Receiving Images April 23, 2008
Posted by Mungovanlowe in Epicurus, Lucretius, Philosophy.comments closed
Epicureans think that we receive images (and other sense impressions) of things as result of thin films of the objects affecting our senses. The account of visual images is the most well-developed in Lucretius. He considers numerous purported counterexamples to the Epicurean theory and, I think, deals with many of them remarkably well. However, there appears to be some inconsistency between a few features of these films of atoms that provide us with visual images of objects.
In IV 177-216, Lucretius explains that the speed at which images travel is very fast. The idea, I take it, is mostly to explain the quickness of our visual cognition , but he also uses it explicitly to explain how the image of the heavens reflected in a lake can arrive at Earth and be visible despite the long distance it must travel (IV 210-215).
At IV 357, however, Lucretius gives an explanation of why images that travel from distant objects are fuzzier and more degraded. “The image loses its sharpness before it can deliver a blow to our eyes, because the images, during their long journey through the air, are constantly buffeted and so become blunted” (IV 357-360).
However, it seems like these two explanations are inconsistent. Images that must travel long distances will be degraded by various interfering particles (not to mention larger objects). But surely, very few images that we receive travel from as far as the heavens. Can Epicurus consistently claim that we can observe the heavens accurately, but that we cannot accurately observe, for example, a large oak tree that is just out of sight across a large flat field. Assuming that there are no solid objects to interfere with the film of atoms from the tree as it travels (at the speed of light) across the field, it seems we should be able to observe it easily.
I see one potential answer to this apparent inconsistency, but I don’t know if I should ascribe it to Lucretius and the Epicureans in general. Are there others? If so, are any better than the following?
The images that travel from the heavens just as matter of fact encounter less interference traveling through the ethereal realm than an image traveling across an long but unobstructed field. This isn’t crazy. And Lucretius would be sure to point out that the images from the heavens are obstructed by clouds. I think this claim would also demand a little more explanation of just what is buffeting the films of images in the case of the distant but unobstructed tree. Is it wind? Is it random particles?
Stumbling on Happiness April 22, 2008
Posted by Don in Epicurus, News.comments closed
There’s an interview in today’s NYT with Dan Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist who authored the best selling book with the above title:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/science/22conv.html?_r=1&oref=login
There are many points of contact with Epicureanism (e.g. the emphasis on personal relationships and the value of experience as opposed to durable goods), but Gilbert presents it all as science. I haven’t read the book yet, but I am interested in exploring further the relationship between the themes of ancient ethics and the findings of “positive psychology.” Has anyone read the book?
Stable pleasure April 16, 2008
Posted by Don in Epicurus, Pleasure.comments closed
The life of a human being consists of a complex succession of desires. Because we are not self-sufficient as bodies, we need other bodies to sustain our existence. The lack of these bodies is experienced as pain, which we are motivated to avoid. The satisfaction of our desires is experienced as pleasure, which we are motivated to pursue. For Epicurus, this kind of pleasure–kinetic or “moving” pleasure–is felt as a positive affect. Cicero claims that Epicurus follows the Cyrenaics here is conceiving of pleasure as “an agreeable motion that gladdens the senses” (iucundum motum quo sensus hilaretur) (II.8; cf. 18).
Epicurus is clear in the Letter to Menoeceus (128) that these sorts of episodic pleasures by themselves do not constitute the end. That is identified with the state in which we are free of pain (aponia) and mental disturbance (ataraxia). One question that arose today is whether this state of “katastematic pleasure” is experienced as a distinct kind of positive affect, or whether it is just the state in which we satisfy (necessary) bodily desires and enjoy kinetic pleasure without interruption. Here’s how I think of these as being related.
An ordinary life is one in which we are led hither and thither by unregulated desires, satisfying some and failing to satisfy many others (=> followed by => indicates a satisfied desire; => followed by X, an unsatisfied desire):
=>=>X=>=>=>X=>X=>=>X etc.
A disciplined life is one in which we regulate our desires in the way recommended by Epicurus. We limit our desires to those things that we cannot live without (barley cakes and water) and take other things only when they can be easily had without painful consequences. In this case, ideally, we enjoy an uninterrupted flow of kinetic pleasure:
=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>etc.
When we are in this state we enjoy a life that is free from bodily pain. So we have realized the first conjunct of the Epicurean end: the state of aponia. Now what exactly is it to be in that state? Is it to experience some other positive affect over and above the succession of kinetic pleasures? I don’t think so. Rather, it is just to be in the state in which we experience kinetic pleasure without interruption. This is brought out in Cicero’s contrast between voluptas in actu and voluptas in stabilitate (II.16). It is what Epicurus describes as the limit of the pleasures of the flesh, which are not increased but only varied (PD 18).
The disciplined life, however, is not yet the Epicurean life, because even if we enjoy a life free of bodily pain, we can still suffer from psychic pain, or mental disturbance. We do so as long as we have failed to reason out “the goal and limit of the flesh” and dissolve our fears of the gods and death (PD 18, 20). We worry about whether we will be able to continue satisfying our desires into an indefinite future (including a life after death); we worry about whether our life could be better than it is in terms of our success, social standing and the kinds of pleasure we enjoy. In short, even if all our physical needs are supplied and we are free of bodily pain, we can still be miserable because of our beliefs about the possibility of desire satisfaction.
Ataraxia comes in our understanding that we have, or can have without difficulty, everything we need to make our life complete: “He who has learned the limits of life knows that it is easy to provide that which removes the feeling of pain owing to want and make one’s whole life perfect. So there is no need for things which involve struggle” (PD 21; cf. 19-20). When we understand this, we eliminate the anxiety that stands between us and the end of happiness (or a happy life).
Now, the question can still be raised whether ataraxia itself is (or involves) a distinct kind of positive affect–a so-called “mental pleasure.” It is certainly conceived in this way by some later thinkers, but I don’t see much evidence for it in Epicurus. First, in contrast to the kinetic pleasures, which are “agreeable motions” of the flesh, aponia and ataraxia are both represented negatively in terms on the absence of pain or disturbance. Second, we have reason to believe that for Epicurus the pleasure that we feel when we have achieved the end is just the kinetic pleasures of the body–now appropriately limited, regulated and unaccompanied by beliefs about their fragility, insufficiency, etc. Admittedly, in the same text he does go on to speak of the “joy of the mind” (laetitia mentis), but this he says consists in nothing more than “the expectation that our nature will avoid pain while acquiring all those things I just mentioned [i.e. bodily pleasures]” (Tusc. Disp. 3.41-2 = Text 19).
Bootstrapping Epicurus’ system April 16, 2008
Posted by Don in Epicurus.comments closed
We talked a lot last week about whether the epistemic credentials of Epicurus’ physics rise above those of your favorite myth. Much of the time he seems to be saying: accept this view of the world because you will feel better for it–more tranquil, better able to enjoy life for its own sake.
At De fin. I.64, however, Cicero has the Epicurean Torquatus say this: “But if we do not clearly grasp the nature of the universe, then there is no way in which we will be able to defend the judgments of our senses.” Based on the context, I’m not sure exactly what he means by this, but it suggests the following thought to me. Epicurus maintains that sense perception is the only reliable basis for knowledge; indeed, he claims that “all sense-perceptions are true.” But what support can he offer for this claim? If we could give an account of sense perception as a generally reliable conveyer of information about the world, then we would have some reason to accept this. Suppose such an account can be given on the basis of the physics of atoms-and-the-void, the transmission of eidola, their reception by our sense organs, etc. Then, assuming the universe is the way we think it is, we have reason to believe our sense perceptions are for the most part true; and the evidence of our senses leads us to believe that the universe is more or less as Epicurus describes it. If this is plausible, then Epicurus’ physics would have epistemic credentials beyond its being a happy-making story. I haven’t come across a passage yet in which Epicurus argues in this way, but perhaps he does so in one of the many lost volumes of On nature.
Beyond belief redux April 16, 2008
Posted by Don in Epicurus, News.comments closed
Thus physics gives us the courage to face down fear of death, and the strength of purpose to combat religious terror. It provides peace of mind, by lifting the veil of ignorance from the secrets of the universe; and self-control, by explaining the nature and varieties of desire. Finally, as I just showed, it hands down a criterion of knowledge, and, with judgment thereby given a foundation, a method of distinguishing truth from falsity. (De fin. I.64)
Does this not pretty much sum up the hopes of those who believe that science offers the way forward for humanity, achieved in part by freeing ourselves from the tentacles of religion? Reading the coverage of the pope in today’s New York Times, I’m not sure we’ve quite caught up to Epicurus yet. One might think that we have surpassed him in our ability to explain “the nature and varieties of desire.” But note the ambiguity in that phrase. We have clearly progressed in our knowledge of the limbic system; but how much further ahead are we in our capacity to recognize and acknowledge the objects of our own most pressing desires? That seems more the territory of Freud than modern neuroscience.
The Atomic Swerve April 12, 2008
Posted by tylersgreen in Epicurus.comments closed
Given the Epicurean belief in the eternal existence of the universe, I find it difficult to see their insistence on the atomic swerve as a basis for the existence of things. As was brought up in discussion by Don, the only reason a swerve would be needed is if one postulated a first moment in which all atoms were falling downward in strait lines, and compound bodies had not yet aggregated. However, if the universe has existed for all time, then it seems contradictory to postulate a first state in which things were fundamentally different than they are now. Why not just assume the eternal existence of compound bodies? Once atoms begin deflecting, doesn’t this set up a cycle of collisions which then solves the original problem of the existence of compound bodies? – and this certainly could have been the eternal state of things. If the swerve were to fit in comfortably with the rest of Epicurean physics, then that would be a different story, but I don’t see how it does. I might have overlooked it, but I don’t remember a reference to any such slant, swerve, or sideways deflection in the writings of Epicurus, which makes me doubt its importance with respect to his physical theory.
However, Lucretius speaks of it (DRN ii. 216-93), and Cicero strongly attributes this ‘original’ belief to Epicurus, as one of the principal ways he made Democritus’ system worse. In the On Fate selections, Cicero consistently calls this phenomenon the ‘fictitious swerve.’ You almost get the impression that’s its official name. Elsewhere, he describes this ‘arbitrary invention’ as one of the “most unprincipled moves that any physicist can make,” namely, “to adduce effects without causes” (On Moral Ends i. 19). For something that he finds so many problems with, could this doctrine simply be done away? – it seems that Epicurean physics could remain essentially intact without it.
But then there’s the ethical problem, which seems to be the main reason the swerve was invented. Yet there most likely exists other alternative physical explanations which could be invoked, in the spirit of Epicurus, which would avoid these charges of Cicero. It was interesting to see that Carneades developed a way to defend free will on account of the nature of the mind, not the atoms. He suggests that there is a ‘voluntary motion of the mind,’ such that it is a part of the minds very nature to be free from antecedent causes and to act as a first cause (On Fate 23-25). Carneades, an Academic Skeptic, is most likely using an un-Epicurean explanation by referring to ‘mind’ as something qualitatively different than the atoms.
Since the swerve is incorporated into Epicurean physics because of their ethics, their insistence on free will, and to prevent humanity from “being a slave to the Destiny of the natural philosophers,” I don’t see how a simply study of nature could reveal its origin. Because Epicurean physics doesn’t need the swerve, and because the swerve has to be read into nature, and nature does not testify to its reality (ie; we get a story of regular causes and effects), it seems unclear why an ancient would have accepted this doctrine. For an otherwise highly empirical, no-nonsense philosophy, I can’t help but think the swerve inclines towards wishful thinking, as Cicero suggests.
Is Epicurus really opposed to maximizing? Why? April 9, 2008
Posted by tpummer in Epicurus, Pleasure.comments closed
I’ve got a question about what we were discussing toward the end of seminar today. It concerns the rational temporal allocation of pleasure, and whether and why Epicurus is really opposed to a pleasure-maximizing view. When it comes to the rationality of allocating pleasure and pain across time, I think I more or less grasp the difference between Epicurus and the Cyrenaics. The Cyrenaics are presentists; they are only concerned with pleasures and pains in the present. Epicurus, on the other hand, is concerned with pleasures and pains throughout one’s entire life.
I am having more trouble understanding the ways in which Epicurus’ view is supposed to significantly contrast with classical utilitarian views (in particular, Bentham and Sidgwick) on this score. I am here abstracting away from the various ways in which the classical utilitarians may differ from Epicurus on (1) what pleasure consists in (e.g., a pain-free experience, an experience that qualitatively feels enjoyable, an experience that one desires to continue, etc.) and (2) what a pleasurable episode consists in (e.g., the sum of all the momentary pleasures from t1 to t2; a particular state that persists between t1 and t2). That is to say, I am here less concerned with the nature of the unit of prudence, but more concerned with how it ought to be allocated across time.
Of course, one might reasonably object that these two questions cannot be separated, though it seems plausible to me that they can. Assuming we are only dealing with the latter question — “how should the unit of prudence be rationally temporally allocated?” — I am not sure how or why Epicurus would substantively differ from Bentham or Sidgwick. I am assuming that the Benthamite/Sidgwickian view about rational prudence roughly says: it is rational to maximize the ratio of pleasure to pain across all of the time-slices of one’s life, giving equal weight to all time-slices in allocating pleasure and pain. (Of course, utilitarians think this applies interpersonally as well as intertemporally, but I am here only concerned with prudence, and not morality or other-regarding rationality).
One objection to the Benthamite view might be that pleasure cannot be quantified — that we do not readily have, or cannot possibly build, a ‘hedonometer’. But this seems to be an empirical or descriptive claim. It also seems to only address the practicality of implementing a full-blown Benthamite project, not whether a Bentham-like view is plausible in theory. A related worry is that we cannot perform the pleasure calculus because it is too impractical. But then this is a claim about the practicality of the pleasure calculus as a decision procedure, not as a criterion of prudential rationality or what makes one’s life go best. One might think that one’s life goes better just in case one has a higher pleasure to pain ratio and nevertheless agree that it would be impractical to apply the pleasure calculus for every decision one makes (and prescribe some other decision procedure). Yet another worry is that one cannot give equal weight to all time-slices because one cannot be certain that one will actually experience temporally distant time-slices. But then one is not failing to be neutral about time-slices, but only taking into account that distant time-slices are less probable than more proximate ones, and so, ceteris paribus, their expected utility is lower. This does not imply that distant future pleasures are intrinsically worth less than proximate future pleasures. (Though note that there may be some disagreement between Bentham and Sidgwick on this last point, as Bentham may count propinquity as an actual dimension of pleasure).
Perhaps I have overlooked an obvious way in which Epicurus differs from Bentham or Sidgwick when it comes to rationally temporally allocating pleasures and pains. I have a suspicion that Epicurus has a more fundamental reason for disagreeing with pleasure-maximizing views than any of the ones I have listed. But perhaps this suspicion is misguided. If it is, then I am dubious he really substantively disagrees with pleasure-maximizing views. If it is not, then I am simply puzzled. Assuming X is the only thing that makes a life go well, why does not having more X make a life go even better?
Epicurus’ explantion of the halo April 9, 2008
Posted by montejohnson in Epicurus.Tags: meteorology, natural philosophy, therapy
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In connection with Don’s points about philosophy-as-therapy I want to address (hopefully in the seminar today) the issue of Epicurus’ apparent willingness to craft or cast the results of natural science such that its explanations promote tranquility, regardless of their accuracy, certainty, and possibly even truth, and the effect that might have on scientific knowledge.
I recently gave a talk before the UCSD philosophy department colloquium about mathematical explanations of natural phenomena in Aristotle. One of my key examples was Aristotle’s explanation of solar and lunar halos. It is a great chapter in his Meteorology (3.1-3) and indeed in the history of science. It contains one of the earliest, and possibly the earliest, lettered diagram in the history of Greek science and mathematics. Aristotle explains that the halo, along with sundogs and rods, as well as the rainbow, is some kind of optical phenomenon due to the “reflection” of optical rays in the tiny mirrors in the atmosphere between the luminescent body and the observer. As a purely optical phenomenon, the halo appears the same to all those to whom it appears, unlike a cloud or any soid body or substance, which looks different from different perspectives. This accords nicely with modern explanations of the phenomenon, according to which randomly arrayed hexagonal ice crystals refract light at 22 degrees on a plane between the moon and an observer.
Now consider Epicurus’ explanation of the same phenomenon in his Letter to Pythocles:
The halo around the moon is produced because air from all sides moves towards the moon; or when it evenly restricts [the movement of] the effluences sent off from it to such an extent that this cloudlike phenomenon forms around it in a circle and is not interrupted in the slightest extent; or it restricts [the movement of] the air around it symmetrically on all sides so that what is around it takes on a round and dense formation. And this happens in certain parts either because a certain effluence forces its way from outside or because heat occupies passages suitable for the production of this effect. (Pyth. 110-111, trans. Inwood)
Relative to Aristotle’s mathematical and optical account of the same phenomenon, this is a very lame explanation. Perhaps it would be good enough to relieve suffering, if I was afraid that lunar halos were a menacing sign from an interventionist god. But it is retrograde science. Epicurus does not even avail himself of Aristotle’s as one of the alternative explanations of the phenomenon, even though he should want as many as are plausible. He seems to be cribbing from some earlier meteorological work, perhaps by Anaximines, which explains such phenomena in terms of compression and rarefaction of air. Unfortunately, Lucretius does not deal with the problem, either.
Philosophy as therapy April 9, 2008
Posted by Don in Philosophy, Skepticism, Stoicism.comments closed
The image of philosophy as a form of therapy–a treatment for the sickness of the soul–is pervasive among the Hellenistic schools (Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics). Each school presents its own diagnosis of this sickness and its distinctive account of the remedy that philosophy provides. At the same time, the schools share a psychological reference point: the soul’s sickness manifests itself in our “disturbance,” our lack of a calm and steady mind. Accordingly, each of the schools is concerned with the way in which philosophy can be productive of a state of equanimity, tranquility and lack of disturbance (ataraxia)–goals that we have seen can be traced to Democritus.
In the debates among the schools, this shared concern with achieving a certain psychological outcome (“peace of mind”) can lead to a blurring of doctrinal differences. This is especially evident among later writers such as Seneca, who (as a Stoic) comes close to identifying the goal of philosophy with the attainment of this preferred mental state:
The Greeks call this stable state of the soul euthymia, on which there is an excellent book by Democritus; I call it tranquility…. What we are seeking, therefore, is how the soul may always pursue a steady and favorable course, may be well-disposed towards itself, and may view its condition with joy, and suffer no interruption of this joy, but may remain in a peaceful state, being never exalted nor dejected. This will be tranquility. (On the Tranquility of the Soul, 2.3-4)
On the basis of passages like this, one may be apt to think that the schools have identified a common problem (the soul’s “disturbance”) to which they propose competing solutions. But this, I believe, is a misleading way of representing their disagreement. Although the schools fix on what appears to be a single psychological state, they offer different analyses of the causes of our affective discomfort. Consequently, their real disagreement is about what this discomfort signifies, or what is wrong with the way in which we comport ourselves to the world. Here we find three very different accounts.
Cicero offers one of the most explicit statements of the therapeutic model in his Tusculan Disputations:
Assuredly there is an art of healing the soul [animi medicina]–I mean philosophy, whose aid must be sought not, as in bodily diseases, outside ourselves, and we must use our utmost endeavor, with all our resources and strength, to have the power to be ourselves our own physicians. (III.3)
Cicero presents this view from the perspective of the Stoics, for whom passions (pleasure, distress, lust, fear) are “diseases” of the soul that leave us discontent and incapable of happiness. Part of what is being picked out here is the unsatisfying affective condition we are in when we allow ourselves to be moved hither and thither by the passions. We are disturbed rather than calm; we do not feel right. Yet for the Stoics there is a deeper point at stake: when we live under the sway of the passions, we are incapable of happiness (eudaimonia), in the sense of a “successful life”–one that, objectively, goes as well as a human life can go. So, it is not just that we do not feel right: we are not right. Our soul is unhealthy (insanitas) rather than healthy (sanitas). We live in a condition of mindlessness (amentia), or “insanity” (dementia) (III.10)
For the Stoics, there is only one cure for what ails us: philosophy, whose goal is the production of that state of mind which finds us well-ordered with respect to our own constitution as rational beings and to the cosmos. And the only way to achieve this state is to know the truth–about the necessary order of nature, things to be pursued and avoided, and ultimately virtue and the good. The perfection of this state of knowing is wisdom.
Pyrrhonian skeptics offer the opposite treatment program. For them, the cause of our sickness and lack of tranquility is our vain conviction that we can know the true natures of things. We are full of opinions about how things really are, but these opinions are inevitably at odds with each other, and so we sway wildly from one belief to another, never at rest. Again, philosophy comes to the rescue. This time, however, the cure is to be shaken out of our dogmatism through the distinctive form of argument employed by the skeptic (the “modes”):
The skeptic, because he loves humanity, wishes to cure dogmatists of their opinions and rashness, with reasoning, so far as possible. So, just as doctors have remedies of different strengths for bodily ailments and for those suffering excessively employ the strong ones and for those suffering mildly the mild ones, so the skeptic puts forth arguments that differ in strength. (Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 3.280)
Both the Stoics and the Skeptics promise tranquility of mind, but they do so on the basis of opposing accounts of why we lack tranquility: either because we lack the knowledge that would right us to the world, or because we think that there is some such knowledge to be had. Deciding between the “remedies” offered by the two schools, therefore, cannot be compared to choosing one brand of cough syrup over another. It is not a case of one illness and two competing drugs; rather, we have two competing diagnoses of a symptom and two remedies to treat the (different) proposed underlying causes.
In my next post, I will extend this account to the position of Epicurus and consider some of the specific issues it raises.
spinoza the stoic — two passages for your enjoyment April 8, 2008
Posted by karolina in Stoicism.comments closed
Here is the passage from Spinoza’s Ethics I had mentioned in class last week which it seems to me recommends something much like Stoic exercises – committing certain “maxims” or “rules of reason” to memory, “meditating” on them, in order to have them “ready” for application when needs arises. (Note also other similarities: Spinoza’s talk in the passage on the one hand about the “sickness” of the mind, its “vacillations”, and, on the other, the desirability of “moderation”, of the ability to “bear calmly” events, the value of friendship, and the acknowledgment of all things as necessary, etc.).
5p10s. By this power of rightly ordering and connecting the affections of the Body, we can bring it about that we are not easily affected with evil affects. For (by P7) a greater force is required for restraining Affects ordered and connected according to the order of the intellect than for restraining those which are uncertain and random. The best thing, then, that we can do, so long as we do not have perfect knowledge of our affects, is to conceive a correct principle of living, or sure maxims of life, to commit them to memory, and to apply them constantly to the particular cases frequently encountered in life. In this way our imagination will be extensively affected by them, and we shall always have them ready [rectam vivendi rationem seu certa vitae dogmata concipere eaque memoriae mandare et rebus particularibus in vita frequenter obviis continuo applicare ut sic nostra imaginatio late iisdem afficiatur et nobis in promptu sint semper].
For example, we have laid it down as a maxim of life [vitae dogmata] (see IVP46 and P46S) that Hate is to be conquered by Love, or Nobility, not by repaying it with Hate in return. But in order that we may always have this rule of reason ready when it is needed, we ought to think about and meditate frequently on the common wrongs of men, and how they may be warded off best by Nobility. For if we join the image of a wrong to the imagination of this maxim, it will always be ready for us (by IIP18) when a wrong is done to us. If we have ready also the principle of our own true advantage, and also of the good which follows from mutual friendship and common society, and keep in mind, moreover, that the highest satisfaction of mind stems from the right principle of living (by IVP52), and that men, like other things, act from the necessity of nature, then the wrong, or the Hate usually arising from it, will occupy a very small part of the imagination, and will easily be overcome. Or if the Anger which usually arises from the greatest wrongs is not so easily overcome, it will still be overcome, though not without some vacillation. And it will be overcome in far less time than if we had not considered these things beforehand in this way (as is evident from P6, P7, and P8). [Ut autem hoc rationis praescriptum semper in promptu habeamus ubi usus erit, cogitandae et saepe meditandae sunt communes hominum injuriae et quomodo et qua via generositate optime propulsentur; sic enim imaginem injuriae imaginationi hujus dogmatis jungemus et nobis in promptu semper erit ubi nobis injuria afferetur. Quod si etiam in promptu habuerimus rationem nostri veri utilis ac etiam boni quod ex mutua amicitia et communi societate sequitur et praeterea quod ex recta vivendi ratione summa animi acquiescentia oriatur et quod homines ut reliqua, ex naturae necessitate agant, tum injuria sive odium quod ex eadem oriri solet, minimam imaginationis partem occupabit et facile superabitur; vel si ira quae ex maximis injuriis oriri solet, non adeo facile superetur, superabitur tamen quamvis non sine animi fluctuatione, longe minore temporis spatio quam si haec non ita praemeditata habuissemus...]
To put aside Fear, we must think in the same way of Tenacity: i.e., we must recount and frequently imagine the common dangers of life, and how they can be best avoided and overcome by presence of mind and strength of character [enumeranda scilicet sunt et saepe imaginanda communia vitae pericula et quomodo animi praesentia et fortitudine optime vitari et superari possunt].
But it should be noted that in ordering our thoughts and images, we must always (by IVP63C and IIIP59) attend to those things which are good in each thing so that in this way we are always determined to acting from an affect of Joy. For example, if someone sees that he pursues esteem too much, he should think of its correct use, the end for which it ought be pursued, and the means by which it can be acquired, not of its misuse and emptiness, and men’s inconstancy [inconstantia], or other things of this kind, which only someone sick [aegritudine] of mind thinks of. For those who are most ambitious are most upset by such thoughts when they despair of attaining the honor they strive for; while they spew forth their Anger, they wish to seem wise. So it is certain that they most desire esteem who cry out most against its misuse, and the emptiness of the world.
Nor is this peculiar to the ambitious–it is common to everyone whose luck is bad and whose mind is weak. For the poor man, when he is also greedy, will not stop talking about the misuse of money and the vices of the rich. In doing this he only distresses himself, and shows others that he cannot bear calmly either his own poverty, or the wealth of others.
So also, one who has been badly received by a lover thinks of nothing but the inconstancy and deceptiveness of women, and their other, often sung vices. All of these he immediately forgets as soon as his lover receives him again.
One, therefore, who is anxious to moderate his affects and appetites from the love of freedom alone will strive, as far as he can, to come to know the virtues and their causes, and to fill his mind with the gladness which arises from the true knowledge of them, but not at all to consider men’s vices, or to disparage men, or to enjoy a false appearance of freedom. And he who will observe these [rules] carefully–for they are not difficult–and practice them, will soon be able to direct most of his actions according to the command of reason. [Qui itaque suos affectus et appetitus ex solo libertatis amore moderari studet, is quantum potest nitetur virtutes earumque causas noscere et animum gaudio quod ex earum vera cognitione oritur, implere; at minime hominum vitia contemplari hominesque obtrectare et falsa libertatis specie gaudere. Atque haec qui diligenter observabit (neque enim difficilia sunt) et exercebit, nae ille brevi temporis spatio actiones suas ex rationis imperio plerumque dirigere poterit.] (II/287-289, Curley’s translation)
But the passage which probably stands out the most in terms of Spinoza’s explicit adoption of Stoic themes is 4App32, where Spinoza talks in a way which is otherwise rather unusual for him about “duties” proper to us and being in “agreement” with Nature and its order. He also seems to assert that happiness can be reached through understanding alone (“If we understand this clearly and distinctly, that part of us which is defined by understanding, i.e., the better part of us, will be entirely satisfied with this”…). Here is the passage, in its entirety:
But human power is very limited and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes. So we do not have an absolute power to adapt things outside us to our use. Nevertheless, we shall bear calmly those things which happen to us contrary to what the principle of our advantage demands, if we are conscious that we have done our duty, that the power we have could not have extended itself to the point where we could have avoided those things, and that we are a part of the whole of nature, whose order we follow. If we understand this clearly and distinctly, that part of us which is defined by understanding, i.e., the better part of us, will be entirely satisfied with this, and will strive to persevere in that satisfaction. For insofar as we understand, we can want nothing except what is necessary, nor absolutely be satisfied with anything except what is true. Hence, insofar as we understand these things rightly, the striving of the better part of us agrees with the order of the whole of Nature. [Sed humana potentia admodum limitata est et a potentia causarum externarum infinite superatur atque adeo potestatem absolutam non habemus res quae extra nos sunt, ad nostrum usum aptandi. Attamen ea quae nobis eveniunt contra id quod nostrae utilitatis ratio postulat aequo animo feremus si conscii simus nos functos nostro officio fuisse et potentiam quam habemus non potuisse se eo usque extendere ut eadem vitare possemus nosque partem totius naturae esse cujus ordinem sequimur. Quod si clare et distincte intelligamus, pars illa nostri quae intelligentia definitur hoc est pars melior nostri, in eo plane acquiescet et in ea acquiescentia perseverare conabitur. Nam quatenus intelligimus nihil appetere nisi id quod necessarium est nec absolute nisi in veris acquiescere possumus adeoque quatenus haec recte intelligimus eatenus conatus melioris partis nostri cum ordine totius naturae convenit.] (4App32; II/276, Curley’s translation)
