When I have noticed myself slipping in the practice and application of Stoicism, Epictetus Discourse 3.2 is the place I turn to most often, Epictetus lays out the 3 disciplines, or domains, that we must train in to become good.
I don't think we can get control of our desires and aversions without a firm grasp of the true value of things. If we keep eating too much cake it's likely because we still ascribe too much value on pleasure and too little value on virtue. When I feel myself sliding backwards it's very often when my lack of trust in the universe is challenged. My go to passage is the following from Seneca where he talks about the division of ethics:
"Canonically, this is subdivided into three branches. The first assigns to each thing its proper value and determines what it is worth. This is an extremely useful investigation, for what is as needful as putting the price on things? The second deals with impulse, and the third with actions. That is to say, the objectives of ethics are first, to enable you to judge what each thing is worth; second, to enable you to entertain a well-adjusted and controlled impulse with respect to them; and third, to enable you to achieve harmony between your impulse and your action so that you may be consistent in all your behavior. Any defect in one of these three areas also causes disturbance to the others. What good is it to have made a comparative assessment of everything if your impulses are ungoverned? What good is it to have restrained your impulses and have your desires under control if in your actions themselves you are insensitive to circumstances and don't know the proper time and place and manner of doing each thing? It is one thing to understand the worth and value of things; it is another to understand the demands of the moment, and something else again to restrain one's impulses and to proceed to what one has to do without rushing into things. A life is harmonious with itself only when action does not fall short of impulse and when impulse is generated on the basis of what each thing is worth, varying in its intensity according to the worth of its objective".
Thanks, I really enjoy that passage from Seneca as well. And yeah too much value on pleasure and not enough trust in the cosmos. And actually it is that passage from Seneca that has me questioning the attempt to place Epictetus disciplines, or domains, into Physics, Ethics, and Logic. They are all ethics to me, and his domains are very similar to what Seneca lays out here.
Definitely that is for sure. But with all the talk of the 3 disciplines, I have found it more helpful to consider them not as desire-physics, assent-logic, action-ethics. And instead consider them all as the full application of Stoic theory, physics, logic, and ethics. And because they are dealing with our actions and behaviour they fall under the ethics, but the ethics all comes out of the physics plus the logic.
And that is how I read Seneca in saying
"That is to say, the objectives of ethics are first, to enable you to judge what each thing is worth; second, to enable you to entertain a well-adjusted and controlled impulse with respect to them; and third, to enable you to achieve harmony between your impulse and your action so that you may be consistent in all your behavior."
We need the Stoic physics and logic to make sense of any of that.
There is also this passage from Seneca where he basically says the same thing as in the other passage but this time moves upwards - from actions to principles:
"virtue is the understanding of both itself and of other things. We must learn all about virtue in order to learn virtue. An action will not be right unless one’s intention is right, since that is the source of the action. The intention will not be right, in its turn, unless the mental disposition is right, since that is the source of the intention. Further, the mental disposition will not be optimal unless the person has grasped the laws of life as a whole, has settled on the judgments needing to be made about each thing—unless he has brought the truth to bear on his situation. Peace of mind depends on securing an unchanging and definite judgment. Other people constantly lose and regain their footing, as they oscillate between letting things go and pursuing them."
I don't think we can get control of our desires and aversions without a firm grasp of the true value of things. If we keep eating too much cake it's likely because we still ascribe too much value on pleasure and too little value on virtue. When I feel myself sliding backwards it's very often when my lack of trust in the universe is challenged. My go to passage is the following from Seneca where he talks about the division of ethics:
"Canonically, this is subdivided into three branches. The first assigns to each thing its proper value and determines what it is worth. This is an extremely useful investigation, for what is as needful as putting the price on things? The second deals with impulse, and the third with actions. That is to say, the objectives of ethics are first, to enable you to judge what each thing is worth; second, to enable you to entertain a well-adjusted and controlled impulse with respect to them; and third, to enable you to achieve harmony between your impulse and your action so that you may be consistent in all your behavior. Any defect in one of these three areas also causes disturbance to the others. What good is it to have made a comparative assessment of everything if your impulses are ungoverned? What good is it to have restrained your impulses and have your desires under control if in your actions themselves you are insensitive to circumstances and don't know the proper time and place and manner of doing each thing? It is one thing to understand the worth and value of things; it is another to understand the demands of the moment, and something else again to restrain one's impulses and to proceed to what one has to do without rushing into things. A life is harmonious with itself only when action does not fall short of impulse and when impulse is generated on the basis of what each thing is worth, varying in its intensity according to the worth of its objective".
- Seneca, Letters 89.14-15
Thanks, I really enjoy that passage from Seneca as well. And yeah too much value on pleasure and not enough trust in the cosmos. And actually it is that passage from Seneca that has me questioning the attempt to place Epictetus disciplines, or domains, into Physics, Ethics, and Logic. They are all ethics to me, and his domains are very similar to what Seneca lays out here.
I think Seneca makes it clear that there can be no ethics without physics. Without physics in the Stoic sense, we can have no theory of value.
Definitely that is for sure. But with all the talk of the 3 disciplines, I have found it more helpful to consider them not as desire-physics, assent-logic, action-ethics. And instead consider them all as the full application of Stoic theory, physics, logic, and ethics. And because they are dealing with our actions and behaviour they fall under the ethics, but the ethics all comes out of the physics plus the logic.
And that is how I read Seneca in saying
"That is to say, the objectives of ethics are first, to enable you to judge what each thing is worth; second, to enable you to entertain a well-adjusted and controlled impulse with respect to them; and third, to enable you to achieve harmony between your impulse and your action so that you may be consistent in all your behavior."
We need the Stoic physics and logic to make sense of any of that.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly
There is also this passage from Seneca where he basically says the same thing as in the other passage but this time moves upwards - from actions to principles:
"virtue is the understanding of both itself and of other things. We must learn all about virtue in order to learn virtue. An action will not be right unless one’s intention is right, since that is the source of the action. The intention will not be right, in its turn, unless the mental disposition is right, since that is the source of the intention. Further, the mental disposition will not be optimal unless the person has grasped the laws of life as a whole, has settled on the judgments needing to be made about each thing—unless he has brought the truth to bear on his situation. Peace of mind depends on securing an unchanging and definite judgment. Other people constantly lose and regain their footing, as they oscillate between letting things go and pursuing them."
- Seneca, Letters 95.57
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