Thank you for the write up Massimo. I welcome criticism and everything here is civil and constructive - we can agree to disagree on a few points and that's all good.
One point I will pick up is this:
"I’m not sure Stoicism was ever designed to change society, as that may be a bit too much to ask from a personal philosophy of life."
Think of Zeno's Republic - written by the very founder of the school - the bottom-up radicalism of that egalitarian vision (compared to Plato's top-down Republic). Stoicism is absolutely "political" in a broad sense and certianly anarchic (in the best possible way) in flavour. No temples, no law courts, no borders. Of course, it's utopianism, but it's a lode star for meaningful change in society, starting with attitudes.
My (new) reading group just discussed Book One, chapters 18 and 19 from Epictetus's Discourses, and those are two chapters that are absolutely concerned with social change and even political transformation (What makes it more pointed is that Epictetus, a manumitted slave, was teaching the future Roman elite (Arrian among them)).
The beauty of Stoicism is the seamless way it flows through the personal and the social (which ties back to my notion of the Stoic Non-Self), the "politics" (for want of a better word) flows from the personal and vice versa. This is why contintgency is such a concern to me. If I reject universals (of science and religion), the best traction I can get - from the human condition - is conditional necessity... that will do for me to reconstruct Stoicism.
Anyway - I'm honoured that you spent the time to consider my ideas in detail, and I look forward to reading your own. Very best wishes, Steve.
Religion is, at its best, experiential. As having been through two “NDE’s” (Near Death Experiences), it is amazing to me that, regardless of religious upbringing or inclination, the experiences are essentially the same regardless of background. People having experienced this are (to the best of my studies), without exception, changed profoundly.
This leads me to believe that there is an “uncaused first cause” as the Greeks called it.
Science also bears witness to the “exquisite fine tuning” of our universe to support life.
To assert that all of this is the product of random chance is somewhat irrational, in my opinion.
Ethics is the study of “right and wrong “ actions. Without some framework or meaning or absolutes: some reference, it soon degenerates into “moral relativism “.
The conscious sense of “right and wrong “ (conscience) seems to be programmed to a certain extent in all humans (minus sociopaths).
Latin “con + scio”). To know together- with whom? Certainly “each other”, but might there not, perhaps, be a higher power as well?
I think it is possible to have a nearly objective ethics if one reasons as the libertarian philosophers do, from the standpoint of human action. That humans act is axiomatic. *How* humans act towards each other is the basis of ethics. After all, just because Stoics decide to act ethically for the good of themselves and others doesn't mean anyone else is obligated to do so. But to then couch the rights of acting humans in the sphere of other acting humans necessitates some prior restraints, famously starting with "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins" or some such.
Could you comment on Richard Dawkins' and others' assertion that we don't need religion to be moral? It seems to me that virtue is independent of imaginary religions...
Thank you for the write up Massimo. I welcome criticism and everything here is civil and constructive - we can agree to disagree on a few points and that's all good.
One point I will pick up is this:
"I’m not sure Stoicism was ever designed to change society, as that may be a bit too much to ask from a personal philosophy of life."
Think of Zeno's Republic - written by the very founder of the school - the bottom-up radicalism of that egalitarian vision (compared to Plato's top-down Republic). Stoicism is absolutely "political" in a broad sense and certianly anarchic (in the best possible way) in flavour. No temples, no law courts, no borders. Of course, it's utopianism, but it's a lode star for meaningful change in society, starting with attitudes.
My (new) reading group just discussed Book One, chapters 18 and 19 from Epictetus's Discourses, and those are two chapters that are absolutely concerned with social change and even political transformation (What makes it more pointed is that Epictetus, a manumitted slave, was teaching the future Roman elite (Arrian among them)).
The beauty of Stoicism is the seamless way it flows through the personal and the social (which ties back to my notion of the Stoic Non-Self), the "politics" (for want of a better word) flows from the personal and vice versa. This is why contintgency is such a concern to me. If I reject universals (of science and religion), the best traction I can get - from the human condition - is conditional necessity... that will do for me to reconstruct Stoicism.
Anyway - I'm honoured that you spent the time to consider my ideas in detail, and I look forward to reading your own. Very best wishes, Steve.
So far so good. I can hardly wait for the next essay. In the meantime, I'll meditate on the non-self and the 5 aggravates. It helps keep me sane.
Religion is, at its best, experiential. As having been through two “NDE’s” (Near Death Experiences), it is amazing to me that, regardless of religious upbringing or inclination, the experiences are essentially the same regardless of background. People having experienced this are (to the best of my studies), without exception, changed profoundly.
This leads me to believe that there is an “uncaused first cause” as the Greeks called it.
Science also bears witness to the “exquisite fine tuning” of our universe to support life.
To assert that all of this is the product of random chance is somewhat irrational, in my opinion.
Ethics is the study of “right and wrong “ actions. Without some framework or meaning or absolutes: some reference, it soon degenerates into “moral relativism “.
The conscious sense of “right and wrong “ (conscience) seems to be programmed to a certain extent in all humans (minus sociopaths).
Latin “con + scio”). To know together- with whom? Certainly “each other”, but might there not, perhaps, be a higher power as well?
I think it is possible to have a nearly objective ethics if one reasons as the libertarian philosophers do, from the standpoint of human action. That humans act is axiomatic. *How* humans act towards each other is the basis of ethics. After all, just because Stoics decide to act ethically for the good of themselves and others doesn't mean anyone else is obligated to do so. But to then couch the rights of acting humans in the sphere of other acting humans necessitates some prior restraints, famously starting with "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins" or some such.
Could you comment on Richard Dawkins' and others' assertion that we don't need religion to be moral? It seems to me that virtue is independent of imaginary religions...
Philosophers speculate, God laughs