ontology also defines a global singularity that is not
bound by a politics of human exceptionalism. By not restricting the defini-
tion of socialization to humans his explicit call is that the worldly environ-
ment’s systemic pluralization “belongs not only to human organisms”
(Mead 2002, 46). This is a relatively consistent position with the bases of
his argument that we have addressed. If sociality is a systemic plurality, and
human entities systemically inhabit the environmental system along with
other entities, then all such entities must in some way constitute a collec-
tively organic sociality. Sociality in this Meadian sense is hence unrestricted.
This is a reading of his theory that he apparently supports in explicitly
stating that “every thing” is a social constituent (177). By acknowledging
an unrestricted social emergence that constitutes and is constituted by all
entities and organisms in an environment, for Mead “social beings are
things as definitely as physical things are social” (177).
Marcus’ perspective equally endorses the all-encompassing communal
unity of things. In discussing the “very web and mesh of it all” (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 4.40) the impression is of a collectivity that disperses in an
unrestricted worldly rather than in an exclusively human direction. Marcus

accompanies this sense of universal enmeshment with a declaration of the
explicitly collegial conditions for this “all,” in that Marcus defines how the
“universe is a kind of community” (4.3, 2; my emphasis). As we are about
to affirm, if the universe is a family or a community, it must be in our uni-
versal nature that we have communal impulses.
This characterization of sociality or community as a state in accordance
with our nature is important in reflecting upon what might appear to be
contradicting elements in Stoic theory regarding social phenomena. In
earlier chapters we have reviewed how for Epictetus we should not be
concerned with social phenomena such as “reputation” and social stand-
ing given that they are “things not in our control” (Epictetus 2004, 1).
Marcus agrees with this sentiment that we should not be overly concerned
with such aspects of communal life, including what others think of us. He
duly encourages us to “be deaf to malicious gossip” (Marcus Aurelius
1964, 1.5).
Both Marcus and Epictetus position these kinds of socialized phenom-
ena as distinct from the true self or nature. What we encounter in Marcus’
thesis now though is a reading of a sociality from which our nature is not
distinct. The Stoic imperative advises us not to be improperly dependent
on external social phenomena over which we have no control. This does
not discount for Marcus an uncontrollably universal, socialized aspect to
our being. This universal social world is not something of which we desire
to be a part. Our communal status instead equates with our primordial
interrelationship with and responsibility to the world around us. The point
at which we become social would accordingly for Marcus and indeed for
Mead simply be the point at which we be. Marcus demands that being a
social agent is a primary reason for which we exist, where supposedly in his
era “it has long been shown that we are born for community” (5.16). In
manifesting as an individual part or limb of an entire nature or universal
life, our sociality automatically manifests.
There is however a tension between the two thinkers that is embedded
within this apparent agreement on originary and monistic social condi-
tions. This tension concerns the differentiated hierarchies of social status
that Mead and Marcus respectively propose. Unpacking this differentia-
tion will extend earlier insights regarding just how unrestricted the social
structure is for both.
244 W. JOHNCOCK
Hierarchies of Sociality?
Our rational awareness for Marcus of our status as an interconnected limb
of universal life traces to the fact that “the intelligence of the Whole is a
social intelligence” (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.30).9 This is Marcus’ quali-
fication in social terms of the universal or pantheistic reason that he gener-
ally observes. The whole universe as we have already reviewed for Marcus
is rational. The individual’s nature in deriving from this universal nature is
thus also rational. What Marcus is now adding to this definition of a part-
Whole shared nature is his belief that its shared rationality is a collegiality.
A social rationalization indicates that we all orient our natures and
actions toward a collective benefit. There are however degrees of this
shared rationality. While we are dealing with a universally enmeshed col-
lective state of subjectivity and rationality for Marcus there are hierarchies
of rational existence that qualify the extent to which “all things” might
socially cohere. It appears indeed that some entities and creatures, if they
are not as rational as others, will correlatively not be as social as those
human creatures who are rational. As he states regarding this characteristic
of the earlier-discussed existential ladder, the Whole has “subordinated
some creatures … and brought together the superior beings in unity of
mind” (5.30). This subordination refers to certain species which operate
at a different “level” to humans.
Marcus reminds us that being rational invests the associated creature
(typically human) with specific social responsibilities and capacities. In
addressing the reader as one such rational creature he directs that “when
you are reluctant to get up from your sleep, remind yourself that it is your
constitution and man’s nature to perform social acts, whereas sleep is
something you share with dumb animals” (8.12). “Dumb” is more pre-
cisely expressed for our understanding here by Robin Hard’s translation of
“animals devoid of reason” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 8.12). While we are
citizens of the universe therefore we also bear hierarchized responsibilities
as rational human citizens. This duality again reminds us of the tandem
logocentric and anthropocentric features of the Stoic worldview first
raised in an earlier chapter.
From this Marcus refers to a human communal citizenship in a “univer-
sal city.” To comprehend this city we must trace the concept’s origins to
the earliest Greek Stoicism of Cleanthes. Diogenes Laërtius reports that a
Stoic interest in the city is initially represented by Zeno’s Republic as well
as by a text from Chrysippus of the same name (Diogenes Laërtius 1853,
7.28–7.33). In the fragments that have survived from Cleanthes though

we can identify a position that directly correlates the city with what is
rationally just and civil. As Stobaeus reports, for Cleanthes:
If a city is a habitable structure, in which people who take refuge have access
to the dispensation of justice, a city is surely something civilized. (Stobaeus,
SVF, 1.587, in L&S, 431)
Anthony Long and David Sedley commentate that in one regard this posi-
tion is indicative of the Stoics’ attachment to legal and judicial order and
their attempt to promote “a very powerful conception of law as the basis
of civic life” (Long and Sedley 1987, 435). Dio Chrysostom also empha-
sizes this Stoic characterization of the city as the seat of ordered justice, in
that they “say that a city is a group of people living in the same place and
administered by law” (Dio Chrysostom, SVF, 3.329, in L&S, 431).
This “administrative” order is not simply of a human legal origin
though. As I discuss in Chap. 14, Plutarch informs us of Chrysippus’
assertion that goods such as virtue and justice manifest from God’s “uni-
versal nature” and His “administration of the world” (Plutarch, SVF,
3.68, in L&S, 368–369). This coheres with the position of Chrysippus’
fellow early Greek Stoic, Cleanthes. In Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus we are
reminded that God “orders things” that would be otherwise “disorderly”
(Cleanthes and Thom 2005, 18, 19, 99, 112). Cleanthes attributes this
divine administration, which by definition must be just, to the pantheistic
universal reason that permeates the cosmos and keeps it “unified” (19).
This cosmic unification comprises the universal city in which people take
refuge (as Cleanthes puts it) by living according to nature. The Stoic city
is hence more than a particular metropolis in a specific geographic loca-
tion. This city that Cleanthes recognizes rather has a universal jurisdiction.
Julia Annas also notes this universally expansive mode of the Stoic city
when reviewing via Clement how “the Stoics say that the universe is a city
in the proper sense … a city and a people are morally good … a kind of
refined organization and body of people governed by law” (Annas
1993, 304).
The Stoic city is the entire rational universe. It also however comprises
all localized human living structures that we conventionally call cities (and
that we have seen Cleanthes possibly refer to as a “habitable structure).”10
Marcus perpetuates this double definition of the city when he describes
how each human is by nature’s default an “inhabitant of this highest City,
246 W. JOHNCOCK
of which all other cities are mere households” (Marcus Aurelius 1964,
3.11, 2). In arguing that all humans are included with a universally coop-
erative and rationalized community his consequent demand is that we
refer to our home as the “Dear city of Zeus” (4.23). Given that citizenship
of this city requires rationalized natures there is no reference of it includ-
ing “inferior” nonhuman creatures.
There is no such socializing and rationalizing hierarchy for Mead. His
thesis instead recognizes an unrestricted sociality that constitutes and is
constituted by all entities. Mead’s position is that all physical things are
social, whether human or otherwise. This specifically emphasizes that a
hierarchy does not exist between human and nonhuman physicality. In
confronting the typical reading of human|nonhuman differentiation Mead
is consistent in his position that “we become physical things” and there-
fore social things “no sooner than do the objects that surround us” (Mead
2002, 48). If one such object is his aforementioned “inanimate globe,”
then it too would be a social constituent in this perspective.
This means that implements/objects exhibit a mutually systemic sociality
as do humans. As we use implements which are seemingly inanimate, the
implements and the act of using the implements participate in our becom-
ing different implementally to an overall system/structure. Humans are
thus simultaneously subjects and implemental objects to a whole socializing
environment. This remember refers to a co-dependent production between
all systemic entities, whereby “the bodily selves of members of the social
groups are as clearly implemental as the implements are social” (177).
A co-production between humans and implements/objects seems to
dramatically differ from Marcus’ earlier reliance on the ancient rational
hierarchy. Yet there is in Marcus’ sense of a shared substance something
collegial about all things. Our rationally activated human matter in fact
could easily have been, or could soon be, for Marcus a less rational imple-
ment or object. In a previous incarnation at another point in time indeed
it probably was:
Universal nature uses the substance of the universe like wax, making now
the model of a horse, then melting it down and using its material for a tree;
next for a man; next for something else. (Marcus Aurelius 1964, 7.23)
In terms of how Marcus explains the monistic aspects of being throughout

Meditations the description in this sentence is the one of which I am most
fond. Stoic universal nature features hierarchization based on perceived
degrees of rationality and consequent sociality. There is nevertheless an

internally common collegiality to everything which radiates through the
substantial composition of everything.
From an attention on the primordial orientations of our socialization,
I argue that for Marcus as for Mead our social status originates concur-
rently with our existential origination. We are born, we are social. What
is interesting about such a perspective is that it contradicts any supposi-
tion of a distinction between natural and socialized states of life. A con-
ceptual distinction between nature and society/culture is what might
demand that through culturally and temporally contingent ways of being
we discover how humans have become distanced from their natural con-
dition. Conversely to this perspective, it is in being social that we exhibit
for Marcus our natural tendency. This natural and collegial tendency
exemplifies rationality. Given that this rationality is universal among our
fellow humans, what is naturally “rational directly implies social” (10.2).
It is equally for Mead that sociality is a marker of our inescapably sys-
temic and plurally common constitutions. The novelty of inquiring into
when we become social via these two contexts is that they request us to
consider the mutual and collegial manifestation of human life with uni-
versal life.
Notes
1. The insight that babies in the womb can hear, and discern differences
between, sounds originating from outside the womb has been explored
extensively in prenatal psychology and health scholarship. Ruth Fridman
gives an account of such studies of hers since 1971 in “The Maternal
Womb: The First Musical School for the Baby” (Fridman 2000). Likewise,
in determining how babies in the womb shape the information that they
receive from outside it, for Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin language
development could commence before birth. In redefining at which stage a
baby is a “language novice,” they argue that “the intertwining of language,
society, and culture may begin in the womb” (Ochs and Schieffelin
2014, 8).
2. Eleanor Maccoby (1992) provides a “historical overview” of interpreta-
tions of the role of parents in the socialization of children. In this research,
Maccoby traces most early positions to two major schools; behaviorism,
and psychoanalytic theory. Her work also recognizes the transition in more
recent literature to “microanalytic” analyses of parent-child interaction.
248 W. JOHNCOCK
3. This reading of a universal sense of singularity and unification is not exclu-

sive to the work of Marcus among Stoic thinkers. Plutarch reports in On
Stoic Self-Contradictions that Chrysippus’ perspective involves “references
to Zeus, fate [and] providence and stating that the cosmos is one and
finite, being held together by a single power” (Plutarch, 1035b, in I&G,
9). Chrysippus attributes the capacity to appreciate this unity to scientific
studies and one’s consequent acquisition of knowledge, holding that
“none of this can be believed except by someone who is thoroughly
immersed in physics” (1035b–c, in I&G, 9). The mechanics of this physics
is too complex for the requirements of this chapter. It nevertheless relates
to an impression of the continuity and unity of nature as Inwood explains,
via the Stoic “claim that the forces which give each kind of entity its char-
acteristic powers are all modifications of the same material principle,
pneuma” (Inwood 1985, 21).
4. Robin Hard’s translation describes this as how all “things are distinct and
yet interfused and bound together by a common sympathy” (Marcus
Aurelius 2011, 4.27).
5. Numerous works (Robertson 2018; Stephens 2012, 89–91; Ussher 2014)
explore Marcus’ imagery of the human body when he discusses a coopera-
tive cosmopolitanism.
6. It is not that Durkheim refuses the role of the body/corporeality in his
sociology. In The Rules of Sociological Method he states that individual
manifestations of collective conditions “depend to a large extent on the
organopsychological constitution of the individual” (Durkheim 1938, 8; my
emphasis). Further evidence of his awareness of this “organic dependence”
is in Durkheim’s claim (albeit isolated) that there is no need to separate
an ideal milieu from the body (Durkheim 1974 (1898), 28). These points
possibly motivate commentaries such as Nick Crossley’s (2005) that there
is not a mind|body dualism implicit to Durkheim’s sociology. Despite these
qualifications, the organic bodily element of the individual is nevertheless
largely absent from Durkheim’s structural sense of socialization.
7. Mead’s Mind, Self and Society (1934) most extensively details his social
behaviorist theory.
8. The interpretation of “monistic” characteristics in this aspect of Mead’s
work is not rare. One of the more interesting and recent examples of such
a reading is Hans Johnsen’s assertion that in Mead we encounter a “par-
ticular blend of monism and social constructivism” (Johnsen 2014, 37). In
exploring the notion of knowledge as a “natural resource,” Johnsen affirms
that for Mead the social mind is not simply an aggregation of individual
minds that a culture manufactures in subsequent ways. Mead’s sense of the
social mind is rather of singular relation with individual minds.
9. Robin Hard translates this as where “the mind of the whole is concerned
for the good of the whole” (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 5.30). For Gregory
Hays’ translation of the same sentiment, this means that “the world’s intel-
ligence is not selfish” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 5.30).
10. Obbink (1999) also unpacks the two definitions of the Stoic city; one as a
place of localized habitation, the other as the entire universe.
References
Crossley, Nick. 2005. Sociology and the Body. In The Handbook of Sociology, ed.
Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, and Bryan Turner, 442–456. London; New Delhi;
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Free Press.
———. 1974 (1898). Individual and Collective Representations. In Sociology and
Philosophy, 1–34. Translated by D. Pocock. New York: The Free Press.
Epictetus. 2004. Enchiridion. Translated by George Long. New York: Dover
Publications.
University Press.
Fridman, Ruth. 2000. The Maternal Womb: The First Musical School for the
Baby. Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health 15 (1): 23–30.
Gill, Christopher. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought.
Clarendon Press.
Publishing Company.
Johnsen, Hans. 2014. The New Natural Resource: Knowledge Development, Society
and Economics. London and New York: Routledge.
Long, Anthony. 2018. Stoicisms Ancient and Modern by Tony (A.A.) Long.
Modern Stoicism, October 6. https://modernstoicism.com/stoicisms-ancient-
and-modern-by-tony-a-a-long/.
250 W. JOHNCOCK
Maccoby, Eleanor. 1992. The Role of Parents in the Socialization of Children: An
Historical Overview. Development Psychology 28 (6): 1006–1017.
Penguin Books.
Modern Library.
Mead, George. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 2002 (1932). The Philosophy of the Present. New York: Prometheus Books.
Obbink, Dirk. 1999. The Stoic Sage in the Cosmic City. In Topics in Stoic
Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. 2014. The Theory of Language Socialization.
In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ed. Alessandro Duranti, Elinor
Ochs, and Bambi Schieffelin. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Robertson, Donald. 2018. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic
Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Stephens, William. 2012. Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London:
Continuum.
PART V
Emotions
CHAPTER 12
Is Reason External to Passion? Posidonius,

Ann Game, and Andrew Metcalfe
on Self-Division
Our Natural State Is Rational, It Is Not Superseded

by a Rational State
We have regularly in the preceding chapters considered what being civil or

civilized means. A repeated interpretation that we have encountered (such
as in the debate between Hierocles and Lévi-Strauss) is that a civil indi-
vidual is in control of themselves if they regulate their naturally and bio-
logically occurring emotions.1 The view has also been observed that a
civilized individual treats other people in a controlled way even if such
treatment does not reflect how that individual feels. Impressions of civility
and hence of controlled dispositions duly invoke rational and reasonable
deliberations rather than impulsive and emotional compulsions.
The belief has similarly emerged that a civilized society reliably regu-
lates or controls the behaviors of its citizens. If a citizen transgresses the
laws or agreements of a civilized society any consequent punishment is not
unleashed spontaneously by an angry mob seeking instant “justice.”2 The
civilized state rather approaches punishment methodically and progres-
sively. This requires appraising different voices and facts through juridical
structures that we collectively authorize as objective and rational. The
legal hallmark of the civilized state is that reason trumps emotion.3
This mirrors the everyday advice that to make the best decisions for
ourselves when aggravated we should wait until we have “calmed down.”
Such a perspective positions emotion and passion as threats to our rational
or sensible capacities. The suggestion is that it is only once emotional

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_12
254 W. JOHNCOCK
states have been arrested that rational states can attend to the matter at
hand. As we personally enact the emotion-neutralizing expectations of our
socialized environments so we automatically regulate our behaviors. From
this has surfaced the widespread belief that the becoming-rational or
becoming-civilized human does transcend their previously naturally
instinctive “impulsive tendencies.”
It has been determined though that we cannot straightforwardly agree to
this linear interpretation. Our inquiries have developed an alternative
appraisal that the rationalized human does not transcend an impulsively
natural condition. This is largely thanks to how Stoic philosophy conceives
of a potentially more singular relation between reason and our natural state.
Across many eras, the Stoics hold that our natural condition always already
is rational. Our nature is not superseded by a newly found rational civility.4
While this perspective co-accommodates rational and natural impulses,
tensions are still apparent in how the Stoics view relations between rational
and emotional impulses. Rationality supersedes and masters “unhealthy”
emotional phenomena, as we have reviewed. This rationalizing domina-
tion of our subjectively emotional states has emerged as a necessary Stoic
requirement if we are to live in accordance with our nature.5
We can summarize from this that contrary to the introductory thoughts,
for the Stoics our nature is not an instinctively untamed emotionality to
which a rational state of control is subsequent. Stoic nature is rational.
There is nevertheless also a prominent aspect of being rationally Stoic that
requires a purposeful indifference toward, and transcendence of, emo-
tional impulses. The question that emerges from these dual directionalities
is to what extent Stoicism affirms aspects of the reason|emotion binarized
division? Does a Stoic lens deem an emotionally or passionately invested
individual or population to be acting externally to rationality?
We will explore the Stoic separation of controlled reason, from uncon-
trolled states of emotion/passion, through the Greek astronomer, politi-
cian, scientist, and Stoic philosopher, Posidonius of Rhodes (135 BCE–51
BCE). This builds on preliminary considerations on this topic made in
Chap. 2 regarding Posidonius’ impression of the daimon’s relation to
one’s reason. It is perhaps not a surprise that Posidonius would be inter-
ested in attending to emotion’s distinction from reason. This refers to how
Galen of Pergamon involves the correlation of reason with a scientific
order when characterizing Posidonius as “the most scientific of the Stoics
because of his mathematical training” (Galen in Posidonius 1999,
Fragment 32).6 We will engage much of the thought of Posidonius
through Galen in this chapter.
12 IS REASON EXTERNAL TO PASSION? POSIDONIUS, ANN GAME… 255
Chrysippus: Reason and Emotion Derive

from the Same Faculty
In contextualizing the position of Posidonius we can firstly compare it to

Epictetus’ view presented in Discourses. For Epictetus states of reason and
passion are not in total opposition. This characterization must be qualified
with the condition though that a hierarchy of control is still apparent
between reason and passion for Epictetus. Each of us in Epictetus’ inter-
pretation lives both reason and passion in a manner that is “in accordance
with our nature” if we use reason to “tend to our passions” (Epictetus
2008, 1.17, 4). Our commanding faculty of reason “regulates” passion for
Epictetus (1.1, 4). Where a “healthy” regulation of passion by reason
exists, both states can occur without conflict. Often though there is a “dis-
turbance” in how our reason governs emotional or passionate states. In
this sense, we become for Epictetus adversely affected by an emotion that
we cannot control and will act irrationally accordingly (1.15, 19).
It is not that passion originates from an irrational aspect or “faculty” of
the self. Epictetus’ position rather is that we behave irrationally when we
are not acting entirely in accordance with the overriding regulation of our
rational, natural faculty.7 If we are to revert to a rational mode of being the
faculty of reason alone must take responsibility for this, “since reason is
what analyses and coordinates everything” (1.17, 1). Epictetus’ perspec-
tive here is relevant given that as we will now see Galen advise, Posidonius
does not agree that this coheres with what is actually known about human
behavior. Rather than the exercise of reason singularly being the master of
an individual’s subjectivity, Posidonius holds that we gradually resolve
inner conflicts via the tandem action of rational and irrational faculties.
The foundation for Posidonius’ position is for Galen identifiable in
Posidonius’ rejection of Chrysippus’ theory of the pathê. In ordinary
Greek terminology pathê refers to the bodily conditions that we experi-
ence or even suffer. In its philosophical application, however, the term
takes on a different meaning, to become more closely aligned with states
that we would generally describe as emotional and/or desirous impulses.
These states could include anger, grief, elation, excitement, or agitation,
as well as the wanting of food, sex, or water.8 Chrysippus reportedly uses
the term pathê in a manner relatively consistent with this philosophical
relevance. This notably coheres with the equation of hormé by many other
Stoic philosophers and commentators with a grouping of “impulses”9 (as
we have seen in Chap. 4).
256 W. JOHNCOCK
These impulses for Chrysippus are functions of our reasoning or ratio-

nalizing capacity. Or in other words, reason is what Christopher Gill
describes as the “central or coordinating agency” for a range of aspects of
the self, including the “source of motivation (‘impulse,’ hormé)” (Gill
2010, 97). As Galen reports in On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, for
Chrysippus humans generally believe that we think from the same site
from which we feel. This informs:
…the view that our commanding-faculty is in the heart through their aware-
ness, as it were, of the passions that affect the mind happening to them in
the chest and especially in the region where the heart is placed. This is so
particularly in the case of distress, fear, anger and above all, excitement.
(Galen, SVF, 2.886, in L&S, 413)
It is because of this perspective that for Galen, Chrysippus posits a rational

but not an irrational faculty of the self and does not believe that the soul’s
passionate part is different from the rational (Galen in Posidonius 1999,
Fragment 166). Chrysippus’ position as Galen reports it is that through-
out your life there will simply be tussles occurring in your rational com-
manding faculty. These tussles are not attributable to you also having a
separately irrational aspect to the soul. In On Passions Chrysippus duly
argues that “passions … as ‘irrational’ and as ‘excessive impulses’” derive
from the same source as our rational tendencies (Galen, SVF, 3.462, in
L&S, 413).
Posidonius seems to have responded critically to the Chrysippean posi-
tion. It is indisputable that Posidonius interprets the relation between
emotion and reason differently to Chrysippus. We will review how in this
chapter. A certain caution is necessary though about subscribing entirely
to the assertion that Posidonius abandons Chrysippean conceptions of
subjectivity and psychology. This is because our source for this feature of
Posidonian theory is primarily Galen, and Galen generally broadcasts an
investment in criticizing Chrysippean positions in favor of those offered in
Platonic thought. Christopher Gill notes on this theme that when Galen
reviews the early Stoic psychological model he “accentuates” the “relative
independence of all three parts” of the Platonic tripartite psyche (Gill
2007b, 111–114). Galen’s Platonic allegiances are readily apparent in his
appraisal of the Chrysippean-Posidonian. He states, for example, in rela-
tion to a theory of “moulding a human being” (reportedly taken from
Galen’s On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines):
That is the way one ought to mould a human being from the start in relation
to what is best … all of which Plato has gone through with the utmost preci-
sion. Chrysippus, on the other hand, left no adequate account of his own,
and did not even leave his successors a starting point for investigation, as his
argument rested on an unsound foundation. (Galen in Posidonius, 1999,
Fragment 31)
And then specifically on the topic of emotions…
Chrysippus wrote four tomes [On Emotions] of such a length that each of
them is double one of mine; and yet it has taken me less even than two full
books to examine directly his view on emotions, even with the inclusion of
comments written by Posidonius on that same treatise. (Testimonia 63)
According to Galen, the presiding Stoic position on emotion of his era has
unfortunately become Chrysippus’. This contradicts the preceding
Platonic conception with which Galen is in greater agreement. Galen
laments on this topic that apart from Posidonius “all the other Stoics
somehow or another put up with following the errors of Chrysippus,
rather than choosing the truth” (Testimonia 59).
This Platonic “truth” contrasts with Chrysippus’ sourcing of reason
and emotion to a singular faculty. Plato’s argument is in Book IV of his
Republic. Here Plato asks whether the soul is constituted of many parts, in
that do “we learn with one part of us, feel angry with another, and desire
the pleasures of eating and sex and the like with another” (Plato 2012,
4.436a–b)? Plato complements this consideration with the opposite pos-
sibility that it is simply that “we employ the mind” for all such functions
(4.436b). Ultimately Plato becomes suspicious of the validity of this latter
Chrysippean-like interpretation. His doubt is due to the requirement that
one singular faculty would need to be able to act, feel, and think in oppo-
site or contradicting ways simultaneously. Instead for Plato, if a “contra-
diction” in simultaneous functions is found, then actually “we shall know
that we are dealing with more than one faculty” (4.436c).
Plato recognizes that these contradictions do exist. An example is when
you have the desire to act in a particular way but also think simultaneously
that such an act would be incorrect. The existence of contradictions con-
vinces Plato that there must be at least two parts to the soul. Plato eventu-
ally forwards not merely a dual but a “tripartite” psychology of the soul
comprising the components of reason/logic, spirit, and appetite. Within
258 W. JOHNCOCK
this structure Plato still proposes that reason has reign or “rule … having
the wisdom and foresight to act for the whole” (4.441e). Emotion is here
however not a function of reason but instead composed of and by the
other two aspects of the soul (spirit and appetite). While these aspects of
the soul are separate from reason, they do obey and support reason
(4.441e–442b).10 It is through this Platonic rather than Chrysippean
model that Posidonius views the structure of the psychology of emotions.
Posidonius: Reason and Emotion Derive

from Different Faculties
Of his own accord Galen endorses this breakdown of the “soul” into sepa-
rate parts, noting that “we have these three natural affinities related to
each form of the soul’s parts, to pleasure through the desiring faculty, to
victory through the passionate factor, and to the morally good through
the rational factor” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 160). Galen’s
narrative furthermore aligns this position with originary Stoic principles.
Posidonius claims in Galen’s recounting that Chrysippus is “in disagree-
ment not only with observed fact” by singularizing the source of reason
and emotion, but also contradicts the other earliest Stoic theses on this
matter forwarded by Zeno and Cleanthes (Galen in Posidonius 1999,
Fragment 166). Arthur Nock sums up how Posidonius’ defense of what
he believed to be the correct Stoic interpretation of the psychological
structure means for Galen that Posidonius is heroically “prepared to betray
the [current] Stoic school rather than the truth” (Nock 1959, 2). Galen
reports that a source of inspiration for Posidonius is the affirmation from
Cleanthes of the distinction of the sources of emotion and reason:
What is it. Passion, that you want? Tell me this.

I want. Reason? To do everything I want.
(Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s doctrines, 5.6.34–7, in L&S, 413).
Or as Kidd translates:
What do you want, Anger? Tell me that.

Me, Reason? To do anything I want.
(Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 166).
Galen advises that these seemingly meager offerings help shape

Posidonius’ twin assertions. For Posidonius not only does Cleanthes indi-
cate a belief in an “emotional element of the soul” (Fragment 166) but
more importantly Cleanthes “has made reason argue with anger.” This
illustrates for Posidonius that Cleanthes believes reason and passion are
“two different things” (Fragment 166).
I.G. Kidd posits in his translation of the Posidonian fragments how this
“led to a fundamental difference from Chrysippean Stoicism in the cause
of evil or morality” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 21; my emphasis). Because
Chrysippean psychology in Kidd’s words is “solely rational” (21), he notes
that it is “difficult to see where the corruption of reason had come from”
(21). Teun Tieleman elsewhere also describes this outlook of Chrysippus
and “the majority of Stoics” as of a soul that is “unitarian … one homog-
enously rational mind, located in the heart” (Tieleman 1996, xxiv). If all
that is internal to the soul is rational this means that for Chrysippus the
source of the corruption of this soul has to be external. As Kidd has indi-
cated though, how do we identify the source of this irrationality, particu-
larly if the external world is rational for the Stoics? Conversely Posidonius
can attribute the root of such irrationality to an already internal faculty
that does not rationally misjudge according to varying degrees of coher-
ence with a natural order.11
Chrysippus’ characterization of the passions as “some kind of judge-
ment” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34) is for Posidonius the
most important feature of the Chrysippean singularization of the source of
reason and passion. This aspect of the Chrysippean position particularly
concerns Posidonius. If for Chrysippus judgments are of and from the
same source as passions, what emerges according to Posidonius is the con-
tradictory ramification that brute creatures which the ancients do not
believe possess rationality must now also not be able to possess passion.
Bizarrely a theory of a singular faculty “deprives irrational animals of emo-
tions” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 33). Or put more simply, if
we determine that an animal is without reason, and passion and reason are
posited as having the same source, then the conclusion must be that such
a creature has neither reason nor passion. Posidonius believes we find here
a significant error in the Chrysippean outlook. It is clear contrarily for
Posidonius that “non-rational animals are governed by desire and anger”
(Fragment 33).
260 W. JOHNCOCK
Galen earlier asserted that the Posidonian position accords with early
Stoic beliefs besides those of Chrysippus. On this topic of judgments,
however, it is noteworthy that for the earliest of the Stoics, Zeno, the pas-
sions are the results of judgments (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment
34). This presents another early Stoic position which conflicts rather than
entirely accords with the view of Posidonius. Of relevance here is Galen’s
Posidonian impression that passions, if they are the results of judgments,
manifest as “irrational contractions, lowering abasements and pangs, the
rising elations and relaxed diffusions which come after the judgements
that are mental emotions” (Fragment 34). In conjuring the conceptual
division of body and mind, this portrayal equates what is emotional (irra-
tional) with the physical effects exhibited by an individual’s physiology.
These pulsating and inflamed responses are in such accounts separated
from the judgment-making reliabilities and regularities of the mind.
Within this context and consistent with his contestation to Chrysippus,
Posidonius will agree with Zeno that passions are not the same as judg-
ments. In contradistinction to Zeno, however, Posidonius posits that pas-
sions are not the results that “follow judgement” because “that is just
what is judgement” (Fragment 34). By instead distinguishing his position
from Zeno as emphatically as he has from Chrysippus, Galen informs us
that passions in Posidonian philosophy separately represent a “competitive
and appetitive faculty” of the self (Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s
Doctrines, 4.3.2–5, in L&S, 414).
Not all scholars view the differences between Posidonius and Chrysippus
as absolute.12 Richard Sorabji in fact raises a point of contention with the
characterization that the passions for Posidonius are entirely outside
sources of judgment. The conflict arises through Plutarch’s comment that
for Posidonius there are “mental afflictions” which are “based on … judg-
ing and apprehending” such as “appetites, fears, anger” (Galen in Sorabji
2000, 104). For Sorabji this means that while Posidonius “denied judge-
ment in some cases of emotion” he apparently “saw judgement as being
present in standard cases” of emotion (Sorabji 2000, 105). If this is cor-
rect Sorabji notes, then perhaps an alternative way we could interpret
emotions in the Posidonian view is that they are simply not absolutely iden-
tical with judgments (105). I believe it is possible to accommodate this
belief that judgments emerge in both reason and passion, while sustaining
the conventional reading that for Posidonius reason and passion have dis-
tinct sources. Furthermore, we can use considerations such as Sorabji’s to
open our own reflections regarding just how distinct reason and passion
actually are for Posidonius.
As Long and Sedley affirm in their translation, this distinction of the
sources of the faculties is of course how Galen places Posidonius firmly in
Plato’s camp “in full accordance with the ancient doctrine” (Galen, On
Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, 4.3.2–5, in L&S, 414). In observing
this Platonic inspiration for Posidonius though I encourage us to reflect
on the “competitive and appetitive” source of the passions for Posidonian
philosophy. This is a repeated point by Galen in that he records a directly
instrumental link posited by Posidonius in which the passions are “caused
by competition and appetite” (4.7.24–41, in L&S, 416). This seems like a
straightforward assertion given its consistency with the Platonic position
already encountered. Passions or emotions are in this understanding
equated with a desiring impulse. Posidonius in fact uses this very terminol-
ogy when describing how it is in the nature of passions to seek objects that
they “desire” (4.7.24–41, in L&S, 416).
In another sense, however, we see this conception of desire nuanced
with notions of its self-regulation. For Posidonius, once the appetitive
aspect to the passionate faculty has acquired what it desired it puts “a stop
to its own movement” (4.7.24–41, 416). Passion that derives from our
competitive and appetitive faculty seemingly learns or determines when it
has “had enough.” It is for this reason that the cessation of the passions is
for Posidonius “not beyond reason” (4.7.24–41, in L&S, 414). This is a
crucial insight for our appreciation of Posidonius’ possible receptivity to
commonalities between reason and passion.
Passion’s Self-Regulation and the Hierarchy

of Rationality
While being distinct from reason the irrational and passionate aspect of the
soul can nevertheless for Posidonius develop the capacity of avoiding an
overindulgence of impulse and irrational “excess” (Galen in Posidonius
1999, Fragment 165). This faculty, which is not of reason, is still in the
Posidonian perspective self-reflexive. Our irrational faculty is in this regard
rather ironically helped by irrational activity. This improvement is attribut-
able to the future benefits for the self that manifest through the self-
regulation of this faculty. It explains for Posidonius moreover how the
irrational faculties develop in an analogous manner to the rational faculty.
262 W. JOHNCOCK
The irrational faculties exhibit the relative developments of “knowledge

and ignorance” through which Posidonius identifies the source of the
“benefits we receive from the recognition of the cause of the emotions”
(Fragment 162).
Even though this recognizes a self-regulating capacity of the passionate
faculty, its irrational impulse can still produce degrees of excess. The
acknowledgment of these dual characteristics contributes according to
Galen to the distinction of the Posidonian perspective from the views of
many prominent Stoics. To clarify, Posidonius argues that overly passionate
or desirous behavior represents an inherently appetitive and competitive
aspect to the individual that is separate from the faculty of rational judg-
ment. This is distinct from Chrysippean impressions that conceive of our
appetitive and competitive tendencies as an overflow of faulty judgments
within the rational faculty. It is because of this distinction that Posidonius
in Galen’s eyes stands alone among Stoic thinkers of his time.13 Galen is
also adamant that there is a departure here from previous Stoic positions
on the passions given that Posidonius “believes that emotions were nei-
ther judgements nor what supervened on judgements, but were caused by
the spirited and desiring powers or faculties” (Fragment 34). In his On
Passions Posidonius is apparently explicit about the notion of passion’s
“excess.” This involves, as Galen cites, Posidonius challenging the
Chrysippean school on the matter by rhetorically asking:
…what is the cause of the excessive impulse. For reason, whatever else, could
not exceed its own business and measures. So it is obvious that there is some
other distinct irrational faculty as cause of the impulse’s exceeding the mea-
sures of reason. (Fragment 34; emphasis in original)
It is logically impossible that the faculty of reason exceeds itself. This

would take reason into the territory of unreason. Posidonius by default
therefore affirms the differentiated existence of an irrational faculty of the
self. The evidence of this is the actuality of our excessive or irrational
behaviors, even if they are self-regulating. As we have conversely seen for
Chrysippus, these passions are just some of the various manifestations of
our rational faculty. Irrational behaviors according to Chrysippus exhibit
an unregulated impulse of a singular source which has strayed from a path
that otherwise accords with our rational nature.14
Posidonius’ differentiation of the sources of reason and passion informs
what he sees as the most effective form of education for children. In order
that the emotional and irrational faculty avoids excess and obeys the com-
mand of reason,15 education must include “a preparation of the emotional
faculty of the soul so that it be most conformable to the rule of the rational
faculty” (Fragment 31). Kidd qualifies that in this education for Posidonius
the individual can be “trained” to conform to their rational faculty but
only if they are “sane” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 23). With sanity there-
fore comes an opposition between reason and passion. Posidonius believes
that children should receive instruction about this (Galen in
Posidonius 1999, Fragment 31) in order that the authority of reason over
an impulsive faculty becomes widely appreciated.
Despite this impression of a hierarchical division between reason and
passion I nonetheless remain curious about the self-regulating capacities of
passion. Could this be an insight into how the respective constitutions of
reason and passion are not as mutually exclusive as Posidonius posits via
Galen? We can appreciate that in his model, reason and passion have sepa-
rate faculties of origin. In terms of the ongoing activity of each though, is
there not something rational or self-reasoning about the regulatory func-
tion that he ascribes to passion? Does this suggest a certain common
ground between it and reason?
In considering this question of respective jurisdictions, we can incorpo-
rate a quite different conception of the relation between reason and pas-
sion from sociologists Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe. A sociological
perspective could be somewhat of an ironic direction to take given the
modern sociological trend to separate rather than to co-accommodate
notions of rationality and passion. Game and Metcalfe directly flag this
tendency in observing that “sociology never discusses passion” (Game and
Metcalfe 1996, 4). Game and Metcalfe might not mean that passion is
absolutely never apparent in sociological discourse. It is however the pro-
pensity of sociologists to marginalize themes of passion and to try to
negate their own passion in their writings that Game and Metcalfe intend
to query.
A Rationed Not an Impassioned Social Science

In Passionate Sociology16 a self-reflection builds that is not only oriented
toward the practices of sociology but also concerns the nature of theoriz-
ing across the social sciences generally. For Game and Metcalfe most mod-
ern social science and social theory gains its credibility according to how
adequately it situates its results within a neutralized realm of objectivity.17
264 W. JOHNCOCK
Despite this inclination being trans-disciplinary, it is in sociology that

they identify the most explicit examples of it. Game and Metcalfe in fact
define it as sociology’s default mode. Sociology in their view obsesses
with presenting and explaining externally coerced, collectively rational-
ized, statistical patterns behind subjective phenomena. If a sociologist is
to produce “acceptable” sociological output, the pressure is that such
work must cohere with this mode. Such participation requires a “ratio-
nal sociologist” who tempers or excludes any elements of their particu-
larly felt experiences that emerge during such work. The consequent
effect for Game and Metcalfe is a self-imposed rationalization and sys-
tematization of one’s involvements as a sociologist. This is in order that
the self and the work sync with an already disciplinary determined “voice
of Modernity, Reason, Progress, Objectivity or the Universal” (Game
and Metcalfe 1996, 66).
From this we can imagine a sociologist’s perspective is that any written
material which does not take a structurally rationalized form will have no
audience. If we return to a Stoic context, anything non-rationalized could
even appear to manifest from what Posidonian and Platonic terms refer to
as one’s “appetitive faculty.” The fear from the sociologist here is that if
this faculty is visible in sociological work it will jeopardize the perceived
objectivity and verifiability of the argument that carries it. The sociologist
anticipates that it is only by filtering the subjective signature of their expe-
rience through a controlling rationality that what is personal about their
perspective is authorized according to its revised impersonality.
If this trend is in fact occurring to the extent that Game and Metcalfe
identify, then what motivates it to be so pervasive in sociology is an open
question. I contribute that such a mentality could partly be a continuation
of the legacy of Émile Durkheim’s early mandate for sociology. Here I
refer to Durkheim’s belief that to invest the relatively fledgling discipline
of sociology with an institutional validity, the objects of its inquiries (e.g.
social facts) must be recognized as “objective.”18 It does not seem too
adventurous to assume that the practitioners of sociology would want to
perpetuate a focus on the objectivity of sociological work in relation to an
established scientific landscape. The same practitioners would also be keen
to legitimize their own work by doing so within a field of expected
objectivity.
It is indeed this complete focus on the “objectivity” of results that
reduces the social milieu in the eyes of most sociologists to what Game
and Metcalfe describe as “a world comprised of a few general patterns, or
even a single dynamic, of, say, rationalisation” (94). They further portray
this illumination of social patterning as the grand “sociological achieve-
ment” (94). This is because it allows sociology to measure otherwise
abstract concepts such as “capitalism, patriarchy, modernity, rationalisa-
tion and so on” (29). All such measurements contribute to a scientific
character that sociology and sociologists either desire or believe that they
should desire.
I use this word “desire” deliberately here. This is because a sociologist
in this guise probably embodies the associated belief, which is also a fear,
that they must not be ambivalent to the objective outcomes that are pos-
sible. Otherwise, their work and their entire field could be susceptible to
criticism for not maintaining the rigorous protocols of other established
sciences. The sociologist wants to be rational. They care deeply about
being rational. By desiring to produce work of the rationalist kind that
Game and Metcalfe identify (and lament), and therefore by wanting to be
rational themselves, the sociologist at once embodies and attempts to
quell an apprehension that pervades the discipline generally. This desiring
of rationalized output legitimizes the sociologist.
Despite its orientation toward rationalization, it is ironically this kind of
desire of the sociologist that Posidonius might distinguish from their fac-
ulty of reason. This concerns whether a sociologist’s ambition to position
their work on the same objective level perceived in other scientific fields or
sociologists originates from a subjectively “competitive or appetitive pas-
sion” (Galen, On Hippocrates’ and Plato’s Doctrines, 4.3.2–5, in L&S,
414). If that is the interpretation, then the modern sociologist’s work
could be compromised in terms of the Stoic sense of what constitutes
rational inquiry. This of course would potentially contradict the ambition
to have such inquiries invested with the purely “objective” qualities that
Game and Metcalfe identify in sociology’s outlook. An overly ambitious or
impassioned impulse to match the “objectivity” of others would for
Posidonius be irrationally misguided whether the sociological practitioner
was aware of such impulses or not. For Chrysippus this desire would be
what Kidd neatly calls “mistaken judgement” (Kidd in Posidonius 1999,
21). Conversely for Posidonius, it would manifest from a faculty separate
to rationality’s judgment. The irony therefore is that a zealous drive
toward portrayals of rationality would for the Stoic only eventuate in com-
pounding one’s underpinning irrationality.
We have already encountered other Stoic characterizations of the link
between irrationality and an investment in what is supposedly external to
266 W. JOHNCOCK
subjectivity. The slightly different reading of Posidonius’ position as pre-

sented by Kidd is that aspects of our irrationality manifest from an inter-
nally irrational source (20–22). On this theme in fact, when Galen endorses
the associated Platonic impression of the tripartite soul, he traces our
appetitive sources to the liver and other internal processes. Tieleman com-
prehensively discusses how this means that irrationality is an embodied
faculty for Posidonius (Tieleman 1996, xxx–xxxvi).
These internal conditions do not mean that such irrationality is without
links to worldly externals for Posidonius. Here I identify how Posidonius
might evaluate as irrational the sociologist who overly desires to match the
presumed objectivity of other sciences. Posidonius believes that different
disciplines have different conditions and outcomes. Seneca reports that the
Posidonian position on this matter is that in one regard, because “mathe-
matics provides a certain service” to a philosopher “it is necessary to phi-
losophy” (Seneca in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 90). For Posidonius
though, practitioners in each field must remember that just as food “helps
the body but it is not a bodily part,” equally mathematics contributes to
philosophy but is not “a part of philosophy” (Fragment 90). This projects a
belief in disciplinary specificity where “each has its own field” (Fragment 90).
From this I read that Posidonius would be suspicious about modern
sociology’s desire to emulate the neutralized and rationalist objectives
identified by Game and Metcalfe as taken from other fields. The sociolo-
gist’s imperative in this regard would be compromised by what Posidonius
perceives to be the essentially differentiated ends of the various disciplines.
Desiring rationality would discount rationality and indicate the alternative
activity of the appetitive faculty. While working in a sociological rather
than a Stoic context, Game and Metcalfe conversely argue that within any
desire for rationality and objectivity are indications that reason and passion
are not separately derived. As we will study now, their consequent analysis
intends to destabilize suppositions of a division between rational socio-
logical mandates and passionate personal investments (Game and Metcalfe
1996, 1).
Facilitating, Versus Guarding Against,

Passion’s Excess
Game and Metcalfe begin by arguing that passion constitutes something
more than strong emotion, love, or sexual desire. Their somewhat surpris-
ing position is rather that passion navigates toward a “veiled association
with death” (Game and Metcalfe 1996 3; my emphasis). Game and

Metcalfe portray passion in this possibly unexpectedly mortal manner to
highlight the reminders that passions offer us regarding the finitude of our
corporeal existence (2). The passionate encounter in their view is one in
which we not only care but also feel how we care. In such an encounter we
have a heightened engagement with another individual or ourselves or
something. This engagement requires that we push and even breach our
usual experiential boundaries. As we exceed such boundaries so the pre-
programmed safety of our daily existence disintegrates.
Perhaps you can think here of the increasingly rapid beating of your
heart that you might experience when feeling anxious. This could occur
before or when speaking to a large group of people. In caring about what
people think of your speaking you would for Game and Metcalfe be pas-
sionate about your reception. During such a state you would possibly also
experience a more intense awareness of how the people to whom you are
talking are behaving. It could be an audience member’s yawn or another’s
seemingly disinterested gaze out a window that further accelerates your
heartbeat. As the experience takes you beyond what you normally feel, for
Game and Metcalfe the passionate state becomes one in which you “look
more sharply, smell more deeply, touch more sensitively, hear more pro-
foundly” (3). Your passion, your care, duly breaches what you thought
were the tolerable extremes of your habitually controlled, rationalized
investments, in day-to-day life.
The overabundance of sensory and emotional stimuli experienced dur-
ing passionate experiences means for Game and Metcalfe that we often
cannot sense or remember everything about them that we might expect
we should. What eventuates is a consequent futility in attempting to con-
trol passion. We cannot rationalize passion or expect it to be self-regulating.
Passion in this form, Game and Metcalfe affirm, represents a negotiation
with “unreasonable, unmanageable and final things” (3).
In describing passion as a realm of “unreasonable extremes,” could it be
said that we are reminded of the argument from Posidonius of emotional
impulse taking an individual into “irrational” territory? Passion is unrea-
sonable and beyond rationalization in the account offered by Game and
Metcalfe. This presents passion as an excessive impulse of the kind that is
explicitly defined as “irrational” according to Posidonius’ philosophy. As
we have observed in Posidonius’ impression of passion it is the irrational
faculty of passion that is the “cause of the impulse’s exceeding the measures
of reason” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34). Seemingly Game
268 W. JOHNCOCK
and Metcalfe, and Posidonius, reach a point of theoretical coherence on

the irrational or unreasonable exceeding of reasonable limits by passion.
If there is a commonality between both theses on this theme, however,
it is largely conditional. This is because passion for Posidonius in its mode
of excess is something the Stoic individual should guard against constantly.
Posidonius goes as far as describing passion and the “emotional condition”
in general as “a form of mental illness” (Fragment 164). This is why we see
Kidd earlier note that the training of the rational faculty for Posidonius can
only work on a sane adult. For Game and Metcalfe conversely, we should
celebrate and explore the passionate state due to it being an inherent part
of social life and our implication in that life. In observing that “our culture
is not passionless” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 4) Game and Metcalfe out-
line why we cannot expect our culturally informed theories about the
social arena to exclude passion. The social or cultural arena itself does not
feature this kind of separation after all. The supposition that theory could
be objectively rational and devoid of passion is further discounted by
reflecting on the point that if emotions could indeed be banished, such a
process would already have occurred and “we wouldn’t constantly need to
reassure ourselves of our control over them” (4).
Game and Metcalfe’s assertion of the perpetual presence of emotional
conditions in both human existence and social/cultural production is
actually something with which general Stoic perspectives would agree.
The Stoic argument is never that life is emotionless (a matter that Donald
Robertson is quite passionate about making clear in “Stoics Are Not
Unemotional!” [Robertson 2014]). Life for the Stoics exhibits passion’s
tendencies, as does the human manifestation and representation of pas-
sion. Posidonius even confirms this by identifying the inherent presence
within our constitutions of the emotional faculty, whereby we each house
in-built “motions of distinct irrational powers” (Galen in Posidonius
1999, Fragment 152). That passionate “irrationality” will always lurk in
human directions and endeavors means that it will also potentially be pres-
ent in philosophical contexts for Posidonius.
The difference between Posidonius, and Game and Metcalfe, is that in
acknowledging the inevitability of passion’s impulses Posidonius urges
that we must continually work to arrest them in philosophical undertak-
ing. We earlier saw this in his motivation to attend to the irrationality that
he identifies in the work of Chrysippus. It is according to such intentions
that Posidonius broadcasts his admiration of Plato, Galen stating that
Posidonius “calls him divine, and respects his philosophy on the emotions
and mental faculties, and all he has written on preventing emotions rising
in the first place, and once they had occurred, their quickest means of
stopping” (Fragment 150a). I will leave it to the reader to decide whether
Posidonius’ enthusiastic reception of “Plato’s rationality” features the
impassioned components against which he warns (a reception that
Posidonius nonetheless describes as rationally and philosophically
constituted).
Conversely for Game and Metcalfe, we should facilitate and make more
prominent the presence of emotions in scholarship. The method of a “pas-
sionate sociology” that they propose is in this sense an ode to the porosity
between our subjectively invested impulses and the broader rationalized
framework in which we operate. Such an approach must be positioned as
counter to the “arresting” of the passionate impulse that Posidonius
requires and as contrary to more “traditional sociologies that present
knowledge as something dispassionate and disembodied, a product of the
mind rather than the heart, body or soul” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 4).
Our interpretation could hence be that “rationalist” sociologists attempt
to perpetuate the Posidonian interpretation of a divided reason and emo-
tion. For Game and Metcalfe conversely, we should not conceptually
divorce such faculties.
Passion is “unreasonable” as Game and Metcalfe have declared. This
does not imply that passion is “unknowing” however. I make this claim
given their noteworthy earlier reference to the impassioned soul as a
knower and a theorizer. In this regard, Game and Metcalfe’s contestation
to the perspective that reason and emotion are divorced is perhaps more
consistent with the interpretation that we have encountered from
Chrysippus. I refer here to his argument against the idea that the passion-
ate or “emotional aspect of the soul is distinct from the rational” (Galen
in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 33). Chrysippus appreciates passion and
reason as deriving from the same faculty of the self. This appears to cohere
with how for Game and Metcalfe we should not assume the existence of a
rationalized outlook from which passion is entirely absent.
While this raises somewhat of a consistency between Chrysippus and
Game and Metcalfe in terms of their mutual divergence from the
Posidonian position, we must approach such a comparison with caution.
For Game and Metcalfe reason should not simply dominate passion as per
the Chrysippean understanding that we have reviewed of a commanding
faculty. Instead, they argue that we benefit from the co-productive inter-
sections of passion and reason, particularly in scholarly endeavors. A
270 W. JOHNCOCK
commitment to a “passionate sociology” contests the dominance of socio-

logical theses which rationalize all personal investments according to suf-
focatingly pre-established and collectively impersonal conditions or causes.
We have already seen Game and Metcalfe critique the default attribution
of social phenomena to these dogmatic “patterns” that are separate from
the individual, and the associated reduction of all inquiry to a “single
dynamic, of say, rationalisation” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 94).
The Passion in Reason?

Game and Metcalfe encourage contrarily that we scratch the surface of
overly rationalist sociologies. Then we will find a co-implicated relation
between the rational abstraction of social phenomena, and an inquirer’s
investments in this abstracting process and associated results. This is not a
relation in which rationalization excludes or negates the care and passion
implicit to those investments. Game and Metcalfe bring this nuance to our
attention by recognizing that they “can feel quite passionate about abstrac-
tions, and take a great pleasure in them” just as they “imagine some math-
ematicians do” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 167). As I have hinted earlier,
would it likewise be too adventurous to claim that Posidonius is passion-
ately invested in the rationalities exhibited by Platonic philosophy? Based
on what we have encountered in other chapters I can imagine that a Stoic
response could be that if there is passion about a Platonic position, what
appears to be passion is in fact reason. This would be the result if the pas-
sion possessed philosophical inclinations that were in accordance with
one’s nature. This again reminds us that the Stoic perspective appraised in
this chapter is not of the impossibility of emotion. The question instead is
whether emotion’s source is separate from that of reason.
We have reviewed the difference between the outlooks of Chrysippus
and of Game and Metcalfe. The latter’s sense nevertheless of the implica-
tion of subjective investments with seemingly non-subjective and
abstracted phenomena might still evoke for some readers aspects of
Chrysippus’ position concerning the colocation of the heart and the com-
manding faculty (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragments 33, 166). Game
and Metcalfe do not though reduce reason and passion to the same faculty
in the Chrysippean regard. What they instead contest is the notion that
abstracted knowledge is devoid of passion and is something in which a
worthy scholar should “take refuge” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 168).
Their converse point is that abstracted, rational knowledge arises from

passionate experiences and encounters with data, theories, and selves.
Passionate undertakings manifest in rationalized forms that are neverthe-
less sometimes comprised by joyous or torturous labor. We should discuss
rationalized judgments accordingly in terms of their passionate compo-
nents. This imperative evokes the earlier notion of our potential awareness
of breaching our experiential and sensory limits. The writing of sociology
for Game and Metcalfe requires “an acknowledgement of the complex,
and sometimes painful, emotions involved” (32). What eventuates is a
destabilization of the distinction between how one lives rationally, versus
passionately, in which neither mode is ever outside the other.
These felt experiences when undertaking scholarly labor are justifica-
tions for Game and Metcalfe that we should embrace passionate states of
being rather than seek a rationalized sanctuary from them. Posidonius
conversely posits that our developing awareness about how we feel during
any experience is an insight into the capacity the emotional faculty has for
its self-regulation. In arguing that emotions or passions about an experi-
ence gradually become less intense, Posidonius believes that he can iden-
tify the “cause of why emotions through time become calmer and weaker”
(Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 166). This cause concerns the
developmental capacity of the impassioned appetitive or spirited faculty.
Passion for Posidonius becomes “satiated with its proper desires” and as a
result it “grows weary through its lengthy movements” (Fragment 166).
Rather than rationality needing to intervene into the irrational faculty of
passion, passion itself “calms down.” This self-tempering allows the sepa-
rate, Platonically reigning, rational faculty to “now gain control”
(Fragment 166).19
While Stoic philosophy is not their working context, it is this kind
of dominance of the rationalizing tendency that hampers much work in
sociology for Game and Metcalfe. This orientation indeed typically
neglects in their estimation the passionate conditions within rationalist
perspectives. This is not to forget those passions that are also present in
the inaugurating desire for rationality. Game and Metcalfe expand on this
point in considering that not only is work always written with a certain
investment and passion but also that readers receive it in a similarly invested
or passionate state. Such an insight is illustrated via their discussion with
Roland Barthes’ call that when reading with pleasure, the emotional fea-
tures of the work manifest because complementarily “they were written in
pleasure” (Barthes in Game and Metcalfe 1996, 26).20 This investment
272 W. JOHNCOCK
indicates for Game and Metcalfe that social or sociological theory likewise
cannot position itself as the provider of a neutral, intellectual mastery.
Such theorizing instead always “carries with it something of that which is
being written about” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 94). The implication
here is not that theory “carries” a subjectively emotional misrepresentation
of sociality that the author unavoidably brings with them, potentially
steering readers away from the objective truth of the matter being engaged.
The carrying rather is of an emotional order that is always (objectively)
underpinning expression and reception.
This notion of an emotional order deserves a brief clarification. Game
and Metcalfe recognize how entrenched civilizing, rationalizing, ordering
processes are in sociological perspectives (and indeed in most philosophi-
cally inquisitive work). They furthermore concede that this protocol will
not entirely change and that “sociology will always be ordered” (25). By
admitting its own pleasures, investments, and vulnerabilities however, they
propose that sociology can also “be ordered differently” (25). The socio-
logically theoretical order, and emotional or passionate orderings, are not
mutually exclusive, nor is either a path to “accessing” the other. What
instead is the case according to my reading is that reason and passion are
internal to each other’s “order” without being entirely reducible to or
“ordered by” each other.
With this impossibility of a total reduction or dominating negation of
passion by reason I therefore argue that in Stoic terms we arrive at the
excess of the irrational. This is what Posidonius has described as that which
exceeds the limits of reason (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 34).
The suggestion of an emotional or passionate “order,” particularly which
functions in “excessive” states, could present as potentially fraught to con-
ventional perspectives. We might interpret that if as Game and Metcalfe
and Posidonius indicate, the passion-impulse is that which exceeds its
accountable or reasonable limits, then contrarily its order is a disorder. A
correlation of emotion/passion with disorder would appear to cohere
with Game and Metcalfe’s recognition that in such a state an individual
cannot control or “capture enough” (Game and Metcalfe 1996, 3). Where
control is not abundant, we might not expect order.
What the preceding discussion asserts however is that order is never
reducible to a rationalized resolution of disordered passion. Reason’s
rationalizing order is always already invested in and passionate about
ordering or rationalizing processes and ordered or rationalized results.
The Posidonian perspective on what is “captured” by this impassioned
impulse would likely diverge from Game and Metcalfe’s. Posidonius could
agree with them that passion lacks the capacity to appreciate or “capture”
phenomena entirely and rationally. What however Posidonius would
seemingly also wish to emphasize is that passion, the irrational faculty,
does actually “capture” something quite comprehensively.
That which passion captures in my reading of the Posidonian position
would be the irrationally inclined individual. In Stoic terms, passion cap-
tures (as in, “takes prisoner”) subjectivity. For Posidonius as for other
Stoic thinkers that we have engaged the irrational impulse manifests in a
way that we become self-captured. This prevents our access to a life lived
in accordance with nature. Conversely for Game and Metcalfe we are cap-
tured, or held hostage away from our nature/self, when trying to over-
whelm passion with reason.
Despite this divergence, by concurrently reviewing these two perspec-
tives we can appreciate the longevity of the human investment in the ques-
tion of whether the source of reason is external to that of passion. Given
what being “invested” in anything involves, this question seemingly also
continues to ask of itself; is this inquiry an exercise of reason, of passion,
or of both? That humans continue to care about this question is perhaps
itself the answer to this question.
Notes
1. James Davis’ In Defense of Civility exemplifies the argument that there is a
modern perpetuation of “certain dualisms inherited from Greco-Roman
culture” (Davis 2010, 133). One such dualism is the nature-culture divide
that opposes a culture of “civility” from an otherwise natural human con-
dition. This is consistent with the interpretation offered in Sigmund
Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents in which civilizing processes break
from an unordered natural origin. Civilization for Freud protects humans
accordingly from what is dangerous about nature, whereby civilizing
“activities and resources are useful to men for making the earth serviceable
to them, [and] for protecting them against the violence of the forces of
nature” (Freud 1989 [1930], 42).
2. Michel Foucault (1977 (1975)) offers one of the more historically promi-
nent discussions of this modern transition in how a state punishes its citi-
zens. Punishment’s pre-modern forms involve highly visible public
spectacles that declare a state’s power via the destruction of the perpetra-
tor’s body. Modern punishment shifts to a more controlled and concealed
regulation that works through offenders’ bodies in a productive manner.
274 W. JOHNCOCK
3. For Jeremy Blumenthal the “appropriateness of various emotions for the

substantive law” (Blumenthal 2005, 1) is a continually negotiated ques-
tion. The supposition of a distinction between the rational objectivity of
law and the subjectivity of emotion also emerges in Hans Kelsen’s legal
theory. The belief emerges that contrary to law, something like “political
ideology has its root in volition, not in cognition; in the emotional, not in
the rational … it arises … from interests other than the interest in truth”
(Kelsen 1945, xvi). Not all scholars share the opinion that law is rationally
objective, polarized from the emotional and ideological drivers of other
aspects of society. Katherine O’Donovan commentates on feminist theo-
ry’s critique of the failure of law to provide objective “equality,” serving to
“demystify law and to show its rule as a legitimating ideology” (O’Donovan
1989, 127).
4. Marcus Aurelius regularly argues that along with the nature of all other
humans his “nature is both rational and social” (Marcus Aurelius 1964,
6.44, 2). To complement this translation from Maxwell Staniforth, see also
Gregory Hays’ translation of this phrase as where our nature is “rational
and civic” (Marcus Aurelius 2002, 6.44).
5. For a proof of this, see Epictetus’ Discourses. Epictetus posits that a libera-
tion from one’s emotions is a liberation from the external things in the
world with which such emotions are associated and that might master us.
By instead demanding our indifference toward such emotions, he pro-
claims that if “I liberate myself from my master—which is to say, from the
emotions that make my master frightening—what troubles can I have? No
man is my master any longer” (Epictetus 2008, 1.29, 63).
6. Posidonius completed his education in Athens under the Stoic philosopher
Panaetius, whose influence reportedly attracted Posidonius to Rhodes. In
the Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers Ian Durham informs us
that as Posidonius developed his scientific interests from such education he
became “responsible for an early measurement of the circumference of the
Earth” (Durham 2007, 927).
7. Norman Pratt agrees this is the typical reading of Epictetus’ argument that
rational and emotional states in the healthily directed individual arise from
a singular faculty. Pratt states that for Epictetus emotional disturbance
occurs when the rational individual is unable to “fend off irrational exter-
nal influences” (Pratt 1983, 59). The consequent “irrational behavior” is
internally motivated though and is “not to be attributed to a non-rational
component of the soul” (59).
8. For a more comprehensive breakdown of this definition of pathê, see John
Cooper’s chapter “Posidonius on Emotions” (1998, 71–72).
9. Cicero provides an example of this definition in The Nature of the Gods
when he writes that for the Stoic Balbus, just “as other natural substances
are each generated, made to grow and sustained by their own seeds, so the
nature of the world has all the movements of volition, impulses and desires
which the Greeks call hormai, and exhibits the actions in agreement with
these in the way that we ourselves do who are moved by emotions and
sensations” (Cicero 1997, 2.58).
10. Plato similarly proposes in Timaeus that the “appetitive” part of the soul
does not fully understand reason but instead is attracted to “images and
phantasms” (Plato 2008a, 71a). The appetitive faculty is accordingly where
an idea is transported via one’s reason/intellect. This makes the appetitive
faculty an image of reason that can “act as a mirror for thoughts stemming
from intellect, just as a mirror receives impressions and gives back images
to look at” (71b).
11. Situating this source of evil or corruption internally does not in Kidd’s
commentary (Kidd in Posidonius 1999, 687) mean for Posidonius that we
have an evil daimon in the irrational part of our soul. Gretchen Reydams-
Schils notes that such a thesis would “turn Posidonius into more of a dual-
ist” (Reydams-Schils 1997, 474). For a discussion on the daimon’s role as
our rational guide see Chap. 2’s discussion with Epictetus.
12. John Cooper (1998) and Christopher Gill (1998) express concerns regard-
ing the value orientations of Galen’s commentary on Posidonius. The
intricacies of each argument go beyond the requirements of our concerns
here. It is nevertheless worth recognizing that in Gill’s estimation there
might be greater similarities between Platonic psychology and Stoic think-
ing, “both Chrysippean and Posidonian, than Galen allows” (Gill 1998,
1). Similarly for Cooper, in one regard it is “clear that Posidonius did
indeed disagree openly, seriously, and explicitly, with Chrysippus” on the
status of emotions in relation to reason. It is also evident that Posidonius
“cited and praised Plato precisely for having recognized that human nature
encompasses two other psychic powers besides that of reasoning and deci-
sion” (Cooper 1998, 71). In another regard however, Cooper is suspicious
about the extreme position that Galen affords to Posidonius and explores
whether it is “right to say simply that Posidonius abandoned the standard
Stoic view (Chrysippus’) about the psychic source and nature of the emo-
tions” (71–72). Gill also explores in “Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies
or Blood Brothers” (Gill 2007b) whether there are contradictions in
accounts of an ideological opposition between Galen and Chrysippean
Stoicism. Consistent with this concern, Gill elsewhere describes the “shift
back to Plato … in later Hellenistic thinkers such as … Posidonius … as a
change in the explicitness with which the relationship between Platonic
and Stoic thought is discussed [rather] than as a move towards an eclectic
combination of the two approaches” (Gill 2007a, 192).
276 W. JOHNCOCK
13. Galen states strongly: “I can find no answer to Posidonius on these points,
nor do I think anyone else will be able to either, to judge from the evidence
of the facts and from contemporary Stoics. My generation has not lacked
Stoics either in number or distinction, but I have heard no convincing
statement from any one of them to answer these difficulties put forward by
Posidonius” (Galen in Posidonius 1999, Fragment 164).
14. In Stobaeus’ Anthology an early Stoic voice is described as stating that
“‘irrational’ means the same as ‘disobedient to reason’” (Stobaeus, 10a,
Text 102, in I&G, 138). Various scholars, including Malcolm Schofield
(Schofield 2003, 236–238), attribute this voice to Chrysippus.
15. Posidonius’ reading of the hierarchized relation between the rational and
irrational faculties is consistent with the Platonic conception of the rule of
reason. This is a relation found in Plato’s Republic that we earlier discussed
(Plato 2012, 4.441e).
16. The only Australian-authored book to ever receive a nomination for the
European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences.
17. For the reader who has worked through the chapters of this book sequen-
tially, Game and Metcalfe’s concern here will evoke our earlier engagement
with Max Weber. In The Vocation Lectures (2004) Weber critiques the
increasingly rationalist foci of the sciences of his era.
18. Durkheim’s consistent characterization of social facts is that they are exter-
nal to each human and “independent of individual will” (Durkheim 1938
(1895), 2). Because an individual’s behaviors are driven by this externally
collective regularity and not by subjective contingencies, the social sciences
can study such behaviors as objective phenomena. This direction mirrors
for Durkheim the objectivity of the “natural sciences” (xxxix).
19. A basis for this position possibly presents in The Symposium where Plato
details how the “happy being, the god” that is “Love possesses self-control
in very large measure. For all agree that self-control means overcoming
pleasures and desires” (Plato 2008b, 196c).
20. As found in Barthes’ The Responsibility of Forms (1985).
References
Barthes, Roland. 1985. The Responsibility of Forms. Translated by Richard Howard.
New York: Hill & Wang.
Blumenthal, Jeremy. 2005. Law and the Emotions. Indiana Law Journal 80
(20): 159–238.
Cooper, John. 1998. Posidonius on Emotions. In The Emotions in Hellenistic

Philosophy, ed. Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 71–112. Dordrecht:
Springer Science+Business Media.
Davis, James. 2010. In Defense of Civility: How Religion Can Unite America on
Seven Moral Issues. Louisville and Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press.
Durham, Ian. 2007. Posidonius. In Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers,
ed. Thomas Hockey, 927–928. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Free Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977 (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House.
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lated by James Strachey. London and New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc.
Game, Ann, and Andrew Metcalfe. 1996. Passionate Sociology. London; Thousand
Oaks; New Delhi: Sage Publications.
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Emotions? In The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Juha Sihvola and
Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 113–148. Dordrecht: Springer
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———. 2007a. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: How Stoic and How Platonic? In
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52 (1): 88–120.
———. 2010. Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism. Oxford and
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Publishing Company.
CHAPTER 13
Who Benefits from the Management

of Feelings? Epictetus and Arlie Hochschild
on Emotional Labor
Indifference to Externals
The prospect of being able to manage the feelings we experience is appeal-
ing. Modern self-help industries seemingly survive on the allure of such
self-management. With the possibility of emotion management comes the
interpretation that daily life would be easier if we could control our emo-
tional hardships. A discussion on the potential regulation of our feelings
consequently presents as having considerable practical relevance.
Considerations in this chapter of the maintenance of our feelings, par-
ticularly adverse feelings, will build on earlier insights from Epictetus. This
especially refers to our preceding studies featuring Epictetus in which he
reduces issues related to the mind to parameters of control. An individu-
al’s mental experience of the world should only in this sense be concerned
with what is within their power (Epictetus 2004, 1). If we can appreciate
that a faculty that is internal to our control governs what we think and
decide, so Epictetus posits that our life will develop a more virtuous
direction.1
We have considered in earlier chapters (particularly Chap. 4) how such
virtuousness involves the Stoic end of happiness.2 On this topic, we will
recall that happiness is not a state of “feeling good” that we target. Stoic
happiness instead more grandly refers to living virtuously every day in
accordance with our internal rational nature. Stoic happiness therefore is
not an emotion exactly but rather is part of a rationalized way of living that
involves the regulation of emotion. From this kind of perspective the

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_13
280 W. JOHNCOCK
practical benefits of Stoic philosophy in Epictetus’ estimation are evident

(Epictetus 2008, 2.16, 1–47). In categorizing this practical focus, Malcolm
Schofield defines that the Stoics “wrote a great deal in ‘therapeutic mode’”
(Schofield 2003, 253). I note that Epictetus exemplifies this emphatically
when in Discourses he describes the philosopher’s lecture room as akin to
a hospital (Epictetus 2008, 3.24, 30).
It is in regard to this therapeutic element of Stoicism that in this chap-
ter we will undertake a different kind of inquiry concerning the theme of
control for Epictetus to that which we undertook in Chap. 2. In this chap-
ter we will instead direct our attention beyond the strict realm of the mind
and its thoughts, to the associated domain of our feelings about these
thoughts. The conventional interpretation (Long 2006, 106; Sellars 2006,
17; Seddon 2005, 10–11) is that for Epictetus if we are to live according
to a state of happiness it is necessary “to be indifferent to events beyond
the will’s control” (Epictetus 2008, 1.29, 24). He concludes this in
response to the damaging relationships that he observes in which we so
value things or events in the world that they come to significantly define
our sense of self. This is especially damaging given that such things or
events are regularly outside our control. The more that what is outside our
control affects us for Epictetus, the more out of control we are actually
likely to feel (2.13, 1).
In the Enchiridion Epictetus specifies exactly what is in our control
versus what is not. As we have reviewed, what is in our control includes
our judgments, values, and mental processes. Conversely, the physical and
social worlds contain objects and experiences that occur materially and
discursively beyond our power (Epictetus 2004, 1). Epictetus interrogates
complementarily in Discourses how money, important job positions, and
the opinions of friends and associates are improperly valued. When we
valorize the external and come to “love, hate or fear such things” (Epictetus
2008, 4.1, 60), not only do the objects themselves constitute “our mas-
ters” but also “the people who administer them are bound to become our
masters” (4.1, 60). By not being indifferent to what is beyond our con-
trol, those who have jurisdiction over such externalities inevitably hold a
power over our emotional welfare.
It is this repercussion of the management of the feelings related to the
aspects of life that we value which is the focus of this chapter. Via this pivot
toward emotion we can distinguish this chapter’s theme from the mind-
centric considerations of our previous engagement with Epictetus. The
question on this occasion does not ask if our mind or subjectivity is in our
13 WHO BENEFITS FROM THE MANAGEMENT OF FEELINGS? EPICTETUS… 281
control. We will instead be concerned with who controls, and benefits

from controlling, the associated feelings or emotions.
Emotional phenomena often manifest through interpersonal settings.
Epictetus has already brought this to our attention in this chapter in not-
ing that if someone circumstantially controls how you feel they become
your master. For the Stoic, the concern is how the other person often
controls your emotional state and therefore your underpinning satisfaction
with life. In appreciating these interpersonal conditions, a complementary
question emerges which asks whether it is the individual themselves or
other parties who benefit from the control of one’s emotions. We might
typically think it is mainly the individual experiencing the emotional state
who will directly benefit from the management of it. In this discussion,
however, we will maintain a receptivity to the interactive elements of emo-
tion management that involve subjective and collective “stakeholders.”
Emotional reactions to external conditions and actors represent a situ-
ational mastery the world can dangerously have over us. Epictetus rejects
however the assumption that such emotional reactions are imposed on us
by these circumstances. Circumstances instead merely provide the condi-
tions to which our own internalized judgments and consequent feelings
react. These reactions occur for Epictetus according to what we value or
think is right or just and so on (1.2, 5–11). Protecting ourselves from this
“circumstantial master” therefore requires not an outward but an inward
perspective. We do not move toward a satisfactory emotional state for
Epictetus through an attention on the environmental situation that might
adversely affect us. The incorrect mentality is one which continues “grip-
ing and protesting against circumstance” that displeases us (1.12, 17).
What is instead important to Epictetus’ Stoic sense of subjectivity is how
we manage our inevitable and internal emotional reactions to adverse
circumstances.
Training or Working on Being Indifferent

Epictetus uses the extreme demand to be indifferent to death and pain to
illustrate this point. This might remind us of Seneca’s argument in Chap.
6. What hurts us in Epictetus’ view is not death nor pain itself but the
anticipation or fear of such experiences, declaring that “death and pain are
not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear” (Epictetus
2008, 2.1, 13).3 A personal destabilization of the taken-for-granted status
of experiences such as dying and death is why Donald Robertson describes
282 W. JOHNCOCK
Epictetus’ assertions as relating to “value judgements, that express our

own attitudes rather than objective features about the external world”
(Robertson 2010, 12). For Epictetus our emotional welfare is dependent
upon diverting our attention away from what we conceive to be the exter-
nal causes of its fluctuations, to instead attending to the inner conditions
of our emotional states.
Liberation from fear thus does not require directing strategies toward
the situations or the people that have generated a fear-inducing mastery of
us. The point is that we require the capacity to be indifferent to “the emo-
tions that make my master frightening” (Epictetus 2008, 1.29, 63). It is
this shift where one has “transferred their attention from things outside
control of the will to things within” (3.5, 4) that is the hallmark of
Epictetus’ mandate regarding self-control and emotion management. This
transfer does not come easily according to Epictetus. Our subjectivity is
always a work in progress in which we work on and “train” ourselves to
manage our feelings (3.4, 26). This management occurs by attending to
the feelings about the circumstances directly rather than by distracting
ourselves with the circumstances from which the feelings seemingly arose.
“Renouncing” circumstantial externals and instead working on control-
ling our emotional character by “cultivating and perfecting it so that it
agrees with nature” (1.4, 18) is accordingly central to goodness and virtu-
ousness. Epictetus’ Roman Stoic focus on self-control here mirrors an
early Greek Stoic principle from Cleanthes. Clement states in his
Protrepticus that when asked “what the good is like” Cleanthes responds
that it is to be “well-ordered, just, holy, pious, self-controlled, useful, hon-
ourable” (Clement, SVF, 1.557, in L&S, 373; my emphasis). The well-
ordered, self-controlled, civilized individual is for Cleanthes the epitome
of the Stoic individual. Likewise for Epictetus the virtuous individual who
trains themselves to be able to manage their feelings is a happier individual
(remembering the specific definition the Stoics have of happiness in terms
of virtue and rationality).
This “training” of our emotional states is a regular theme in Discourses.
An attention on this term—“training”—will be pivotal to developing a
dialogue between Epictetus’ philosophy and modern social theory on
emotion management. To consider what we are training toward or work-
ing on about ourselves we must firstly discuss the relation of such training
to Stoic “virtue.”
Epictetus frames this consideration by straightforwardly asking “what is
the work of virtue?” In his view the work of virtue refers to its own
manifestation, or what William Oldfather refers to as “the result at which

virtue aims” (Oldfather in Epictetus 1961, 29). While this does not explain
much, we learn more from Epictetus’ estimation that the result at which
virtue aims is “serenity” (Epictetus 1961, 1.4, 6). Robin Hard’s recent
translation equally interprets that for Epictetus what “virtue achieves for
us” is “serenity” (Epictetus 2014, 1.4, 5). The notion of serenity might
again remind us of Seneca, particularly his reflections on internal tranquil-
ity when recovering in Nomentum. By considering which individuals in
society are “making progress” (Epictetus 1961, 1.4, 6) in directing their
lives toward serenity, Epictetus excludes people whose “work” is dictated
by external phenomena. Such individuals are for Epictetus not virtuously
living their emotional states, given the perpetual state of “fear and grief”
(1.4, 12) in which any of us exist if we allow externals to steer us. This
affirms his earlier position regarding the circumstantial mastery the world
can have over us. The focus now though is on the susceptibility of the
“untrained” individual to externally coercive forces.
Each of us has an internal control over this susceptibility. We can work
on ourselves to develop the habit of “withdrawing from external things”
(1.4, 17–18). Attending to the “art” of withdrawing is hence a form of
“training” for the Stoically inclined individual. This training is somewhat
of an individual intervention in that while it is in accordance with our
nature to resist external mastery of our emotions, no individual will always
live Stoically without such labor. In the “Introduction” to his translation
of Discourses Oldfather reflects on this duality. There Oldfather describes
“the elaborate preparations that one must make to withstand” the evil that
Epictetus both denies in a rational universe and yet also believes does exist
in it, to the extent that we are required to continually train against it
(Oldfather in Epictetus 1961, xxv). The Stoic nature is one of rational
indifference. For Epictetus nevertheless we must work hard to be ratio-
nally indifferent. This self-training never ends. As Charles Brittain and Tad
Brennan note, even despite this training for Epictetus we remain perpetu-
ally vice-oriented, where students will be “equally vicious throughout
their training. Even in the ideal case” (Brittain and Brennan in Simplicius
2014, 23).
Through the training of and working on the self, an ongoing benefit is
experienced. Our indifference to external phenomena reflects a self-
appreciation, not a self-restriction. In considering this production of the
self though I cannot help but wonder who else might benefit from such
self-development. As noted in this chapter’s opening thoughts our
284 W. JOHNCOCK
emotional states are regularly interpersonally conditioned. A less agitated

and more controlled individual is often a more pleasant and socially con-
ducive individual for others to be around. As made apparent throughout
this book moreover, the Stoics are prominently concerned with the com-
munal well-being that can be engendered by individual lives that are exe-
cuted in accordance with nature. Here I therefore wish to ask which actors
and structural phenomena beyond the exclusive realm of the individual
might prosper as a result of the instilled instruction that individuals should
control or manage their emotions. Asking such a question allows us to
target any socially embedded motivations within imperatives regarding
emotion management.
Emotional Labor: Training Appropriate Presentations

We can explore this question via one of modern social theory’s most influ-
ential studies on emotion. In The Managed Heart American sociologist
Arlie Hochschild (1940–) considers the individual’s management of feel-
ings in a socially commercial context. A primary question that drives
Hochschild’s study asks “what happens when the managing of emotion
comes to be sold as labor?” (Hochschild 1983, 19). This question does
not merely explore the various types of emotional interactions which occur
between individuals in capitalist markets of exchange. The greater rele-
vance for our work is its interest in how an individual invests labor into
managing their emotions during such experiences.4
When studying workers in service and caregiving industries Hochschild
attends to a kind of labor that she interprets is apparent in all such roles.
This labor, “emotional labor,” concerns how such employees present
themselves via “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable
facial and bodily display” (7).5 The roles primarily capturing Hochschild’s
research attention are those that incorporate a large degree of customer
interaction. One example that Hochschild integrates is the flight indus-
try’s requirement for its onboard attendants to present an outwardly
cheerful disposition. Hochschild reports that this disposition is necessary
even when customers treat staff improperly or outright abuse them. Her
study duly reveals the quantity (in terms of time) and the quality (in terms
of perceived effort) of labor that goes into the presentation of unbothered
or pleasant dispositions. From this Hochschild reports that for the average
(often female6) “flight attendant the smiles are a part of their work, a part
that requires them to coordinate self and feeling so that the work seems to
be effortless” (8).
The scope of this study attends to consistent dispositions offered by

employees of the same company. It also compares how those same disposi-
tions manifest in employees of different companies across entire indus-
tries. From this dual analysis, Hochschild reports how an industry’s
businesses standardize the training of service role workers in the “art” of
emotion management (20–21). This method reveals that a central empha-
sis in such training is that an employee should not focus on the interper-
sonal cause of any anger or frustration that they feel from their interactions
with customers. An employee should rather concern themselves with their
internal responses to these external causes. The training’s ethos is to help
an employee work on what is in their own or their employer’s control. The
imperative for companies is that service role workers embody such control
in a way that their reactions are consistently pleasant and never make the
customer feel in the wrong. Hochschild targets this feature of the training
regarding how during most preparation sessions “the instructor did not
focus on what might have caused the workers’ anger” (25).
We might recognize Epictetus’ call here to avoid focusing on adverse
circumstances and instead to take control of our internal experience of and
emotional responses to such circumstances. Epictetus gives the instruction
that you should “talk to yourself, train your thoughts” (Epictetus 2008,
4.4, 26), so that you do not try to control what is external and uncontrol-
lable. The training for modern service industry roles that Hochschild
researches uses exactly this kind of terminology in approaches to emotion
management. Flight attendant training reveals this vividly. Employees
learn how “to deal with an angry passenger” by employing tactics such as
“deep breathing, talking to yourself, and reminding yourself that you
don’t have to go home with the passenger” (Hochschild 1983, 25). For
both Epictetus and the modern aviation industry, conversations with one-
self are integral to emotional indifference.
Over time this indifference should become individually automated in
either the Stoic or the service industry contexts. A possible difference
emerges between the two positions in terms of this theme of automatiza-
tion. For Epictetus the individual must not merely perform indifference
outwardly in a way that appears to be devoid of adverse emotion. The
Stoic subjectivity rather should feel devoid of the emotional state (Epictetus
2008, 4.4, 26). The individual’s training needs to have conditioned the
self to be genuinely indifferent to the apparent causes of any such state.
This accords with the logic we have reviewed that for the Stoically trained
subject there is an awareness that such externalities are not actually the
286 W. JOHNCOCK
causes of one’s discontent. The Stoic knows that the true causes of our
emotions are instead our internally engineered responses. We might be
upset by a certain external action, for example, because we already hold
the belief that such an action indicates disrespect. A new sense of control
comes with the realization that we can work on our internal orientations
to develop a genuine and automatic emotional indifference to what we
experience as externally generated disrespect.
Hochschild’s thesis shows that employers direct employees to maintain
an emotionally pleasant presentation to facilitate ongoing customer rela-
tions. A performance rather than a genuine resilience to adverse circum-
stances therefore drives the associated emotional indifference. Despite this
seemingly performative element in Hochschild’s inquiry though, there is
a form of emotional labor within it that shares intersections with the auto-
mated features of Epictetus’ Stoicism. Exploring these similarities will fur-
ther develop our appreciation of who benefits from emotion management
beyond the individual directly concerned.
Emotional Labor: From Performance to Naturally

Felt Indifference
The pivotal factor here concerns the difference between what Hochschild
describes as “surface acting” and “deep acting.” Surface acting is some-
what of an out of body experience. When surface acting we have a perspec-
tive on ourselves from outside ourselves. Here for Hochschild we are fully
aware of the performance we are delivering as well as of the fact that it is a
performance. Surface acting hence manifests as those moments where “we
deceive others about what we really feel, but we do not deceive ourselves”
(Hochschild 1983, 33). This does nothing to discount the just raised dis-
tinction between Hochschild’s and Epictetus’ respective impressions of
indifference. The surface actor does not feel indifferent like the Stoic does.
The surface actor just externally pretends that they feel that way.
When we turn however to Hochschild’s notion of deep acting the dif-
ference between the service worker and the Stoic becomes less straightfor-
ward. Hochschild explains that in deep acting there is no need to convince
others that we are serene in a moment of apparent hostility. So emphatic
is the service worker’s automated capacity to embody their training that
they actually feel the serene state. The deep acting service worker is not
intentionally acting. They are indeed unbothered by what is occurring
circumstantially (33). In this form we thus encounter an individual who is

not consciously performing the “serenity” that they project in response to
external stimuli. Key elements of Stoic indifference are satisfied in
this mode.
A problem with this comparison with Stoic indifference however
emerges in terms of the deep acting, serene individual’s self-relation. While
this individual might not be aware that they are acting as if they are serene,
it is nevertheless still an act. They are mechanically embodying the instruc-
tions of their training which are concerned with customer-focused rather
than self-oriented goals. Hochschild interprets this process accordingly as
where the individual “deceives oneself as much as deceiving others” (33).
So automated is the service worker’s act that their lack of self-awareness
about it probably contributes to it being a more convincing act.
Such states of self-deception would be fatally misguided for any Stoic
outlook. This concerns the inverted direction of indifference in Stoicism.
In deep acting for Hochschild there is an outward projection by the indi-
vidual of their lack of emotional destabilization as a result of adverse inter-
personal stimuli. The deep acting individual automatically deceives
themselves about how they feel in order to present themselves a certain
way externally. Because of this external orientation, what is uncontrollably
outside the individual therefore “masters,” to borrow Epictetus’ terminol-
ogy, one’s sense of self (Epictetus 2008, 4.1, 60). This occurs to the extent
that external uncontrollables in this form entirely inhibit an individual’s
self-awareness. The individual is not even aware of what they are doing!
Conversely, Epictetus is concerned with inwardly directed responses.
His perspective is that the indifferent self becomes more internally self-
aware than self-deceived or alienated (1.4, 27). For the Stoic it is our self-
awareness that conditions indifference to external stimuli by revealing
that such stimuli are beyond our control. Stoic indifference in this regard
is a purely internalized experience. This is partly why Christopher Gill
states that Epictetus “goes the furthest” of the Stoic thinkers to assert that
it is “‘up to us’ whether or not we respond to the therapeutic discourse of
philosophy” (Gill 1996, 451). As our previous studies have revealed when
considering features such as the daimon though, the belief in an internal
subjectivity that is entirely separate from the rest of the world can be
destabilized.
Taken on these terms a Stoic individual’s self-awareness rather than a
service worker’s self-deceit underpins a focus on the internal conditions of
emotional responses. A question I would nevertheless like to pose
288 W. JOHNCOCK
concerns how we could ever actually differentiate either state from the
other? In instances of self-deceit or self-awareness, the individual would
still sincerely feel a control of their emotional reactions. For Hochschild,
this invests the self-deceit of deep acting with a powerful, practical legiti-
macy, whereby “in deep acting we make feigning easy by making it unnec-
essary” (Hochschild 1983, 33). This feign is not a feign in the conventional
sense. It most definitely is not a performance either but in actuality occurs
as a Stoic-like immersion in one’s apparent internal condition.
We have covered that for Epictetus (and indeed for Hochschild) when
we are immersed in what is internal to us we will still recognize or be able
to discern what is happening externally. A self-deceiving individual in
Hochschild’s thesis is not deceived or ignorant that a world occurs around
them. As for the Stoic, it is incumbent upon a trained individual’s self-
conditioning to have developed the capability to acknowledge a physical
or worldly reality while simultaneously “suspending” their own desire
toward it (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 13).7 Epictetus describes the consequent
“emotional reality” as indicative of an individual’s natural self-control and
reflective of “their honour” (4.3, 9). To “scream … be rude” or to get
upset as these events/phenomena unfold around them would be contrary
to their natural disposition (4.3, 9). Continuing the theme from the previ-
ous paragraph, the underpinning point is that it is not a feign that consti-
tutes this mode of Stoic indifference. The Stoic individual instead sincerely
normalizes and feels their emotional consistency as strength. While in
terms of external appearances the Stoic and the deep actor might therefore
present identically, for the Stoics it is the self-aware not the self-deceiving
individual who lives in accordance with a rationalized nature.
The Stoic who internally feels rather than externally feigns indifference
enacts a rationalization which derives from beyond their isolated nature.
The source of one’s rationally self-aware nature is a universally rational
nature. Interestingly we have also encountered how Hochschild’s self-
deceiving deep actor’s “non-feigning” serenity manifests a rationalization
that has a source beyond an autonomous self. There is in Hochschild’s
observations something collectively and environmentally originated about
the serene indifference to external phenomena that service workers
embody. In training oneself to fit an established setting by genuinely feel-
ing serene within it, each worker perpetuates the institutionalized and
normalized feelings of that setting. These perpetuations of that feeling in
turn participate in the feeling’s ongoing reproduction. All personnel in an
environment for Hochschild accordingly do not simply regurgitate an
institutionalized rationality but also “contribute to the creation of it”

(Hochschild 1983, 18). What is personal about the resulting emotion for
the individual is hence also impersonally distributed among various agents
who recreate its reality.
This redefines the conception we might have of a “sincere emotion.”
Sincerity in the deep acting context does not simply refer to how unfil-
tered our external expression of our internal states is. An emotion that is
sincere instead here heralds an internal experience that is filtered by what
the external and communal environment expects and indeed desires. This
correlates with our sincere feeling to meet those expectations and desires.
Workers sincerely want to do their service industry roles well. In embody-
ing a normalized mantra of only being concerned with what is in one’s
control, acting sincerely involves how for a group “the very act of manag-
ing emotion can be seen as part of what the emotion becomes” (27). This
becoming of sincere emotion is a collectively instilled act. Feeling sincere
is a production of ongoing labor among a group about what works and is
felt to work accordingly.
The sincerity of the deep actor manifests structurally and environmen-
tally. In this mode the deep actor learns how to feel sincere. The develop-
ment of this kind of perspective regarding the sincerity of emotional labor
motivates Hochschild to declare that it “was precisely by such techniques
of emotion management that sincerity itself was achieved” (24). We have
seen that for the Stoic our feeling of being a sincere self is an internalized
awareness of what is in our control. For the service worker conversely their
subjective sincerity is an external structural production, which while
engendering a self-deception is a function they nevertheless really feel.
The service worker’s conditioning presents a visage shaped by the
labors of training. Even though we are aware of the socialized artificiali-
ties of such a presentation, within Hochschild’s work is a commentary on
what she posits to be natural about this development. This natural char-
acterization of one’s training is interesting. This is because the natural
ends of such training are not really comparable to what Epictetus posits
are the naturally primary conditions for Stoic internal, emotional control.
Hochschild here draws an equation between notions of what “fits” or
suits, and what is natural, for an individual. Firstly, we see her interest in
the suitability of emotional labor to the subject enacting it in the claim
that “behind the most effective display is the feeling that fits it, and that
feeling can be managed” (34). Moreover, this feeling can be managed to
feel “natural” (35). The comparison with Epictetus from this concerns
290 W. JOHNCOCK
what is natural about self-management in their respective outlooks. For

Epictetus we work on ourselves to develop “restraint and self-control” in
order to live in accordance with the timeless reality of our rational nature
(Epictetus 2008, 1.13, 1). Conversely for Hochschild there is a “natural
element” to this process of self-conditioning that situationally shifts
according to what fits. The service worker in Hochschild’s perspective
imparts a “display” that “is a natural result of working on feeling … a real
feeling that has been self-induced” (Hochschild 1983, 35; my emphasis).
Both perspectives portray self-regulation as a naturally oriented response
to externally provocative stimuli, however the natural states that each
identifies diverge radically.
Hochschild does not refer to Stoic philosophy at all in her work. She
does however indirectly reference themes which belong to Stoicism’s heri-
tage. This becomes apparent in her recognition that the management of
emotions and feelings, and “trying to feel what one wants,” is not a revo-
lutionary idea but rather “is probably no newer than emotion itself” (20).
The implication here is that humanity has long been concerned with such
ideas. An explicit prominence indeed emerges for her in terms of the
ongoing relevance for humans of “managing feeling … to civilized living”
(21; my emphasis). This correlation of the management of feeling with
civilized protocols now requires attention on specifically commercialized
civilities. In the previous paragraph, both Epictetus and Hochschild
acknowledge natural directions to emotion management. The introduc-
tion to the discussion though of this commercially civilizing element will
help us to further appreciate that the service worker’s indifference does
not seem to be as concerned with our nature as Epictetus’ Stoicism is.
Personal Development Versus Commercial Benefit

of Emotional Control?
Focusing on emotional self-control for Epictetus aids our personal devel-

opment. If we only emotionally invest ourselves in what is in our control,
we facilitate a way of living that is not contrary to our nature (Epictetus
2008, 4.1, 125). William Stephens is correct when he observes in this
distinction for Epictetus that “only something contrary to the nature of a
human being would be a true misfortune” (Stephens 2007, 65). We per-
sonally gain in Stoicism and experience a greater proximity to our true self
by learning to be resilient to what is contrary to our nature.
Conversely for Hochschild’s findings, emotional labor is publicly
directed and commercially invested. As Hochschild states of this
commercial relevance, “what was once a private act of emotional manage-

ment is sold now as labor in public-contact jobs” (Hochschild 1983, 186).
The commercial parameters lurking within the deployment of emotional
labor indeed are the motivation for her entire study. In exploring how
“organizations have entered the game” (185) of emotion management
Hochschild seizes upon the capitalist conditions which determine that
“emotion work is no longer a private act but a public act, bought on the
one hand and sold on the other” (118).
Because a service industry worker enacts emotion labor to sell a prod-
uct or service, Hochschild identifies their alienation from an aspect of their
emotion. As the product or service is sold and exchanged so is something
about the product that the employee’s emotional investment constitutes.
This argument regarding “alienation” does not necessarily contradict the
sincerity of the emotion that the “deep acting” service industry worker
invests or feels. That internal governance which is a result of their training
remains legitimate. Where alienation arises though concerns the Marxist-
inspired notion that according to Hochschild “emotional labor is sold for
a wage and therefore has exchange value” (7). We typically interpret our
emotions as defining aspects of what is directly personal about subjectivity.
Here however we witness how emotions become impersonal commodifi-
cations dispersed throughout the anonymous structures of capitalist
exchange.
A brief consideration of the Marxist legacy that equates the capitalist
exchange of labor with alienation is worthwhile here. In Capital, Marx
defines “socially necessary labour time” as the total labor time required to
produce an average commodity “of its kind” (Marx 1976 (1867), 130).
Or in other words, Marx’s interest is in how the value of that average form
of a product relates to “the amount of labour socially necessary, or the
labour-time socially necessary for its production” (129). The value of this
production, the value of the labor time invested in it, manifests via social
or market exchange. The commodification of quantified labor time duly
occurs via the market’s abstract framing of such time. This converts what
is privately or personally material/concrete about the time that an indi-
vidual spends laboring, into a broader magnitudinal exchange of “social
value, the market value” (Marx 1981 (1894), 180).
Correlatively I here interpret that for Hochschild one’s emotional labor
time becomes an abstracted commodity. This commodification occurs in
two forms. The first form is the time that the service worker gives to a
customer in surface or deep acting. The value of this time is not deter-
mined by the direct interaction but rather by a pre-established anticipation
292 W. JOHNCOCK
or expectation of a commercially viable service. The second form is the

time spent training oneself to perform such labor. As we have seen this
conditioning is sometimes so comprehensive (deep) that the individual
deceives themselves regarding their own subjective status. The commodi-
fication of this time occurs via the transformation of what is personal and
subjective (one’s emotions and time) into the impersonalized components
of a service that is sold in the marketplace. The sale and distribution of
individual time and emotion occurs according to a structurally abstracted
exchange value rather than because of anything personally intrinsic about
such time/emotions to the individual in question.
It is as a result of the training that conditions the production of emo-
tion labor that for Hochschild such work requires a self-suppression. For
Epictetus the training of one’s emotional structure to a state of self-
control, in which one is unperturbed by external circumstances, marks
one’s self-“progress” (Epictetus 2008, 3.4, 26). The Stoic subject is more
aware of their actual nature and felt self. Conversely for Hochschild, even
though the consequent emotional display is sincerely felt, what is neces-
sary to reach emotional control is to “suppress feeling in order to sustain
the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in oth-
ers—in this case the sense of being cared for” (Hochschild 1983, 7). This
suppressed separation from an aspect of the self that is engendered by
emotion labor is duly perceived by Hochschild to be a negative price that
the individual incurs, stating that there “is a cost to emotion work: it
affects the degree to which we listen to feeling” (21). Epictetus contrarily
would not characterize the training of or working on the self as a process
via which the self loses something or experiences a “cost.” This reflects how
in Stoicism remaining unaffected by externals means that we gain self-
knowledge. To be unaffected by externals is for the Stoic to “benefit”
entirely (Epictetus 2008, 3.20, 10). Or to again defer to Stephens, it is a
product of “good fortune” (Stephens 2007, 65).
Hochschild however portrays how such a process for the service worker
is counter-productive and even self-destructive. To this end, she maintains
that not only is there an alienation from the self that manifests through
emotion management but also that a self-degradation occurs from the
labor that is required. A comparison with Capital again emerges, this time
in terms of Marx’s critique of the effects of industrialization on the
human body.
Marx attends to how capitalist, industrial mechanisms impose upon the
physiological rhythms of the human body. Such mechanisms exhaust the
nervous system and restrict which muscles develop due to the limited
range of operation necessitated by factory machinery (Marx 1976).8
Instead of focusing on Marxist perspectives of corporeal effects however,
Hochschild directs our attention to other comparably damaging demands
of emotion work. She posits that the suppression required in emotion
labor degrades the human, emotional pulse. This occurs to the extent that
a “nineteenth-century child working in a brutalizing English factory”
(Hochschild 1983, 17) and a contemporary care worker deploying emo-
tion labor must equally “mentally detach themselves” from their respec-
tive labors (17). Beneath the obvious difference between physical and
emotional labor time, workers in both arenas share a process of becoming
“alienated from an aspect of the self—either the body or the margins of
the soul” (7).
Epictetus also raises a comparison between physical and mental reac-
tions that manifest from our management of adverse external conditions.
In comparing physical and mental fortitudes, Epictetus duly describes of
increased resiliences to external threats how just as “people with a strong
physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold” likewise “peo-
ple of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emo-
tions” (Epictetus 2008, Fragments 20). Underpinning this position on a
resilient Stoic subjectivity though are the sharp distinctions from
Hochschild that we have encountered. For Hochschild, the training of
oneself to focus on internal rather than on external phenomena produces
a sincerely felt but alienated self. Alternatively, Epictetus celebrates how
such training engenders our greater proximity to the true self. The emo-
tionally trained self-sensibility is not an industrially alienated cost or depre-
ciation in Stoicism but instead is a naturally strengthened awareness of our
subjectivity.
In concurrently appraising the approaches of Epictetus and Hochschild
it is apparent that for both, labor and training are ongoing and perpetually
shift our emotional positioning toward our circumstantial environment.
The key difference between the Stoic and the sociological incarnations
considered here though concerns the respective motivations that are asso-
ciated with an individual’s emotional control. For Epictetus the themes
are personal development, virtuousness, and with that, happiness.
Hochschild’s study conversely exhibits how the capacity to focus on one’s
emotional reactions has pragmatically social, vocational, and commercial
orientations.
294 W. JOHNCOCK
Despite this difference and in direct response to this chapter’s question

of who benefits from the management of feelings, I am interested in the
possibly equally socialized qualities in Epictetus perspective. If an individ-
ual is capable of indifference to external phenomena, not only do they
make their own life increasingly straightforward, but they also potentially
contribute to a more reliable or stable society. Epictetus in fact proclaims
that for any Stoic there is an element of social influence and “example”
that is implicit to their tendencies toward emotional control:
To begin with, you have to set a different example with your behaviour. No
more blaming God or man. Suspend desire completely, train aversion only
on things under your control. (Epictetus 2008, 3.22, 13)
It has been my argument in the preceding discussion that we can distin-

guish the theses of Epictetus and Hochschild around subjective and social-
ized parameters. For Epictetus there is an individually subjective orientation
regarding themes of personal development. Hochschild conversely reveals
there is a publicly commercialized sensibility involved in controlling an
individual’s emotional responses. In a citation such as that which immedi-
ately precedes from Epictetus however, there is also a sense in which the
“progress” by which he describes Stoic emotion management equates self-
control with a cohesive social function. We do not only “set an example”
to ourselves but also to a group. This indeed is a theme that we have seen
Marcus Aurelius later endorse in describing the common interests that are
at the heart of any individual’s actions. When each of us does “something
good or otherwise contributory to the common interest” in Marcus’ esti-
mations we have done what each of us “was designed for” (Marcus
Aurelius 1964, 9.42, 4). This draws from Epictetus’ wording directly.
Epictetus states that God has “constituted the nature of the rational ani-
mal man” in a way that we are designed as individuals to “contribute
something to the common interest” (Epictetus 1961, 1.19, 10–19).9
Both the Stoic individual and the service industry worker undertake
labor in environments to which they have the capacity to be indifferent.
Not only is the individual experience corrected and/or ameliorated from
this indifference to affronting interpersonal behavior but so also are wider
interpersonal relations and normalizations. While the imperatives of emo-
tion management are situated within a personal identity, a social dispersal
of the consequent benefits is present in both the social theory of Hochschild
and in Epictetus’ Stoicism. This directs a curiosity about who benefits
from managed emotion not exclusively to considerations of the individu-

al’s welfare but also toward social structures and populations.
Notes
1. Other Stoics and Stoic commentators recognize and emphasize self-
dependence. Harris Rackham describes in his “Introduction” to Cicero’s De
Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) how Cicero notes of “the
Stoics … that happiness depends on peace of mind, undisturbed by passions,
fears, and desires” (Rackham in Cicero 1967a, vii; my emphasis). This is
possibly also a reference to the connection that Cicero draws in Academica
(On Academic Skepticism) between “goods of the mind” and “happiness”
(Cicero 1967b, 1.5, 21). The terminology of a dependence on one’s mind
is further apparent in Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties). For Cicero our
“moral goodness” to which Stoic happiness is intimately connected
“depends wholly upon the thought and attention given to it by the mind”
(Cicero 1928, 1.23, 79). The interdependencies of happiness, the mind,
and morals emerge in Stoic presentations of the link between happiness and
virtuousness. In The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes Alfred Pearson intro-
duces how a “leading characteristic of Stoic morals” is “that virtuous con-
duct depends not on the nature of the deed but on the disposition of the
agent” (Pearson in Zeno et al. 1891, 47). We here depend on our capacity
to maintain an emotional independence (indifference) from the external
world. This topic drives our earlier engagement with Epictetus who repeat-
edly signals the necessity of indifference to what is outside our control. A
further key example of this is in Discourses where Epictetus states that the
best sense of self manifests when you are “dependent on no one except your-
self” (Epictetus 2008, 4.3, 36; my emphasis).
2. This is a point about which Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (1964) is also
emphatic. Marcus demands that philosophy should offer a guide to how to
live in line with Stoic virtue. A virtue fulfilled is happiness fulfilled. We
should not desire happiness as a pleasurable feeling to possess if we act virtu-
ously. It is rather from acting virtuously for the sake of being virtuous that
happiness will ensue for the Stoic individual.
3. Life itself is not a moral good for Epictetus (especially a life not lived virtu-
ously). David Sedley posits that responding to “non-moral ‘goods’ as indif-
ferent was thoroughly Socratic in inspiration” (Sedley 2003, 11). This
inspiration is exemplified for Sedley in a Stoic sage’s sense that suicide can
be a “well-reasoned exit” from life, a topic explored in our earlier chapter on
self-preservation. For Sedley, this imperative “owed much to the legend of
Socrates” (11).
296 W. JOHNCOCK
4. Hochschild’s work participates in the sociological tradition of Charles

Wright Mills. This is especially apparent in the connections Hochschild con-
ceives between the private concerns of individual experiences and what is
collective or public about capitalist, social experience. Michael Burawoy
notes this influence in suggesting that Wright Mills would “anticipate so
much that came after” his era of theory, including the “idea of the sale of
personality in service work that Arlie Hochschild’s The Managed Heart
would term emotional labor” (Burawoy 2008, 370).
5. Throughout this chapter, I use the term “emotion labor” (and variations
such as “emotion work”) interchangeably with Hochschild’s term “emo-
tional labor/work.” I am fond of how the construction “emotion labor”
indicates a primary concern with the laboring on emotion. Equally I am
receptive to how Hochschild’s construction “emotional labor” prominently
also evokes the subject’s emotional state at the time of such labor. Where I
discuss Hochschild’s text directly, I use her construction exclusively.
Otherwise, I tend to use the former construction. Hochschild’s receptivity
to the former construction, “emotion labor,” is in fact evidenced in her
earlier essay “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure”
(Hochschild 1979).
6. Hochschild’s inquiry is attentive to the gender disparities in the service
industry roles that she researches. Women occupy most of these positions
and thus provide the majority of society’s emotional labor. See the chapter
“Gender, Status, and Feeling” (Hochschild 1983, 162–184).
7. Suspending our desire toward what is uncontrollable about an external
world is different from suspending our judgments regarding claims about
truth in an external world. In Chap. 5 we considered Epictetus’, Weber’s,
and Sextus’ respective impressions of the call to suspend judgment. While
Weber goes beyond a Stoic context, see Annas (1993, 244–248) for further
commentary on Sextus’ Pyrrhonist contestation to Stoic knowledge claims
and his associated demand to suspend judgment.
8. Friedrich Engels similarly argues that the labor demanded by industrializing,
capitalizing structures deforms human bodies. This is particularly true of
children and women through tasks such as carrying coal (Engels 1987
(1845), 282–283).
9. Robin Hard’s more recent translations of the respective passages in Marcus’
Meditations (Marcus Aurelius 2011, 9.42) and Epictetus’ Discourses
(Epictetus 2014, 1.19, 13) similarly reads “common interest” as “the com-
mon benefit.”
References
Burawoy, Michael. 2008. Open Letter to C. Wright Mills. Antipode 40
(3): 365–375.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1928. De Officiis (On Duties). Translated by Walter Miller.
London and New York: William Heinemann Ltd. and G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
William Heinemann.
Heinemann.
Engels, Friedrich. 1987 (1845). The Condition of the Working Class in England.
Translated by Florence Wischnewetzky. London and New York: Penguin.
Epictetus. 1961. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments.
Publications.
University Press.
Gill, Christopher. 1996. Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self
in Dialogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hochschild, Arlie. 1979. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.
———. 1983. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling.
London and New York: University of California Press.
Long, Anthony. 2006. From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and
Roman Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Penguin Books.
298 W. JOHNCOCK
Marx, Karl. 1976 (1867). Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy.

London and New York: Penguin Books.
———. 1981 (1894). Capital: Volume 3: A Critique of Political Economy. London
University Press.
Simplicius. 2014. Simplicius: On Epictetus Handbook 1–26. Translated by Charles
Brittain, and Tad Brennan. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Continuum.
CHAPTER 14
How Individual Is Happiness? Chrysippus

and Harriet Martineau on the Universal End
A Virtuously Experienced Primary End

In this chapter, we will be dealing with two conceptions of happiness. The
first is the Stoic definition in which as seen in previous chapters, happiness
is not strictly an emotional feeling itself. Stoic happiness refers to a ratio-
nalized and internalized virtuous nature. The second conception is the
conventional modern sense of happiness as feeling good or pleasure. This
is distinct from the Stoic sense of happiness. An intersection is nevertheless
apparent between the two conceptions. If we are living a Stoically happy
existence, that happiness regulates all our emotional directions which will
necessarily include happiness as per the second conception.
When reflecting on what makes us happy in the conventional (second)
sense, we might seek to identify the causes for the feeling. By developing
a self-awareness of what is conducive to feelings of happiness, we can argu-
ably become proactive regarding our future happiness. Straightforwardly
this can occur by integrating such causes more thoroughly into our lives.
Or in other words, we can identify what makes us happy and repeat it.
We might categorize the causes of this happiness as either intentionally
or inadvertently enacted. Intentionally derived happiness marks a future
event or set of circumstances as that which could probably make us happy.
This is based on the process detailed in the preceding paragraph. Such an
event or circumstance has made us happy before and we perceive that it is
likely to again. Following this identification, we might deliberately attempt
to activate a chain of events through which that anticipated

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_14
300 W. JOHNCOCK
happiness-inducing state reoccurs. This could be as simple as realizing that

talking to our friends is a pleasing experience and thereby planning to talk
to them more regularly.
Such a method is the inverse of the “negative visualization” approach
that Stoic thinkers including Epictetus and Seneca suggest that we enact
in order to attain a Stoic rationalized happiness (first conception). As care-
fully qualified in earlier chapters, happiness for the Stoics does not merely
amount to a pleasurable feeling. Stoic happiness instead comprises wise
and virtuous activity in accordance with our rational nature. The opposite
of a happy life for the Stoics is a life unhappily, as in irrationally and unvir-
tuously, determined by what is external to our control.
In attempting to facilitate happiness not by enacting it directly but by
avoiding unhappiness, Epictetus advises us to negatively visualize the worst
possible scenarios that could eventuate. The belief is that this preparation
will remove the unhappy shock of such scenarios should they actually
occur.1 An example of this mantra is evidenced in his Enchiridion. Epictetus
cautions to always keep in mind the mortality of those people that you
love, in that when “you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss
things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of
them dies” (Epictetus 2004, 1.3). William Irvine’s comprehensive discus-
sion of negative visualization explains that the purpose of this instruction
is not only to avoid shockingly bad feelings when the deaths of friends and
family occur but also to “derive more pleasure from friendships than we
otherwise would” (Irvine 2008, 70). We might appreciate the people in
our lives more if we are conscious that they will not always be alive with us.
The preceding discussion concerns the intentional means of feeling
happy or of avoiding feeling unhappy, according to both the Stoic (first
conception) and conventional (second conception) understandings of
happiness. In the conventional second conception, we can conversely
define happiness’ inadvertent constitution in terms of causal develop-
ments that are unplanned but from which we “stumble upon” a happy
state. Having experienced seemingly inadvertently eventuated happiness
we might indeed try to identify its cause so that we can manufacture such
happiness-inducing events in the future.
Consistent with the rationalized constitution of the Stoic (first concep-
tion) form of happiness, Epictetus would not agree with the interpretation
of an accidentally or inadvertently occurring happiness. I state this because
of his opposition to the Epicurean explanation of our rational nature as the
product of “accident and chance.”2 As we have already encountered for
14 HOW INDIVIDUAL IS HAPPINESS? CHRYSIPPUS AND HARRIET… 301
Epictetus, we live in a rationally ordered world. This order constitutes the

condition from which emerges any states of wisdom and happiness that we
experience. In Discourses he explains the futility of not recognizing the
systematic regularity of the world. If we ignore this “it’s left to us to
explain who made” the world in such an ordered fashion, not to mention
to decipher how it is possible that “such amazing craftsmanlike abilities
came into being by accident, on their own” (Epictetus 2008, 1.6, 11).
Because of happiness’ inherent wisdom and virtue, the Stoics often
conceive of it as the most important state of subjective being. As consid-
ered in other chapters the earliest incarnations of Stoic philosophy to this
extent explore the connection between happiness and nature’s ends.
Stobaeus observes how founding Stoic principles position happiness as the
primary end of being and “say that being happy is the end, for the sake of
which everything is done” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394). This
reflects a perspective of Zeno, the first head of the Stoic school, who
Stobaeus informs us defines happiness as “living in agreement” with a
“good flow of life” (3.16, in L&S, 394).
The good flow of life cited here refers to living in accordance with one’s
reason. This is an element that Zeno’s successor Cleanthes expands via
Stobaeus’ reporting of it as “living in accordance with one’s nature” (3.16,
in L&S, 394). It is through Cleanthes that we receive the clarification that
Stoic individuals do not strive for happiness as an end in itself. Happiness
rather will necessarily follow for the individual through virtuous ends. If
virtue is lived or embodied, the associated ends will automatically possess
the inherent status of “living in agreement with nature” (3.16, in L&S,
394). Zeno’s “good flow” mentioned previously would therefore be a
natural flow in this latter sense. Stobaeus in fact cites Zeno’s demand that
rather than living in search of happiness, if one lives according to this
nature then what will become apparent is that happiness is that life itself
(3.16, in L&S, 394). This is a theme that has emerged throughout this
book and that is worth reiterating here given the impending discussion.
Zeno, Cleanthes, and the later head of the Stoic school, Chrysippus
(who David Sedley refers to as “the greatest Stoic of them all” [Sedley
2003, 7]), are in conditional agreement in defining happiness as a life lived
in accordance with the good or nature. All three could consequently be
engaged on the question of the importance of happiness in the context of
original Stoic principles. It will however be Chrysippus’ position with
which we will be primarily occupied in this chapter. This is because the
commentaries that have survived on Chrysippus clearly establish his
302 W. JOHNCOCK
definition as the full extension of the early Stoic understanding of happi-

ness. An example of such commentaries is where Stobaeus informs us that
Chrysippus and his Stoic “successors” believe that “happiness is no differ-
ent from the happy life” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394). While hap-
piness is an end toward which we orient ourselves, the virtuous living
processes via which we enact that end also constitute happiness. Whether
this adds anything to the earlier detailed positions of Cleanthes and Zeno
is debatable. What is nevertheless attributable to Chrysippus, which does
expand upon the definitions of happiness that precede him, is a sense that
our happiness is bound to our experiences with what naturally actually
happens. Here Chrysippus offers the most complete extension of the Stoic
school’s original position (Boeri 2009, 177; Jedan 2009, 61; Long and
Sedley 1987, 400; Striker 1996, 224). The Chrysippean definition of hap-
piness in its full form is “living in accordance with experience of what hap-
pens by nature” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.16, in L&S, 394; my emphasis).
In a contemporary, everyday regard this sounds consistent with what
“being stoic” seemingly comprises. By this I mean how Stoicism refers to
our resilience when “nature takes its course” and affects our lives adversely.
If we withstand without emotional trauma what naturally happens to us
the impression is that we will have a more content and happy life. This
application is consistent with the Chrysippean definition. What we must
also appreciate though is that in this Stoic demand happiness and nature
are internal to each other. Nature in this regard is not simply a reference
to a world in which anything or everything might happen and to which we
should be resilient. By being virtuous rather we are living in accordance
with an internal nature and this is an existence in which happiness is in-
built. Our control over being virtuous is accordingly for Diogenes Laërtius
a key factor in Chrysippus’ tandem conceptions of nature and happiness,
stating that “to live according to virtue is the same thing as living accord-
ing to nature; as Chrysippus explains it in the first book of his treatise on
the Chief Good” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). As presented elsewhere
in this book, there is a pervasive Stoic position that co-implicates individ-
ual nature and universal nature according to their common element of
virtue. This part-whole relationship is explicit in the ancient commentaries
on Chrysippean thought. Chrysippus posits that we should live in accor-
dance with what happens in nature, given that “our individual natures are
all parts of the universal nature” (7.53).
According to the logic of part-whole co-implication, happiness is con-
sequently not simply reducible to targeted ends about how we hope to
feel. By instead living virtuously, individual happiness arises as an internal-

ized orientation. While we have encountered this insight in the perspec-
tives of others from the Stoic school, what is notable about a Chrysippean
engagement with it is the terminology that he uses. For Chrysippus, hap-
piness is “supervened” to the individual, both in terms of the ends that
inevitably or ultimately manifest as well as in our actual ongoing living of
such ends.3 Chrysippus states in this regard that happiness is not attribut-
able to the individual “who progresses to the furthest point” (Stobaeus,
SVF, 3.510, in L&S, 363) of any particular undertaking. Fulfilling an end
is not autonomously happiness-inducing. In being ongoingly virtuously
orientated happiness rather “supervenes” on the individual during the
whole process of acting virtuously. Chrysippus refers to these virtuous
actions as “intermediate actions” in terms of their continued relationship
to one’s overall happiness. The sustained nature of a virtuously oriented
life means that for the Stoic the associated happiness-inducing actions
“acquire the additional properties of firmness and tenor and their own
particular fixity” (3.510, in L&S, 363). We should pause here to study this
Chrysippean language in order to recognize its ramifications regarding
what for the Stoic is common about continual virtuousness and happiness.
The Common Good

As I read it Chrysippus does not use the term “fixity” as a straightforward
reference to a final or ultimate point of happiness. This is not where hap-
piness is “fixed in place” so to speak. More interestingly, I believe fixity
refers to the durable distinguishability of the happiness and virtuousness
that is associated with an individual. The fixity of an individual’s happiness
is that it is naturally enduring rather than contingently transient. This
reading coheres with how scholarship interprets the durability of states
that result when Stoic reason supervenes (Inwood 1985, 187; Long 1999,
574). I am not insinuating an unrefined application of the term “fixed” in
which the individual is finally “fixed-as-corrected” from a previously unvir-
tuous state. By fixity rather, I believe Chrysippus is inferring that we can
recognize the particularity of an individual’s virtuousness through actions
which continually define that individual. The descriptor “virtuous” becomes
of the individual and produces them as this or that individual.
This fixity as stated does not mark a final or fixed point. It does never-
theless indicate a “firm” (as Chrysippus earlier described) resilience against
a non-virtuous state. In following one’s naturally and virtuously inclined
304 W. JOHNCOCK
ends, a self-aware individual harbors the happiness over which they have
control from harmful externals. Plutarch observes in On Stoic Self-
Contradictions that Chrysippus emphasizes this mutual exclusion of hap-
piness (a state that is good for oneself) from unhappiness (the oppositionally
bad state):
Chrysippus admits that good and bad things are entirely different from one
another. This must be so if the latter, by their presence, immediately make
men utterly unhappy while the former make them happy to the highest
degree. (Plutarch, SVF, 3.85, in L&S, 373)
“Bad things” are states and events that are contrary to our nature. Just as
virtue implies a life led happily, equally vice means a life of misery. On this
distinction Plutarch further records in On Common Conceptions how
Chrysippus “maintains that vice is the essence of unhappiness, insisting in
every book that he writes on ethics and physics that living viciously is iden-
tical to living unhappily” (3.55, in L&S, 396).
These correlating divisions between good and bad, happy and unhappy,
and virtue and vice symbolize how we calibrate with our naturally occur-
ring ends. A coherence with our natural ends is conditioned by our impli-
cation in a governing universal Nature. As Plutarch advises of the
Chrysippean perspective on this universal composition of the self,
“Chrysippus says ‘there is no more appropriate way of approaching the
theory of good and bad things or the virtues or happiness than from uni-
versal nature and from the administration of the world’” (3.68, in L&S,
368–369). The terminology “administration of the world” applied
through this “universal nature” is a reference to what for the Stoics (as we
have reviewed in Chap. 11) is the jurisdiction of God (Bobzien 1998, 210;
Mansfield 1999, 469). This observation speaks to the tendency that is
prevalent throughout Stoic thought to use the terms “God” and “Nature”
interchangeably as references to the same life-force.4 If happiness is the
universal end of Nature this implies that it is also the natural condition of
the Stoic God, Zeus, and is implicit to His ordering or administering of
the world. Diogenes attends to this consistency in noting that just as with
a life lived according to one’s nature, similarly God is “perfect … in his
happiness” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.72).
This perspective broadens happiness from a particular experience of one
person to also being a natural state of a pantheistic rational universe. We
can begin to appreciate this duality by noting via Diogenes that Chrysippus
proposes common conditions to both human and universal life. This

coheres with our earlier chapters’ accounts of what is concurrently anthro-
pocentric and logocentric about Stoic existence, in that “nature, in a man-
ner corresponding to which we ought to live, is both the common nature,
and also human nature in particular” (7.53). In targeting this particularly
human element to what is common about existence, we should note how
Stobaeus imparts a version of Chrysippus’ earlier-reviewed juxtaposition
between good and bad things. The benefit from good or natural ends will
have a common prosperity for those living together in agreement with
nature, in that “all goods are common to the virtuous, and all that is bad
to the inferior” (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.626, in L&S, 373). Virtuous humans
will not only have the same good (happiness) in common, they will more-
over share their good. There is a communal or collegial benefit acknowl-
edged here that is distinct from the isolated existences of “inferior”
individuals who are not living happily in accordance with collective nature.
Happiness as the ultimate good thus flourishes among a community where
“virtuous men benefit one another … but the foolish are in the opposite
situation” (3.626, in L&S, 373).
Stobaeus makes this final point regarding the human collegiality of hap-
piness. It is nevertheless Chrysippean in spirit given the latter’s informing
conception of the good of happiness as both a particular and a common
phenomenon. The “mutual betterment” between individuals that a “com-
munity of goods” conditions is indeed what gives such an argument its
“distinctive Stoic colouring” according to Anthony Long and David
Sedley (Long and Sedley 1987, 377). From this, we arrive at a Stoic
impression of individual happiness that defers to a state of communal and
universal existence which pervades beyond an isolated self. In this chapter,
we are considering how individual our happiness is. The Stoics here clearly
identify how individual happiness has humanly collegial conditions. They
also of course link localized happiness to what is universally common
about happiness. This notion of the universality of happiness invites a
modern thesis from the human sciences which also identifies happiness as
our universal or essential condition.
Identifying What Is Essential or Universal

Here we can turn to British social theorist Harriet Martineau (1802–1876).5
Martineau correlates a human’s happiness with social structures of morals
and manners. What is interesting about Martineau’s perspective on
306 W. JOHNCOCK
happiness for this discussion is that she does not simply work with the
conventional impression of happiness as feeling pleasure (the second con-
ception from this chapter’s introduction). I believe there is rather for
Martineau as we will see something universally and intentionally rational-
ized about happiness (the first/Stoic conception). We can find this aspect
of Martineau’s work in her guide to undertaking social science research,
How to Observe Morals and Manners. Such a theme is consistent with how
her most prominent inquiries highlight the junctures between sociological
methods, social rules, and personal sentiments.6
To comprehend Martineau’s sociological interrogation of conceptions
of happiness we must firstly appreciate her primary focus on sociological
methods. By describing the sociological enquirer in the field as a “travel-
ler,” Martineau posits that the sociologist’s examination of the various
morals and manners of different cultures needs to attend to what is “fixed
and essential in a people” (Martineau 1838, 11, 12). To acknowledge the
subtleties of her notion of “fixed” we will compare it with my earlier read-
ing of Chrysippus’ use of the same term.
In the Chrysippean perspective, happiness “supervenes” on an indi-
vidual in relation to how their virtuousness is “firmly” embedded or
“fixed” in what is perpetual about their nature (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.510, in
L&S, 363). As noted during the first encounter with this interpretation, I
believe that happiness is not a finalized end or a corrected state that we
target and acquire. Being virtuous for the sake of being virtuous instead
enacts a process via which the natural end (happiness) becomes durably
(fixedly) enacted.
Similarly therefore I also now argue that in Martineau’s thesis what she
describes as fixed and essential about a culture or “a people” does not
mark an abstract or symbolic end-point. Cultures are not time-capsules
which transcend ongoing relations. Characteristics that are fixed rather are
those which continually distinguish and define such populations as or via
their ongoing rituals. According to this reading fixity implies a durability
without a finality. It is the end without an end-point. This is a definition
which is remarkably like how the Stoics might describe the natural end of
happiness.
There are two parameters for Martineau which distinguish or define
what is fixed or essential about “a people.” These are their collective mor-
als and their manners. In one regard Martineau describes morals and man-
ners as inseparably co-dependent. She in fact reviews that “manners have
not been treated of separately from morals” in sociological works that
precede hers because “manners are inseparable from morals, or, at least,
cease to have meaning when separated” (Martineau 1838, 132). There is
however at least a passing sense that she will differentiate morals and man-
ners. This lurks in her qualification that in her impending inquiry an atten-
tion to the “principles of morals and the rule of manners is required” (16).
The distinction here pivots on “principles” versus “rules.” Morals
apparently underpin a society’s collective identity and orientations—its
principles. Manners conversely are the permitted or prohibited behaviors
of daily affairs—the rules or regulations. This interpretation is consistent
with Martineau’s subsequent description of manners as “manifestations of
morals” (132). Manners manifest (from) morals, they are the occurrences
of morals and this distinguishes manners from morals. Despite this distinc-
tion, it is only together that they form a society’s fixed and essential ritu-
alistic protocols.
In addressing social scientists who explore the mechanics of these pro-
tocols, Martineau stresses the importance of being aware of the connec-
tion between a particular society’s protocols and what is universal about
being human. She opens a discussion accordingly that is receptive to both
the specificity of any human culture and the generality of human condi-
tioning. In asking “what does the traveller want to know?” (14) (where
“traveller” is code for the social scientist) Martineau lists aspects of the
human condition that she identifies in all human populations. These “uni-
versal” elements of being human include “a necessity for food, clothing,
and shelter; and everywhere some mode of general agreement [about]
how to live together” (14).
The pragmatically survivalist orientation of many of these human uni-
versals seemingly sets them apart from the Stoics’ worldviews. For the
Stoics we have seen that universals are instead concerned with the virtue
and nature of our existence. Within this perspective Diogenes informs us
though that what is universal about the human condition according to
Chrysippus and indeed other Stoics is that our individual natures are parts
of a whole, universal nature (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). The univer-
sal impetus of human subjectivity is not sheer survival but fulfilling our
anthropocentrically charged responsibilities as part of a universal commu-
nity. Despite this difference, it is in this sense of a universalized and com-
mon human nature that an intersection appears with Martineau’s thesis of
universally shared human traits. This concerns how Chrysippus and
Martineau assert that we have a universal orientation toward happiness.
308 W. JOHNCOCK
The Universal Orientation to Collegial Happiness

Sociology and anthropology for Martineau have a responsibility to deter-
mine how communities negotiate their morals and manners in service of
the primary socialized end of each of its citizens; happiness. As Martineau
states about human happiness, “every element of social life derives its
importance from this great consideration” (Martineau 1838, 14). For any
social scientist interested in studying a population, the parameter of hap-
piness must in Martineau’s view be the ultimate focus:
To test the morals and manners of a nation by a reference to the essentials of

human happiness, is to strike at once to the centre, and to see things as
they are. (15)
Chrysippus also describes happiness as the ultimate human end. We have

repeatedly seen how happiness for the Stoic results from the harmony of
one’s own nature with what is universally common to all (Diogenes
Laërtius 1853, 7.53). Of course for Chrysippus specifically and for the
Stoics broadly it is by acting virtuously that we are happy. The primary end
that is happiness is not straightforwardly the target. Happiness instead is
an inherent quality of our already occurring virtuous orientations. I like
how Gisela Striker describes of this embedded character of happiness for
the Stoics that “[t]hough every step will be referable to the intended
result, that result is not the ultimate end for the sake of which the activity is
performed” (Striker 1996, 246; my emphasis). The aim of virtuous action
instead is living in agreement with nature.
Can we say that this sense is equally apparent in Martineau’s identifica-
tion in a social science context of what she describes as the “great end” of
happiness? (Martineau 1838, 14). Is happiness for Martineau a state that
we feel when we are living according to our universally rational nature (the
Stoic “first conception” presented at this chapter’s outset)? Or is happi-
ness a pleasurable state that we anticipate, identify, and even deliberately
try to recreate the feeling of (the conventional “second conception”)?
It is my assertion that aspects of Martineau’s thought cohere with
Chrysippus’ and the Stoics’ first conception of happiness; living according
to nature. To illustrate this coherence we firstly must revisit the commu-
nally beneficial aspect of the Stoics’ equation of virtue and happiness. This
emerges in Diogenes’ reading that for the Stoics, as Long and Sedley elo-
quently translate it, “the virtue of the happy man” is dependent upon their
“always doing everything on the basis of the concordance of each man’s

guardian spirit” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 3.178, in L&S, 395). This com-
prises a loose reference to the daimon that we have seen we each internal-
ize. Similarly for Chrysippus as the harmony of oneself with what is
common to all emerges through one’s continually virtuous direction
toward all, so happiness for each individual is guaranteed (Diogenes
Laërtius 1853, 7.53). We have earlier seen Stobaeus also make these kinds
of observations regarding the Stoic belief in a communal or “mutual bet-
terment” (to borrow Long and Sedley’s phrasing) from individual virtue.
Such accounts furthermore anticipate what we have encountered later
Roman Stoics such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius express in terms of
collective harmony.
The Stoic sense of a harmony of happiness between individuals that
benefits those individuals who are virtuous (Stobaeus, SVF, 3.626, in
L&S, 373) is in fact also evoked by Martineau. Using remarkably similar
terminology she defines those who contribute most to the lives of others
as where “the most virtuous and happy part of the population will be those
who are engaged in tilling the soil, and in the occupations which are abso-
lutely necessary in towns” (Martineau 1838, 23; my emphasis). I read this
as arguing that happiness manifests for the “virtuous” people of the town
while they actually engage collectively beneficial work. As this work is
directed toward what Martineau identifies as universal human ends, such
actions in her view accord with our universal nature and are instruments
of our happiness. Happiness here is not just the conventional second con-
ception of feeling pleasure. Happiness manifests for Martineau as we
undertake happiness’ virtuous instrumentation. It does not simply repre-
sent individually pleasurable end-states to attain at the completion of such
instrumental actions.
This perspective evidently matches the Chrysippean position that when
undertaking virtuous action, happiness supervenes on the individual
through that undertaking. Given how this undertaking contributes for
Martineau to a population’s universal necessities, we reveal in her thesis a
concrete example of what is socially inclined about an individual’s virtu-
ously directed happiness. This matches the dual beneficiaries (individual
and community) conceived in the Stoic perspective.
Even more concretely Martineau identifies specific parameters that
define how collective structures of morals and manners engender happi-
ness for humans. These parameters include a resistance to being domi-
nated, community participation, capacity to act morally, and material
310 W. JOHNCOCK
equality. The component of material equality is firstly important for our

discussion. This is due to its connection to Martineau’s already encoun-
tered, universalizing portrayal of the human desire to obtain the self-
preserving necessities of life. The social scientist for Martineau should
become aware of how human material requirements shape collective moral
frameworks by affecting “the condition of the inhabitants as to the supply
of the necessities of life” (94). The happiest societies she claims are those
which distribute such necessities equally. The “comparative prosperity or
adversity” (96) between a society’s relative classes will inform the differ-
ences in how morals and manners manifest between such classes and the
consequent degrees of respective and overall happiness.
Societies where all classes have suitable access to the necessities of life
will remain in good collective health. Martineau’s argument is that good
collective health in turn sets a platform for mutually respecting morals and
manners of the people in that society, meaning the “health of a commu-
nity is an almost unfailing index of its morals” (98). This is particularly
apparent when comparing these societies to those in which, for example,
the health of the poorer classes is not maintained. Martineau interprets
that any lack of moral standards in such classes is an insight into those
communities’ unhappiness and that such unhappiness is a product of their
unhealthiness:
physical suffering irritates the temper, depresses energy, deadens hope,

induces recklessness, and, in short, poisons life. (98)
The collective health of a population in this interpretation manifests as an

insight into its morals, manners, and happiness. As we have discussed in
Chap. 4, the Stoics do not equate happiness with material externals like
bodily health. These conventional states of our being induce indifference
in the Stoic. Ancient commentators report though the early Stoic conces-
sion that if given the choice and when “circumstances permit, we choose …
health instead of disease, life instead of death, wealth instead of poverty”
(Stobaeus, SVF, 3.124, in L&S, 355). Health in this understanding is a
“preferred indifferent.” We are for the Stoics still rationally indifferent to
material/bodily health in comparison to the virtuous goods which com-
prise our internal nature and happiness. This feature of Stoicism neverthe-
less does position health “in some way adjacent to the nature of goods”
(3.128, in L&S, 355). This Stoic perspective is likely informed by the
elements of Aristotelian philosophy that we have reviewed in Chap. 4.
Aristotle’s assertion there is that of the bodily goods (which are distinct
from those of the internal soul and of externals) that he includes in the
structure of happiness the “most noble is that which is justest, and best is
health” (Aristotle 2004, 1.8). This health is a “preferred indifferent” for
the Stoics. In On Stoic Self-Contradictions Plutarch indeed reports that
Chrysippus affirms how we are “not wrong” to orient ourselves toward
preferred indifferents as goods:
In his On good things book 1 he [Chrysippus] concedes in a sense and gives

way to those who wish to call the preferred things good and their opposites
bad, in the following words: “If someone in accordance with such differ-
ences [i.e. between the preferred and dispreferred] wishes to call the one
class of them good and the other bad, and he is referring to these things [i.e.
the preferred or the dispreferred] and not committing an idle aberration, his
usage must be accepted on the grounds that he is not wrong in the matter
of meanings and in other respects is aiming at the normal use of terms”.
(Plutarch, SVF, 3.137, in L&S, 356)
This does not necessarily internalize health in our rationally happy state. It
does indicate though that for Chrysippus, health as a preferred indifferent
is classifiable as a “good” and not as “bad.” We have seen earlier that a
happy life is comprised only of “goods.” This is in distinct opposition to
an unhappy life.
We can build on this point in a way that will illustrate the mutually
exclusive conditions between happiness and unhappiness both for
Chrysippean Stoicism and Martineau’s sociology. Martineau sharply
opposes the happiness that manifests from good health and morals from
the contrary states induced by bad health and morals. Health is the condi-
tioning and conditioned force of how the people within a group behave
individually and interpersonally. Good collective health breeds good inter-
personal relations which in turn make the members of that group feel
better. Given that the converse is also true regarding bad health, for
Martineau “good and bad health are both cause and effect of good and
bad morals” (Martineau 1838, 99). Health, happiness, and virtuous inter-
personal actions here present as inextricably intertwined.
Martineau as mentioned earlier has clear concerns about the methods
of the social sciences. When mandating that the social scientist should be
primarily concerned with studying the happiness of humans she empha-
sizes the importance of direct observation of subjects. This observation for
312 W. JOHNCOCK
Martineau must specifically be of the discourse between the individuals of

the society in question.
There are two reasons for this focus on discourse. Firstly, for Martineau
discourse provides “an indispensable commentary upon the classes” (133).
Secondly, she recognizes that happiness is not itself representable. The
impossibility of measuring and quantifying happiness as we conventionally
understand it (due to its lack of standard units) would later become one of
Henri Bergson’s early philosophical insights.7 Happiness in Martineau’s
estimation can be studied though. This is only possible in her view via a
discursive analysis of the universal drive for it. Happiness itself is not the
direct object of analysis consequently. Again evoking Chrysippus’ sense
that happiness manifests via communal and virtuous activity, Martineau
approaches the study of happiness through cultural contexts and associ-
ated ritualized activity. Attending to these cultural and structural contexts
for happiness will not surprisingly inform our question about how indi-
vidualized happiness really is.
God, Creation, and Collective Happiness

In considering alternative ways to gauge happiness, the universal tendency
toward it is for Martineau as for Chrysippus apparent in themes around
Creation. Martineau attributes as a common element in the collective
structures of morals and manners between seemingly disparate societies
the precondition that God wants human happiness. There is a deliberate
overseeing direction to the human inclination for happiness in her view,
for that “man should be happy is so evidently the intention of his Creator …
that the perception of the aim may be called universal” (Martineau 1838,
21). Stoic thought also emphasizes God’s objective of human happiness.
For the Stoics not only does God intend for happiness to be a universal
and natural human end but God’s perfect happiness also symbolizes this
condition (Diogenes Laërtius, 1853, 7.72).
In De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) Cicero reports that
for Chrysippus “god is the world” (Cicero 1997, 1.15, 39). From this
insight and the preceding discussion on God’s happiness, we can surmise
that for Chrysippus happiness in the world must be singularly ordered,
administered, and intended by God. Diogenes reports that Chrysippus
expands on this point in identifying a whole nature or “right reason which
pervades everything … who is the regulator and chief manager of all exist-
ing things” (Diogenes Laërtius 1853, 7.53). Our right reason as
happiness is not only supervened by a common virtuousness but is regu-

lated by God’s perfect virtuousness. This exemplifies the earlier
Chrysippean point regarding the connection between the particular and
the universal. Diogenes reports that Chrysippus’ On Ends describes how
individual accordances with happiness actually indicate that each of our
individual natures is a part of the nature of the universal whole (7.53). If
God as whole nature is perfect in happiness, as the “perfect happiness of
life when everything is done according to a harmony” (7.53), then happi-
ness for each part of this nature is universally present. We can again recall
the daimon that we encountered early in this book. The daimon “guide”
comprises both an individual and a universally pantheistic constitution.
Through this feature of subjectivity, the Stoics attribute a dispersed nature
of happiness to the connection between “the genius of each individual
with reference to the will of the universal governor” (7.53).
In fulfilling our natural ends, according to this Stoic perspective, we
fulfill what is universally supervened on us as God’s happiness. For
Martineau similarly it is through the fulfillment of what is naturally
Created that we become happy because “whatever tends to make men
happy, becomes a fulfillment of the will of God” (Martineau 1838, 21).
In fulfilling our ends we are satisfying what God intends for us. Happiness
in Martineau’s understanding again exhibits all the signs of the Stoic
conception as what is not reducible to a conventionally signified pleasur-
able individual feeling. Our moral structures through which happiness
reverberates are indeed described by Martineau as “religious structures”
in evidencing the “dependence of morals upon the character of the reli-
gion” (48). Religion here however is not a simple reference to the obser-
vance of a transcendent God. It rather more broadly incorporates the
protocols that are universally enacted by human cultures in particular-
ized ways. Different forms of human happiness here lead to a religious
experience because happiness is for Martineau a universal and necessary
human condition.
With this argument, Martineau again mimics the mutual opposition
between happiness and unhappiness that is present in Chrysippus’ thesis.
Plutarch informs us that for Chrysippus actions and experiences that are
not instruments of our universal, natural ends must instead be opposi-
tional sources of unhappiness (Plutarch, SVF, 3.85, in L&S, 373). This we
should recall is the difference between the rational and the irrational.
There is no middle ground between happiness and unhappiness in
Chrysippean Stoicism. Equally for Martineau, happiness does not feature
314 W. JOHNCOCK
degrees of relative pleasure as we conventionally understand it but rather

it is a universal mode that we either live or we do not. If we do not fulfill
God’s intention for our happiness, our life, which will be “miserable,
becomes opposition to his will” (Martineau 1838, 21; my emphasis).
Martineau does not distinguish these states so emphatically simply to
identify hypothetically respective sources of happiness and unhappiness.
She instead wants to guide social science methods regarding the observa-
tion of such states. Her directive accordingly is that an observer should
not maintain an objective distance from the subjects being observed but
engender “sympathy” with them. Martineau here differentiates the cold-
ness of a “student of geology or statistics” from the sociological observer
who “must have sympathy” with their subjects (32). This sympathy is
necessary to understanding how collective rules around morals and man-
ners contribute to human happiness (32).
Such rules according to Martineau when connected to personal senti-
ments “become religion” (32) in how they create (Create) or animate a
collective sense of what being and acting as a human subject means. While
happiness is a universal, it manifests in various ways in different social
structures. It is therefore not simply happiness’s universality that gives it a
religious mode for Martineau. Rather it is the juncture between happiness
and socialized or ritualized protocols that forms a “religion [that] is the
animating spirit of all that is said and done” (32). If the social scientist
cannot make themselves available to how subjects ritually enact this con-
current universalization and culturalization they also cannot “sympathize
in the sentiment” and hence “cannot understand the religion” (32). An
observer who cannot understand the religion, as in the enacted rules and
protocols of a society, will not appreciate why certain morals and manners
have been socially normalized and not others. Or in Martineau’s words, a
social scientist in such a mode “cannot appreciate the spirit of words and
acts” (32). This spirit is at once universally and locally rationalized.
From this I would like to consider whether a religiously infused defini-
tion of collectively or socially constructed orientations reconfigures the
identity of the earlier identified “Creator” in Martineau’s thesis? For
Chrysippus, as for Martineau, human happiness is a universal end that
coheres with our Created preconditions. Part of the reason for the univer-
sality of happiness for Chrysippus concerns the Stoic belief that we are
implicated in a universe in which God’s happiness and intention for our
happiness pervades. God and a universe which “administers” our happi-
ness are indeed interchangeable terms. Likewise for Martineau, God’s
intention for our happiness is universal. Martineau though identifies how

this intention threads through a society’s rules which administer its peo-
ples’ happiness. Could we therefore argue that for Martineau, God and
society are terms which are as interchangeable as God and universe are for
Chrysippus?
In considering a response to this question we can firstly return to the
Stoic perspective. For the Stoics there is the impression that our naturally
virtuous good ends are interpersonally common and mutually beneficial
ends. There is a communal reason for or benefit to our virtuous drive. We
have reviewed this in eras spanning the early Greek Stoics through to the
later Romans such as Marcus Aurelius. Marcus’ belief, for example, is that
it is a natural end for all of us to be rationally directed toward each other’s
interests or benefit; “each creature is made in the interest of another”
(Marcus Aurelius 1964, 5.16). Given that we are “born for community”
according to Marcus it so follows that a key “good of a rational creature is
community” (5.16). If Chrysippus was alive during Marcus’ era, he might
have responded affirmatively to these words. I say this given how for
Chrysippus we all together embody a universal inclination toward the
mutually enacted goods of virtue and happiness.
For Martineau human happiness is the primary social end. Morals and
manners facilitate the production of human happiness collectively in that
“it is found that the more pursuits and aims are multiplied, the more does
the appreciation of human happiness expand, till it becomes the interest
which predominates over all the rest” (Martineau 1838, 131). While
therefore we know that human happiness is the fulfillment of the will of
God in Martineau’s argument, we also see that this “will” is collectively
and socially rationalized and regulated. As the will to happiness manifests
in a particular way within a cultural or social context, all citizens within
that jurisdiction manifest a novel but durable “fraternal spirit of society”
(131). Martineau describes this socialized administering as a religious
spirit that produces the clearest or most “vigorous” (131) form of human
happiness. This further informs my suggested reading of Martineau’s cor-
relation of social and theological elements. Religion for Martineau is a
synthesis of socialized rules and our universal inclination for happiness. As
a result, the Creator (Religion) of this inclination for happiness is not
straightforwardly a transcendent God but is implicated in and as the social
structure via which our universalized happiness manifests. This mirrors
how for Chrysippus God intends our happiness and it pervades through a
universe in which we manifest it.
316 W. JOHNCOCK
Individual happiness for both Chrysippus and Martineau actualizes

through a universal presence of happiness that is beyond the self. There
are in both perspectives interpersonal or collegial and universal common-
alities of happiness. It could even be that Chrysippus and Martineau bring
our attention to the impersonal structures via which personal happiness
supervenes on individuals. Individual happiness here speaks to a rational-
ization concurrently occurring beyond the self but with which the self is
immersed.
Notes
1. Seneca’s application of negative visualization is apparent in “Consolation to
Marcia.” Here Seneca writes to a woman stricken with grief for three years
since the death of her son. Seneca’s advice concerns not only how to manage
her current emotions but also how she can avoid grief in the future by antici-
pating the events that cause it (Seneca 2015b, 38–69). This is a specific
example of the more general advice Seneca elsewhere offers to “hope for the
best but prepare yourself for the worst” (Seneca 2015a, 24, 12).
2. See Epicurus’ physics which holds that the world is the product of chance/
accidental, atomic collisions (Epicurus 2005, 1–28). Sextus Empiricus later
observes in Against the Physicists that the Epicurean characterization of
worldly phenomena as accidental even applies to time. For Epicurus parts of
time such as night, or a particular hour, no longer remain when other parts
of time do. Sextus thus argues that for Epicurean time if “its parts in this way
do not exist, nor can it exist itself. But let’s say there is day, and night hours
do exist. Then, since these things are time, and Epicurus says that time is an
accident of them, then time itself will, according to Epicurus, be an accident
of itself” (Sextus Empiricus 2012, 2.C, 244).
3. For what a “supervened” state means regarding earlier reviewed notions of
Stoic pantheism, see Levine (1994, 123).
4. For orthodox readings of this Stoic God-Nature equation, see Lapidge
(1978, 163–164) or McDonough (2009, 109–110). George van Kooten
offers the broader summation that what this refers to for the Stoics is that
“physics is in the end interchangeable with theology” (Van Kooten 2003,
17). I explore contemporary concerns about the ramifications of pantheism
for modern science in the “Physical Conditions” section of this book.
5. Commentators regularly identify Martineau as the first formal female soci-
ologist. Kathy Stolley observes numerous such characterizations of
Martineau as the “Mother of sociology” (Stolley 2005, 15). Not only did
Martineau’s work address gender from a newly female voice, but she also
analyzed the interaction of gender and disability. Martineau’s deafness and

other physical ailments for Mary Jo Deegan position Martineau’s work
uniquely as representing “a woman’s standpoint and as a person with a dis-
ability” (Deegan 2003, 58). Martineau notably also introduces the social
theory of Auguste Comte to the English-speaking world via her translation
in The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (Comte 2009 (1853)).
6. On this point also see Martineau’s Household Education (1849) in which she
laments the conditions of women’s education and associated socialized rules
and feelings.
7. This concerns Bergson’s distinction between extensive and intensive magni-
tudes. Extensive magnitudes are for Bergson measurable and comparable,
whereas intensive magnitudes are not (Bergson 1960 (1889), 3). In Chap.
3, we discussed this distinction regarding time. For this chapter’s concerns
about emotion we can note how for Bergson intensive states, which he
describes as “inner experiences” including “joy or sorrow” (7), have no
measurable or comparable units. A stronger or weaker “intensive experi-
ence” of happiness appears to match spatial/extensive magnitudes. There
are however no quantifiable units of happiness with which to measure it (3).
We should therefore appreciate such intensive states as having progressively
differing qualities but not as having simultaneously and mutually compara-
ble quantities. Because intensive states reproduce each other, they are indis-
cernible and cannot be treated “as things which are set side by side” (8–9).
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Index1
A ends/goods, 311
Active/passive, 61, 151–152, God and eternity, 48, 49, 53
176–177, 183–184 happiness and virtue, 10–11, 80–82
See also Bodies; Causation; Fire order, 38n8
Adam, Barbara rationality, 37n6
climate change, 144–148, 160–161, time, 45–49, 51–54, 56, 64n7,
163, 167n6 65n12, 65n13, 66n17, 66n18
time, 146–148, 160, 166n4 void, 187n8
Annas, Julia, 245, 296n7
Appropriate acts, 75–76, 81–82,
102–103, 165, 194, 209n6 B
See also Ends/goods; Nature; Baltzly, Dirk, 150–153, 155
Self-preservation Barnes, Jonathan, 63n5, 101
Aristotelianism vs. Stoicism, 6, 37n6, Becker, Lawrence, 37n4, 149–151,
38n8, 63n5, 75, 187n8, 205, 209n6
208n2, 310 Belonging, 58–60, 62, 182–185
happiness for, 11n1, 80 Bergson, Henri-Louis, 66n15
time for, 47–50, 52–54, 56–57, extension, 55–58, 60, 66n16,
64n9, 64n11 66n17, 317n7
Aristotle happiness, 317n7
celestial bodies, 45–47, 64n7 intensive, 55, 58–60, 62, 317n7
community, 206, 208n2 time, 55–62, 66n16, 66n17, 66n18
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2
342 INDEX
Blessing, see Obstacle God’s, 32, 47, 49, 88, 164, 176–177
Bobzien, Susanne, 28, 39n15 ordered, 20, 23, 158, 181, 183
Bodies, 44, 174, 176, 187n8, 187n12, of self-preservation, 71, 74
194, 248n5, 273n2 socialized, 24, 27, 28, 30, 136,
are causal, 173–178, 180, 183–184 179, 183–185
are continuous, 61–62 See also Active/passive; Bodies; Fire;
and emotion/desire, 255, 266, 269 Order; Self-preservation; Whole
are external to control, 18, 21, 110, Celestial bodies, 20, 38n8, 45–48,
185n2, 310 143, 165, 239
and God, 152, 164 See also Bodies
and incorporeality, 48, 49, 177, Chrysippus, 9, 45, 63n5, 121, 206
180, 184–185, 186n6, 186n8 appropriate acts, 75
and labor, 284, 292, 296n8 causation, 138n7
as parts, 76, 215 community, 304–305,
are social/structural, 138n8, 180–183, 309, 314–316
185, 237–238, 246, 248n6 conflagration, 63n4, 187n8
See also Active/passive; Causation; continuum, 50–54, 59–62
Celestial bodies; Incorporeal; extension, 49–50, 56
Soul; Virtue happiness and ends/goods, 228n6,
Bourdieu, Pierre 301–305, 308–316
causation and habitus, pantheism, 20, 49–50, 61, 152,
138n8, 178–185 245, 248n3, 304–305, 308,
materialist, 187n14 312, 316n3
Breath, see Active/passive rationality, 37n4, 276n14, 313
Brennan, Tad, 7, 209n6, 283 reason vs. emotion, 256–260, 265,
269, 275n12
self-dependence, 28, 39n15
C self-preservation, 74
Cato, 91n6 time, 47–54, 56–62, 64n11
community, 77, 90 void, 186n8
happiness, 82 Cicero, 28, 72, 91n4, 149
knowledge, 87 bodies, 175
self-preservation and hormé, 73–75, community, 77, 89
77, 82, 86 daimon, 32
suicide, 85 happiness, 295n1
Causation, 38n6, 113, 157, knowledge, 89, 103, 107, 115n9
185n1, 311 nature, 74–76, 83, 85, 87, 90
bodily, 173, 177–178, 180, pantheism, 50, 167n7, 177,
181, 183–185 187n11, 312
of climate change, 144–145, 147, self-preservation, 72–77, 83, 85–86,
148, 162 89, 91n5, 275n9
emotion and, 261, 262, 267, 271, Cleanthes, 9, 45, 63n3, 121
282, 286, 299, 316n1 city and justice, 244–246
INDEX 343
conflagration, 63n4 Deleuze, Gilles, 60

happiness, 301 Derrida, Jacques, 65n13, 210n9
pantheism, 149, 167n8, Descartes, René, 38n7, 38n9, 185n2
167n10, 245–246 Diogenes Laërtius, 63n3, 91n8,
reason vs. emotion, 258 92n13, 244
self-control, 282 active/passive, 61, 152, 176
virtue, 295n1 bodies, 182, 187n12
Climate change, 99, 143–147, 150, daimon, 32
156, 159–162, 166n1, fire, 168n14
166n3, 167n6 gender, 227n3
and rationality, 162–166 happiness, 228n6, 304, 309, 312
See also Causation; Ecology/ knowledge, 103
environment; Nature; pantheism, 20, 61, 152, 176, 304
Rationality part-whole universal relations,
Community, 77, 78, 133, 178, 182, 307, 308
198, 206, 236, 237, 289, rationality, 37n4
304–305, 308–312 self-preservation, 74, 75
born for, 2, 4, 17, 234, 243, 315 virtue, 302
universe, 239–246, 307, 315 Duration, see Intensive; Time
See also Family; Kinship; Whole Durkheim, Émile, 39n12, 39n13
Comte, Auguste, 11n8, 39n12, 317n5 bodies, 236–238, 248n6
Conception, see Preconception collective consciousness and
Conflagration, 63n4, 187n8 social order, 22–27,
Continuum, 187n8, 248n3 29–30, 35, 130
material, 60–62 freedom, 27–31
time, 44, 50–53, 56, 58–62, 66n16 religion, 22, 209n7
Control, see Bodies; Emotional labor; social facts, 23–29, 133–136,
Health; Knowledge; Rationality; 264, 276n18
Self-preservation structuralism, 26–31,
Cynics, 4 126–128, 209n7
suicide, 25, 27–30, 91n2,
127, 138n9
D
Daimon, 31–36, 39n17, 89, 275n11,
309, 313 E
Death, 267 Ecology/environment, 88, 120,
from extinction, 144–147, 166n3 234, 238–242
rationalization of, 35, 86, 122–123, human impact on the, 143–148,
138n6, 160–163, 166, 281, 160, 166n1, 166n2,
300, 310, 316n1 166n3, 167n6
and self-preservation, 84 Stoicism and the, 148–149, 151,
via suicide, 27 153–156, 161–166
See also Fear; Suicide See also Climate change; Nature
344 INDEX
Education, 8, 11n6, 37n3, 63n2, internal vs. external to self, 19, 22,
63n4, 121, 125, 132, 214, 24–36, 215, 274n5,
227n3, 228n4, 263, 274n6 279–289, 292–294
access for women to, 214, 216–219, ladder of existence, 19, 154–155
221, 223, 225–226, 227n2, negative visualization, 300
227n3, 317n6 pantheism, 18–20, 33–36, 153, 300
Meno’s paradox and, 115n5 philosophy as practice/life, 22,
rationality and, 262 39n11, 214, 280
as self-preservation, 83–86, 89 rational nature, 17–20, 32–36,
social/informal, 23, 24, 102 38n8, 102–111, 136n2,
training preconceptions via, 102, 154–155, 220, 234, 283,
109, 110 290, 296n7
See also Rationality; Self- reason vs. emotion, 255,
preservation; Training 274n5, 274n7
Emotion, see Causation; Emotional training, 281–286, 292
labor; Intensive; Rationality; Soul; Epicureans, 4, 82, 122, 168n15,
Training 300, 316n2
Emotional labor, 284–293, Eternal, 45–49, 53, 66n14, 89, 152,
296n4, 296n5 176–177, 220
See also Rationality; Time; Training See also Present; Time
Ends/goods, 38n10, 87, 102, 109, Ethics, see Appropriate acts; Ecology/
125, 155, 163, 234, 240, 245, environment; Rationality;
282, 295n3 Value; Virtue
as happiness, 11n1, 79–82, 228n6, Eudaimonia, see Happiness
301–304, 306, Extension, see Bodies;
308–309, 312–315 Continuum; Time
judgements of, 22, 108
of self-preservation, 72–76,
78, 89–90 F
See also Appropriate acts; Happiness; Falsifiability, see Science
Nature; Self- Family, 136n1, 194–199, 204–206,
preservation; Virtue 208n1, 227n3, 241, 243
Epictetus, 37n3, 39n14, 39n18, 160, philosophy serving the, 217–219
227n3, 228n5, 295n3 See also Community; Kinship
community, 234, 296n9 Fear, 21–22, 122–124, 128, 160, 162,
control, 21–22, 30–31, 38n9, 110, 256, 260, 280–283
243, 279–285, See also Death
289–294, 295n1 Fire, 152, 168n14
daimon, 33–36 See also Active/passive; Causation
emotional labor, 284–293 Freedom, 21, 27–30, 35, 37n5, 121,
freedom, 21, 28, 35, 37n5 138n7, 222
indifference, 25, 38n10, 280–289, Freud, Sigmund, 90n1, 136n1,
292–294, 295n3 273n1
INDEX 345
G Rationality; Self-preservation;
Galen Training; Virtue
active/passive, 61 Hard, Robin, 19, 26, 158, 159, 163,
causation, 176, 183, 187n10 168n16, 168n18, 242, 244,
rationality, 254 248n4, 249n9, 283, 296n9
reason vs. emotion, 33, 255–263, Harmony, see Community;
265, 267, 271, Justice; Kinship
275n12, 276n13 Health, 165, 247n1, 254–255
Game, Ann as controlled desire, 83, 85,
control, 267–268, 272 120–123, 128, 132, 137n5,
death, 267 274n7, 293
rationality, 264, 270, 276n17 physical, 73, 81, 166n3, 310–312
reason vs. emotion, 266–273 See also Happiness; Virtue
Gender, see Education; Emotional Heidegger, Martin, 57, 65, 66
labor; Rationality; Time; Virtue Heraclitus, 114n5, 168n14, 186n7
Genius, see Daimon Hierocles, 9, 10, 74, 194,
Giddens, Anthony 208n3, 208n4
ignorance vs. knowledge, 27, circles of community,
127–132, 134 194–199, 203–206
internal vs. external to self, self-preservation, 209n6
128, 135 Hochschild, Arlie
structuralism, 27, 39n12, 125–127, deep acting vs. surface
133, 138n8, 180 acting, 286–291
Gill, Christopher, 101, 187n10, 235, emotional labor, 284–295,
256, 275n12, 287 296n4
God, see Active/passive; Bodies; Holiday, Ryan, 3, 11n2, 137n2
Causation; Daimon; Eternal; Hormé, 71–75, 90, 255, 275n9
Ladder of existence; Nature; See also Pathê; Self-preservation
Order; Pantheism; Rationality;
Time; Whole
Government, 78 I
as administration of the universe, Impression, 18, 29, 37n4, 101,
138n7, 163, 245, 304 103–109, 112, 155
Grahn-Wilder, Malin, 195, 219, See also Knowledge; Obstacle;
223, 227n3 Preconception; Skepticism
Incest, 197, 205, 206, 209n7
prohibition is cultural not natural,
H 199–203, 205
Happiness vs. feeling pleasure, 2, Incorporeal, 48–49, 177, 181,
10n1, 32, 79, 82, 279, 184, 186n8
295n2, 299 See also Bodies; Time
See also Ends/goods; Health; Indifference, see Emotional labor;
Nature; Negative visualization; Rationality; Training
346 INDEX
Industrialization, see Climate change; Self-preservation;

Ecology/environment; Skepticism; Time
Emotional labor Konstantakos, Leonidas, 148–151,
Intensive, 55 154–156, 164
emotion, 317n7 Kristeva, Julia, 220, 228n8, 228n9
time, 58–62, 66n16 nature|culture division, 220–224
See also Time women’s time, 216–226
Inwood, Brad, 9, 112, 137n5, 180,
229n11, 248n3
Irrationality, See Rationality; Soul L
Irvine, William, 11n3, 37n2, 221, 300 Labor, see Emotional labor; Time;
Training
Ladder of existence, 19, 91n3, 155,
J 165, 240, 244–247
Judgement, see Ends/goods; Language, 57, 60, 87, 133, 247n1
Knowledge; Preconception; Law, 167n8, 199, 227n2, 234, 236,
Rationality, Soul 245, 253, 274n3
Justice, 72, 80, 102, 136n2, 174, 178, Levine, Michael, 153, 316n3
186n4, 215–219, 226, 245, 281, Lévi-Strauss, Claude
282, 311 incest, 197, 209n7
See also Rationality kinship, 196–207, 209n7
nature|culture division, 205, 209n9
Long, Anthony, 4, 9, 19, 38n8,
K 39n17, 49, 73, 74, 87, 91n7,
Kidd, I.G., 10, 32, 64n11, 258–259, 102–103, 113, 115n10, 138n7,
263, 265, 275n11 148, 152, 165, 186n4, 187n9,
Kinship, 36, 196–200, 203–207, 195, 202, 204, 205, 234, 245,
208n1, 209n7, 209n8 261, 305, 308, 309
See also Community; Family
Knowledge, 93n15, 114n4, 114n5,
115n6, 125, 159, 178, 214, 218, M
225, 248n8, 262, 269, 270, Marcus Aurelius, 39n18
292, 307 causation, 157, 162–165
control the world through, 110–112 community, 233–247, 248n5,
scientific, 86–89, 99, 105, 108–109, 274n4, 294, 296n9, 315
151, 226n1, 248n3 daimon, 33
of self and socialized self, 126–135 death, 159–162, 236
and self-preservation, 90 internal vs. external to self, 33, 36
Sextus vs. Stoics on, 100–105, 107, ladder of existence, 91n3,
112–113, 296n7 240, 244–246
as Stoic gesture, 106 materiality and order, 157, 161,
See also Impression; Obstacle; 164, 165, 168n14, 168n15,
Preconception; Science; 168n17, 234–238, 241
INDEX 347
pantheism, 36, 157–166, 168n18, 282–284, 288–290,

235–238, 242, 301–305, 308
244–246, 249n9 our communal, 77, 237, 239–247,
part-whole universal 274n4, 305, 315
relations, 234–247 our internal rational, 1, 3–4, 18–20,
self-preservation, 72, 91n3, 28, 32, 34, 81, 90, 102–104,
92n14 108, 110, 128, 130, 159, 201,
virtue, 137n2, 295n2 214, 219, 234, 244, 247,
Martineau, Harriet 253–255, 262, 274n4, 275n12,
education and gender, 317n6 279, 283, 288–290, 294, 300,
God/religion, 312–316 306, 310
happiness and morals/ as self-preservation, 72–77,
manners, 305–315 82–85, 209n6
virtue, 309–311 universal, 8, 18–20, 35, 38n8,
Marx, Karl, 39n12, 291–293 39n17, 39n19, 73, 76, 89–90,
Materiality, see Active/passive; Bodies; 102, 134, 149–166, 167n10,
Continuum; Fire; Nature; 177, 198, 201, 214, 228n6,
Pantheism; Whole 234, 237, 239–247, 248n3,
Mead, George, 248n7 249n9, 283, 301–305,
community, 240–242, 244–246 307–309, 312–314, 316n4
ecology/environment, 237–240 See also Appropriate acts; Climate
mind, 248n8 change; Ecology/environment;
time, 63n1 Ends/goods; Happiness;
Metcalfe, Andrew Order; Pantheism; Rationality;
control, 267–268, 272 Self-preservation;
death, 267 Virtue; Whole
rationality, 264, 270, 276n17 Negative visualization, 300, 316n1
reason vs. emotion, 266–273 Nussbaum, Martha, 215,
Modern Stoicism, 3, 11n2 217–219, 228n7
Musonius Rufus, 21, 38n10, 214,
227n4, 228n5, 228n9, 229n11
gender equality in education, O
214–221, 223–226, Obstacle
227n3, 228n7 as blessing/opportunity, 29, 119,
virtue, 215–218, 222 136–137n2
to knowledge, 103–105, 108
See also Impression; Knowledge;
N Preconception; Skepticism
Nature Oikeiôsis, see Self-preservation
living in accordance with, 76, Oldfather, William, 39n14,
85–86, 92n14, 108, 109, 106, 283
115n10, 122–125, 129, 137n2, See also Causation; Nature;
138n7, 150, 228n6, 273, Pantheism; Rationality
348 INDEX
Order, 38n9, 197, 254, 271–273, 282 Platonism vs. Stoicism, 6, 10n1,
of a rational universe, 20, 38n7, 31–33, 37n6, 64n9, 79–81, 152,
38n8, 151, 153, 157, 164–165, 173–175, 186n4, 217, 256–258,
236, 241–243, 245, 300, 261, 266, 268, 271,
304, 312 275n12, 276n15
socially structured, 22, 25, 111, time for, 45–50
127, 181, 183, 202, 273n1 Pleasure, see Happiness;
Self-preservation
Plutarch, 206, 208n3
P bodies, 49, 61, 76
Pantheism, 19, 20, 33–36, 39n17, ends/goods, 245, 311
49–50, 61, 88–89, 148–166, happiness, 304, 313
167n10, 175–177, 183, 186n7, pantheism, 248n3
187n11, 235, 242, 246, 248n3, reason vs. emotion, 260
294, 304, 308, 312, subsistence and time, 54, 59
316n3, 316n4 Pneuma, see Active/passive; Fire
See also Nature; Order; Posidonius, 9, 132, 274n6, 274n8
Rationality; Whole daimon, 32, 254, 275n11
Passion, see Rationality; Soul reason vs. emotion, 32, 255–263,
Pathê, 255, 274n8 265–272, 275n11, 275n12,
See also Hormé 276n13, 276n15
Philosophy as practice/life, 3, time, 51, 64n11
6, 11n2, 11n3, 18, 30, 37n2, training, 263, 268
39n11, 71–72, 112, 119, 156, Preconception, 100–105, 107–112,
174, 187n14, 196, 214, 114n5, 115n10
217–219, 221, 225, 229n11, See also Impression; Knowledge;
280, 302 Obstacle; Rationality; Science;
Pigliucci, Massimo, 3, 121, 138n6, Skepticism
150, 167n9 Present, 48, 63n1, 161, 174, 183
Plato, 115n6, 187n13, 208n3 being present, 43–45, 53, 58, 59,
active/passive, 152, 167n12, 175 62, 63n2
education, 114n5, 217 point of time, 50–54, 56–62,
gender, 217, 226n1, 227n3 65n13, 66n14
God, 31 socially structured, 23, 30, 89, 127,
happiness and virtue, 79–82 133, 134, 183, 240
justice, 186n4 See also Eternal; Time
reason vs. emotion, 39n16,
256–258, 261, 275n10,
275n12, 276n15, 276n19 R
soul, 32, 92n11, 174, 257, 266 Ramelli, Ilaria, 10, 194, 208n4
time, 45–50, 63n6, 65n12, Rationality, 38n7, 149, 198, 235,
66n18 253, 276n15
INDEX 349
vs. emotion, 32–33, 39n16, 122, Reydams-Schils, Gretchen, 39n19,

253–273, 274n3, 274n7, 121, 152, 209n6, 215,
275n10, 275n11, 275n12, 228n5
276n13, 276n19 Robertson, Donald, 11n2,
as happiness and virtuousness, 10n1, 268, 281
32, 79–83, 108, 137n5, 228n6,
279, 282, 299, 301, 308,
312, 313 S
hierarchy of, 18, 20, 37n4, 37n6, Science, 48, 93n15, 154, 168n14,
154–156, 165, 220, 240, 244, 226n1, 235, 248n3, 254,
255–260, 263, 274n6, 316n2
276n14, 276n15 objective knowledge of, 24, 55,
and internal self, 2, 28, 32–36, 159, 86–88, 90, 99–101, 105–113,
259, 262, 266, 274n7, 113n1, 113n2, 114n3, 114n4,
275n11, 283, 310 115n8, 264–266,
and preconceptions, 276n17, 276n18
102–105, 107–110 self-preservation through, 88–90
same for both genders, 214, 219 social, 23, 39n12, 86, 113n1, 220,
and science, 87, 90, 93n15, 110, 305–308, 311, 314
254, 263–266, 274n3, vs. theology, 88–89, 149–153,
276n17, 276n18 167n10, 316n4
socially structured, 23, 127, 131, See also Knowledge; Preconception;
134, 200, 234, 244–247, Rationality; Skepticism
263–265, 270, 274n4, 315 Sedley, David, 9, 49, 58, 64n8, 74,
universal, 2, 18–20, 23, 32–36, 113, 115n10, 138n7, 152,
38n8, 39n17, 61, 76, 88, 90, 186n3, 187n9, 195, 202, 204,
91n3, 129, 133, 134, 205, 245, 261, 295n3, 301,
149–154, 157–166, 167n8, 305, 308
168n18, 176, 201, 214, Self-preservation, 91n3
235–238, 244–246, 264, collectively oriented, 76–79, 85,
274n4, 288, 294, 300, 89–90, 92n10, 92n12
304, 312 knowledge as, 84–90, 108
See also Climate change; Education; our natural mode is, 71–90, 90n1,
Happiness; Justice; Nature; 123, 209n6
Order; Pantheism; vs. pleasure, 74–75, 80–83
Preconception; Science; See also Appropriate acts; Causation;
Self-preservation; Soul; Education; Ends/goods;
Virtue; Whole Happiness; Hormé;
Reason versus emotion, see Emotional Knowledge; Nature;
labor; Nature; Preconception; Rationality; Suicide
Rationality; Soul; Training; Virtue Sellars, John, 11n1, 54, 93n15, 107,
Religion, 22, 88, 209n7, 312–316 138n5, 206
350 INDEX
Seneca, 120, 137n3, 167n10 Socratism vs. Stoicism, 10n1, 37n6,

daimon, 33 38n8, 64n9, 79–82, 106,
ecology/environment, 152, 173–175, 186n4,
119–121, 148 256–258, 261, 266,
fear, 122–124, 128–129 276n15, 295n3
friendship, 208n2 time, 45–50
health and death, 120–123, 138n6 Sorabji, Richard, 85, 260
ignorance, 123–125, 127–133 Soul, 137n5, 149, 152, 159, 163,
knowledge, 132–136, 266 167n10, 293
negative visualization, 300, 316n1 body vs., 82, 174–175, 180,
social arts, 125–134 186n4, 311
Sex, 196–204, 207, 255, 257 as counter of time, 47–50
Sextus Empiricus, 187n9 as daimon, 32, 33
active/passive, 176–177 is divided into faculties, 32, 39n16,
bodies, 182 80–81, 256–259, 261–263,
incorporeal, 48, 177, 181 266, 269, 274n7,
Skepticism, 100 275n10, 275n11
time, 48, 316n2 See also Bodies; Rationality; Time
vs. Stoics on knowledge, Spencer, Herbert
101–105, 108, 112–113, education, 78, 83–87
115n10, 296n7 evolution, 92n9, 92n10
Skepticism, 100–101, 112 happiness, 79, 81–85
See also Impression; Knowledge; rationality, 82, 90
Obstacle; religion, 88–89
Preconception; Science science, 86–90
Social arts, 125–128, 131 self-preservation, 78
Social Darwinism, 78, 92n10 structuralism, 209n7
Social facts, 23–26, 29, 111, 135, 264 Staniforth, Maxwell, 33, 137n2,
Socrates, 132, 187n13 157, 274n4
active/passive, 152, 167n12, 175 Stephens, William, 18, 37n5,
celestial bodies, 45–49 154–155, 160, 165, 236,
ends/goods, 295n3 290, 292
gender, 227n3 Stobaeus, 208n4
God, 31 bodies, 61, 180, 215
happiness and virtue, 79–82, 106 causation, 183
justice, 186n4 community, 198, 202–204
knowledge, 114n5 education, 216–218, 225
reason vs. emotion, 39n16, family, 194, 195, 205, 223
256–258, 261, gender, 214, 221, 223
275n10, 276n15 happiness, 79, 301–303, 306,
soul, 174, 257, 266 309, 310
time, 45–50, 65n12, 66n18 justice, 245
INDEX 351
knowledge, 109, 214 required for emotional labor, 284,

rationality, 276n14 291–295, 296n5
subsistence, 54 socially constructed, 55, 57, 60,
time, 48–51, 56, 58, 64n11 144, 146–147
virtue, 215, 222, 305 Stoics vs. other ancients, 45–54,
void, 187n8 57, 64n7, 64n9, 65n12,
Stoicism Today, see Modern 65n13, 66n14, 66n17,
Stoicism 66n18
Striker, Gisela, 3, 38n8, 308 and timelessness, 5, 23, 86, 99,
Subsistence, 49, 54, 59, 160 113n1, 242
See also Belonging See also Continuum; Emotional
Substance, see Active/passive; Bodies; labor; Eternal; Incorporeal;
Continuum; Fire; Nature; Intensive; Knowledge;
Pantheism; Whole Present; Soul
Suicide, 25, 27, 29–30, 85–86, Training
91n2, 92n12, 92n13, emotional labor as self-,
138n9, 295n3 281–293
See also Death; Self-preservation of internal Stoic self, 4, 125,
196, 263
philosophical education as self-,
T 216, 226
Time, 53, 129, 134, 138n6, 163, See also Education; Emotional labor;
166n4, 167n5, 177, 240, Happiness
316n2 Truth, see Impression; Knowledge;
and change/motion, 45–53, Preconception; Science;
56, 64n7, 64n10, Skepticism
64n11 Two cultures problem, 113n1
divided continuum, 43–45, 51–54,
56, 58–62
durationless present that is outside, U
51–54, 58, 60, 65n12, Universe as a city, see Community;
65n13, 66n14 Government; Justice; Order;
and environment, 144, 146–148, Pantheism
160, 167n6
extensive, separate points of, 55–58,
60, 62, 64n10, 66n16, 66n17, V
129, 146 Value, 155, 222
gendered, 219–226, exchange, 210n10, 291–292
228n10, 229n12 orientations, 100, 105–112,
incorporeal, 48–50 275n12, 280–282
intensive, duration, 58–62, of philosophy, 122, 217
66n15, 66n16 of science, 86, 115n8
352 INDEX
Virtue, 32, 156, 157, 165, 245 Whole, 39n19

and action, 72, 79–82, vs. everything, 186n8
303, 308–312 pantheistic, 149, 152, 156,
bodies and, 174, 175 249n9, 312
communally oriented, 308–316 part-whole universal relations, 19,
all genders can have, 215–219, 27, 35–36, 157–166, 168n15,
222, 227n3 168n17, 234–239, 244,
and knowledge, 109 302, 307
opportunity for, 119, 137n2 See also Causation; Community;
as rationality and happiness, 10n1, Nature; Pantheism; Rationality
32, 79–83, 108, 137n5, 163, Wisdom, see Rationality; Virtue
165, 228n6, 279, 282, 295n1,
295n2, 299–315
vs. vice, 37n5 Z
See also Bodies; Ends/goods; Zeno of Citium, 9, 45, 63n3, 91n8,
Happiness; Health; Nature; 132, 173, 186n3, 244
Rationality bodies and causation, 173–178,
Void, 186n8 180, 182–184, 186n4
conflagration, 187n8
gender, 227n3
W happiness, 301
Wealth, 80, 120, 122, 137n4, justice, 186n4
137n5, 310 knowledge, 87, 103, 106,
Weber, Max 112, 115n9
control, 110 pantheism, 152, 175–177
science and value, 105–113, reason vs. emotion, 258, 260
276n17 self-preservation, 72–76
Whiting, Kai, 148–151, soul, 174–175, 178, 180
154–156, 164 time, 48, 50

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Stoic Philosophy

and Social Theory

ISBN 978-3-030-43152-5 ISBN 978-3-030-43153-2 (eBook)

To everyone I have informally discussed this book with since conceiving of

1 Introduction: Essential Versus External Social Being 1

2 Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus and Émile

3 When Are You Present? Chrysippus and Henri Bergson

4 Why Do You Care About Yourself? The Early Stoics and

Part II Knowledges and Epistemologies 97

5 Do Preconceptions Determine New Knowledge? Epictetus

6 Do People Know Why They Travel? Seneca and Anthony

Part III Physical Conditions 141

7 Is Climate Change Natural? Marcus Aurelius and Barbara

8 What Causes Your Behaviors? Zeno and Pierre Bourdieu

Part IV Collective Ethics 191

9 How Do We Regulate Our Affection for Others?

10 Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia

11 Is It Natural to Be Social? Marcus Aurelius and George

12 Is Reason External to Passion? Posidonius, Ann Game,

13 Who Benefits from the Management of Feelings?

14 How Individual Is Happiness? Chrysippus and Harriet

Will Johncock researches social theory, continental philosophy, and Stoic

Introduction: Essential Versus External

What Does This Book Contribute? Why Now?

© The Author(s) 2020 1

interest in Stoicism. This resurgence is evident in both public and aca-

conceptions of what is internal versus external to our nature or self. Where

Modern anthropologists have accustomed us to think of selves and their

This posits a distinction between a true Stoic individual nature and a

There is a second contribution that I anticipate this project will make.

the “then versus now” separation we can conceive of what is common or

Original Theoretical Intersections

With this notion of transgenerational relations in mind, this book’s focus

destabilized accordingly. Evidencing the practicality of theory in fact ful-

that Stoic philosophy can gain a greater prominence in tertiary education

life (Sellars 2016a) but is reconfigured in accordance with rational activity.

Sedley, David. 1999a. Hellenistic Physics and Metaphysics. In The Cambridge

Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus

You Are Part of a Rational and Ordered Universe

© The Author(s) 2020 17

an understanding of these sense-impressions and of our broader nature

phenomenal patterns. We all draw generalized rules from localized sce-

Epictetus argues that these omnipresent and regularized connections are

Things over Which You Have Control

It is probable that Epictetus developed this conception of the control that

2005, 9; Stephens 2007, xiv).11 The contrary motivation is that people

The Social Role in Individual Consciousness

Durkheim presents a thought-based description of what is collectively

combined, something in the world has been altered” (Durkheim 1952

inescapably socially embedded, whether we “admire” or reject social phe-

interesting ramifications for Epictetus’ claims regarding the freedom of

depend on us to what we have complete internal control over; our impres-

internal consciousness is present in the social structures that structure

has emerged is a potential destabilization of the entombed separability of

A Universally Dispersed Internality

touches upon of avoiding frivolous social activity is also important to

Dyson identifies an influence here in Epictetus’ chronologically preceding

… in Stoic theology, each person’s reason (logos) is literally a portion of

Epictetus’ daimon is not straightforwardly representative of either an

1 Introduction: Essential Versus External Social Being 1

2 Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus and Émile

3 When Are You Present? Chrysippus and Henri Bergson

4 Why Do You Care About Yourself? The Early Stoics and

Part II Knowledges and Epistemologies 97

5 Do Preconceptions Determine New Knowledge? Epictetus

6 Do People Know Why They Travel? Seneca and Anthony

Part III Physical Conditions 141

7 Is Climate Change Natural? Marcus Aurelius and Barbara

8 What Causes Your Behaviors? Zeno and Pierre Bourdieu

Part IV Collective Ethics 191

9 How Do We Regulate Our Affection for Others?

10 Can Education Be Egalitarian? Musonius Rufus and Julia

11 Is It Natural to Be Social? Marcus Aurelius and George

12 Is Reason External to Passion? Posidonius, Ann Game,

13 Who Benefits from the Management of Feelings?

14 How Individual Is Happiness? Chrysippus and Harriet

Epictetus and Marcus, and Durkheim, exhibit a common belief in a part-

belonging and subsistence in terms of time’s “belonging” and “non-

In order to explore this collegial component of why living beings self-