Engaging Stoicism II (2012)

Shortly after I wrote my post on Stoicism, I perused through my Evernote and noted a journal entry from 2012. It focuses on “living in the present” which, according to P. Hadot, is a central theme in both Stoicism and Epicureanism. What follows is the ensuing meditation for that day (with a brief editorial brush up). I still stand by those words.

For the Stoics and Epicureans “carpe diem” had a very specific meaning, and so did prosoche (mindful attention). Here is how I would summarize and appropriate their insights (with minor editorial brush-up. I still stand by most of these observations.

1. We are a part of an intelligently crafted universe. You are a part of this cosmopolis.

2. View things from a bird’s-eye perspective.

3. Keep in mind the trichotomy/dichotomy of desire. In other words, what is up to us and what is not.

4. Dwell in the present. Have no regrets about the past or anxiety about the future.

5. Privilege the purity of moral conscience.

6. The Other is God's will for me in this moment.

7. Nurture a connection with humanity, both synchronically (in the present) and diachronically (historically). Do so by prayer, intercession, and remembrance.

8. Practicing the presence of God is about willing determination and determined willing, in other words, an act of will. Do so by nurturing an awareness of and conversation with the divine. 

9. Live today as if it was your last day.

10. Discern the presence of God through evocations of beauty: nature, music, and art in general.

The Therapeutic Power of Stoic Techniques

Donald Robertson has written some great material on the intersection of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Stoicism, including How to Think Like a Roman Emperor and Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. In his article “Stoic Philosophy as a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy,” for instance, he provides a good list of techniques of interest not only to therapists but also anyone striving for a greater measure of equanimity. I am reproducing them here in full, helpful that they are in their comprehensiveness and practicality:

1. Socratic Questioning, which was used by Socrates to undermine irrational assumptions about virtue by exposing contradictions in the other person’s thinking, a process compared to the cross-examination (elenchus) of a witness in a trial, although we’re told it was done tactfully and with compassion.

2. The Dichotomy of Control, the foundation of Epictetus’ Handbook, which requires maintaining a clear distinction between what is up to us and what is not, i.e., taking more responsibility for our own actions while accepting what merely happens to us.

3. Separating Judgements from Events, which Shaftesbury called the “sovereign principle” of Stoicism, and Ellis introduced to the CBT field through the saying “It’s not things that upset us but our judgements about them” — comparable to the process called “cognitive distancing” in Beck’s approach.

4. Stoic Mindfulness, or prosoche (attention), through which Stoics maintain continual attention to their own voluntary thoughts and actions and particularly the distinction between these and external events or automatic thoughts, as in the two preceding techniques.

5. Stoic Acceptance and Indifference, or apatheia (not apathy but freedom from irrational passions), i.e., external events are viewed dispassionately without attaching strong values or emotions to them.

6. Contrasting Consequences, through which Stoics imagine beforehand steps required in and likely consequences of different courses of action, typically the contrast between actions guided by unhealthy passions and those in accord with wisdom and virtue — comparable to functional assessment or cost-benefit analysis in CBT.

7. Postponement of Responses, through which Stoics would wait until strong emotions such as anger or unhealthy desires had naturally abated before deciding what action to take in response to them — comparable to worry postponement or time-out in anger management.

8. Contemplation of the Sage, considering the virtues of real or imaginary role models or how they would behave in specific situations — comparable to modelling techniques in CBT.

9. Contemplation of Death, which takes a variety of forms but was considered to be of fundamental importance to the Stoics who sought to adopt a more philosophical attitude toward the existential problem of their own mortality.

10. The View from Above, which also takes various forms but typically involves picturing events from high overhead or in cosmological terms in order to place them within a broader context in terms both of space and time, something the Stoics and other philosophers found valuable as a way of moderating strong desires and emotions.

11. Contemplating Transience, this theme is encapsulated in the View from Above but the Stoics generally encouraged themselves to contemplate the temporary nature of all things, including their own lives and the lives of others, as a way of moderating strong emotions.

12. Contemplation of the Here and Now, a theme particularly emphasized throughout The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which involves grounding attention in the present moment, partly because this constitutes our locus of control.

13. Objective Representation, or phantasia kataleptike, the description or mental representation of events in objective terms without strong value judgements or emotive rhetoric — similar to decatastrophizing in CBT.

14. Premeditation of Adversity, praemeditatio malorum, another famous Stoic exercise, which involves regularly imagining a variety of feared situations as if they’re already befalling you, such as exile, poverty, sickness, dying, etc., in order to mentally rehearse a more philosophical attitude toward them (apatheia) through the use of some of the strategies mentioned above — this clearly resembles various imaginal exposure strategies used in CBT but perhaps a better analogy would be the covert rehearsal of cognitive and behavioural coping strategies in approaches such as Stress Inoculation Training (SIT).

15. Memorization of Sayings, of which there are many examples in the Stoic texts, which Stoics would learn until they were “ready to hand” in challenging situations — comparable to the use of coping statements in CBT.

16. Empathic Understanding, trying to understand the perspective, values, and assumptions of others in a rational and balanced manner rather than jumping to hasty conclusions about them because the Stoics were influenced by the famous Socratic paradox that “no man does evil willingly” (or knowingly) — Epictetus, e.g., taught his students to tell themselves “It seemed right to him” when offended by someone’s actions in order to moderate anger and cultivate a more philosophical attitude toward the perceived wrongdoing of others.

17. Contemplating Determinism, which Dubois had originally assimilated into rational psychotherapy, the Stoics frequently remind themselves to depersonalize upsetting events and view them as an inevitable part of life, e.g., there are people who behave honestly and dishonestly in the world, dishonest people do dishonest things, therefore the wise man is not surprised when he sometimes encounters these things in life.

Engaging Stoicism (2014)

Some time ago, in 2014 to be precise, I jotted down a few thoughts Stoicism attractive. I read through to them the other day and made a couple of changes. Nothing comprehensive, just a brief take.

First, I agree with how the Stoics treat happiness in light of broader metaphysical and cosmological questions. In other words, happiness isn't simply about feeling better, but about living in tune with reality. By “reality,” I mean questions of cosmology, human nature, various natural and supernatural ends, basic goods, etc.—in other words, the struggle to aligned ourselves with how things actually are. That my understanding of ultimate reality diverges from Stoics in key points does not detract from this basic premise.

Second, I agree with the Stoics that living in the present is essential to living a meaningful life. For me, as a Christian, that includes a nurturing of continued God-consciousness.

Third, most of our problems come from passions (negative emotions) and wrong judgments. Getting a handle on automatic negative thoughts is thus essential to personal well-being. (CBT is built on that basic insight.)

Fourth, that is why attentiveness (prosoche) or vigilance is so important. To capture the swelling up of negative emotions such as anger and self-pity, to detect the birthing of prejudical or uniformed thoughts—that deserves our utmost energy.

Fifth, I agree with their contention that eudaimonia (happiness or subjective well-being) comes from the possession of moral and intellectual virtue; of acquiring, in biblical terms, the fruits of the Spirit. At the same time, I recognize that full human flourishing—flourishing understood in a holistic sense—demands the promotion and protection of basic human goods. It is always better to be healthy, have friends, have food and shelter, live in conditions of justice, be accorded basic rights, and so on than to be deprived of them.

Sixth, difficult situations afford opportunities for growth. By facing them with courage, hope, a growth-mindset, and positive reframing, we nurture resilience. So, rather than allowing fear and self-pity to overwhelm us, we can say, “Good, here is an opportunity for me to grow,” or, “Here is an opportunity to live in the kingdom of God.”

Seventh, I believe that happiness is related to training, to a craft of living that allocates an important space to “spiritual” exercises (askesis) such as reflective meditation on events, expressions of gratitude, negative visualization, journaling, etc. As a Christian, I would add: prayer, Bible meditation, imaginative contemplation, fasting, etc.

Eight, the key aim of these exercises is greater self-awareness, which we all need desperately. Of course, inwardness on its own has significant limits, plagued as it is by mental foibles such as introspective illusion. We need feedback from others as well. Above all, we need the Spirit to lead us into all truth.

The Craft of Living as "Technical" Knowledge

Thematically, this is a follow-up to the post “Straying Afield of Oneself.”

An essential part of this blog has been a repeated reflection, metacognition of sorts, on the activity practiced in this space. There is an intentional double-meaning to “practiced” as I intend it, referring both to the “production” of content and a type of “exercise” on myself. With all proper deference, I see such a double-meaning at work, for instance, in the Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. These authors produce meditations, and they meditate. Thus, to see their works merely as collections of inspirational sayings is to miss the point of it all. True, there are some good thoughts to be had in there, but it is the art of inscaping, the continual immersion into those essential axioms, that unlocks their power. Sustained growth and mindfulness rather than originality of thought carry the day here.

With that as a backdrop, I thought of sharing a quote from John Sellars’ The Art of Living. Sellars notes that

in the technical conception of philosophy, philosophy is conceived as an art (techne) directed towards the cultivation of an ideal disposition of the soul, a disposition that may be called excellence (arete) or wisdom (sophia). Thus one might say that the subject matter of this art is one’s soul (psyche) and its goal (telos) is to transform or to take care of one’s soul. The product (ergon) will be the transformed disposition of the soul, namely excellence or wisdom. This transformed disposition will… necessarily impact upon an individual’s behaviour, expressing itself in their actions. Alternatively, one might say that this art is concerned with one’s life (bios), that this is its subject matter, and that its goal is to transform one’s life. Thus one might say that the product of this art will be the actions (erga) that constitute one’s life, highlighting its status as a performative art (praktike techne) in which the performance itself is the product. This product conceived as an activity may be characterized variously as a good flow of life, as living well, and as well-being or happiness (eudaimonia).*

Rather than carrying the usual connotation of “specialized,” therefore, Sellar’s concept of “technical” knowledge tracks the word techne or craft. It is a type of knowledge that amounts to an acquisition of intellectual and moral skills through exercises such as clarification, repetition, restatement, and visualization for the purpose of appropriate action and the pursuit of the good life. (The fact that Christians insist on the necessity of divine intervention and aid on all these levels does not take away from the structure of “technical” knowledge.)

With that in mind, I aspire to an act of blogging—I am looping back here to the opening paragraph—as a type of self-styling, a crafting of self in view of my core identity values: surrender, essentialism, attentiveness, life-affirmation, equanimity, self-control, integrity, mind-growth, wholeness, and love. And while I would love for people to find at least some of the content useful—what blogger wouldn’t?—there is something intrinsically valuable in such an act of written self-articulation and accountability. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on….”

*For the purposes of the blog post, I have taken the liberty of inserting simplified transliterations of the Greek terms. I have also left out some Greek words. Click here to see the original quote with all references intact.