STOICISM

a school of thought that flourished in Greek and Roman antiquity. It was one of the loftiest and most sublime philosophies in the record of Western civilization. In urging participation in the affairs of man, Stoics have always believed that the goal of all inquiry is to provide man with a mode of conduct characterized by tranquillity of mind and certainty of moral worth. a school of philosophy in Greco-Roman antiquity that stressed duty and held that, through reason, man can come to regard the universe (both physical and moral) as governed by fate and, despite appearances, as fundamentally rational; that, in the regulation of his life, he can thus emulate the grandeur of the calm and order of the universe by learning to accept events with a stern and tranquil mind (apathy) and to achieve a lofty moral worth; and that, in contrast to the Epicurean view, man, as a world citizen, is obliged to play an active role in public affairs. A brief treatent of Stoicism follows. For full treatment, see Philosophical Schools and Doctrines, Western: Stoicism. The Stoic movement was founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium (Cyprus) c. 300 BC and was influential throughout the Greco-Roman world up to at least AD 200. The name derives from the Stoa Poikile (Painted Colonnade), adjacent to the Athenian agora, where Zeno gave public lectures. Inspired by the teaching of Socrates and the Cynic Diogenes, Zeno's philosophy began as a radical criticism of conventional moral attitudes. The good for man, he argued, is not health, wealth, or any set of values that identify happiness with worldly success. Strictly speaking, only virtue and vice are good and bad, respectively; virtue alone (a wholesome state of mind) is always beneficial, and vice alone (an unwholesome state of mind) is always harmful. Everything else is indifferent for happiness, since wealth or health (for instance) can be used well or badly. A virtuous man has all that he needs for happiness. A morally weak man is completely unhappy, no matter what conventional advantages he possesses. Thus happiness and unhappiness are not dependent upon the chances of birth, upbringing, and the other contingencies of life. Every person, through his reasoning faculty, has the natural resources for living well. Emotional disturbance is an indication of mistaken values: fear, passionate desire, grief, etc., are the states of an unhealthy mind, since a virtuous man is in full possession of every good at every moment. His virtue is impregnable to all the ordinarily distressing vicissitudes of fortune. In acting virtuously, the good man seeks to improve the material conditions of other people and of himself, but the worth of his actions consists in their virtuous intention and not in their successful execution, as viewed from outside. This ethical doctrine accounts for the appeal of Stoicism in antiquity. It transcended the traditional boundaries of race, status, and sex. By internalizing the foundations of happiness, and by identifying these with the virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and moderation, Stoicism helped to promote the ideal of a common humanity, bonded together through acts of mutual benefit. In the diverse communities of the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire, Stoicism offered an ethical system that could support the individual in adversity; at the same time it gave positive encouragement to a natural law for society, based upon the essential moral nature of all its members. Ethical doctrine was the core of Stoicism. It is this aspect of the philosophy that has been made most familiar to Western civilization through the surviving books of Cicero (not a Stoic himself), and the Roman Stoics, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. These men, however, were writing long after the time of Zeno. The early development of Stoicism into an elaborate system was accomplished by Zeno's associates and successors at Athensother Greek speakers of eastern origin, including Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Panaetius, and Poseidonius. Their work made important and original contributions to cosmology, physics, logic, and psychology. The trenchant criticism of Stoic views on these subjects and on ethics by the Academic Skeptics (Plato's successors at Athens) prompted many important refinements of the philosophy. While much that was written by the early Stoics has been lost, a coherent outline of their system may be drawn from the works remaining. In the classic Stoic view, the world consists of a divinely determined sequence of events, whereby God, as all-pervading, rational agent, gives energy and form to unshaped matter. All particular bodies are composites of God in matter, but the human mind is a fragment of God in God's identity as divine mind. In advocating life in accordance with nature, the Stoics supposed that a person who perfects his own reason is living in harmony with cosmic nature. Acceptance of everything with equanimity was grounded, as a doctrine, in the assumption that all happens for the best, since the world that exists is the best of all worlds possible. Nature can be securely understood by attending to those sense-impressions that are indubitable. The wise man (a paradigm of virtue invoked by the Stoics) is infallible in his empirical and moral judgments. His mental disposition can be described as truth, a microcosm of the harmonious order that characterizes nature at large. The wise man is also a master of argument. Under Chrysippus, Stoicism came to be noted for technical discoveries in propositional logic, and it also developed theories of language, which became the foundations of traditional grammar. These activities went well beyond the philosophy's primary concerns with ethics; yet they were justified as consistent with the cultivation of rationality, man's specific function. By the time of Cicero, Stoicism was the most widely diffused intellectual movement in the Mediterranean world. Its creative impulses were largely over, but it persisted as a powerful moral doctrine, acknowledged in life and literature. In writers such as Philo of Alexandria (early Roman Empire), Stoicism and popular Platonism are curiously blended. This amalgam of both philosophies, together with that of Aristotle, is reflected in much of the writings of the Christian Fathers. Reformulations of Stoic doctrines have appeared periodically into modern times. Additional reading Hans von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, 4 vol. (190524), is the standard text collection for Stoicism. The following works of classic Stoic authors and substantive issues in Stoicism in antiquity are most conveniently available in the Loeb Classical Library: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations; Epictetus, Discourses; Cicero, De fato, De finibus, De natura deorum, and Academica; Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. 2, book 7; Seneca, Epistulae Morales and Moral Essays; Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Dogmatists, 4 vol.; George Murray, The Stoic Philosophy (1915), the classical statement of the grandeur of the Stoic philosophy; Max Pohlenz, Die Stoa, 2 vol. (194849); and Paul Barth, Die Stoa (1903), are representative of scholarly studies of Stoic philosophy; Johnny Christensen, An Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy (1962), is a comprehensive essay; Ludwig Edelstein, The Meaning of Stoicism (1966); and Josiah B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus (1970), are among the best of modern studies of Greco-Roman Stoicism; Eduard Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 5 vol. (185668; in part translated as Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics, rev. ed., 1962); Edwyn R. Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics (1913, reprinted 1959); and Robert D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean (1910, reprinted 1962), are illustrations of Stoic philosophy in the Hellenistic period. See also Jason L. Saunders, Greek and Roman Philosophy After Aristotle (1966); and Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 2 vol. (1962). Edward V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism (1911, reprinted 1958); and Frederick W. Bussell, Marcus Aurelius and the Later Stoics (1910), are excellent statements of Stoicism in the later Roman period. Pierre de Labriolle, Histoire de la littrature latine chrtienne (1920; Eng. trans., History and Literature of Christianity from Tertullian to Boethius, 1924), an excellent presentation of the influence of Stoic views in late antiquity and the patristic period; Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (1955); Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, 3rd ed. rev. (1970); Maurice de Wulf, Histoire de la philosophie mdivale, 2 vol. (1925; Eng. trans., History of Mediaeval Philosophy, 2 vol., 1926); and Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (1940), are careful introductions to Stoic influences in patristic and medieval times; Jason L. Saunders, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism (1955); Harold Hoffding, A History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vol. (1950); and Frederick C. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, rev. ed., vol. 36 (1962), trace the Stoic influence from its revival in the Renaissance into modern philosophy. John M. Rist (ed.), The Stoics (1978), is an excellent collection of essays covering logic, cosmology, ethics, psychology, and aesthetics. Stoic logic and physics are treated in Benson Mates, Stoic Logic (1953); Samuel Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks, 2nd ed. (1960; orig. pub. in Hebrew) and Physics of the Stoics (1959).