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• Title: Nature and Knowledge in Stoicism: On the Ordinariness of the Stoic Sage
• Author : APIERON
• Release Date : January 01, 2008
• Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 121 KB

Description

The Stoic Seneca defines philosophy as the 'love and pursuit of wisdom'. This claim is strikingly banal until one realizes that the nature of wisdom is itself a significant philosophical puzzle. Indeed, without an adequate understanding of the Stoic conception of wisdom, we run the risk of missing the point of Stoicism completely. The dominant view among modern scholars is that Stoic wisdom consists in an unshakable grasp of the fundamental principles of nature. Given the centrality of nature in Stoic thought, this view seems nearly self-evident. However, in what follows, I argue that the received view mistakenly focuses on the content of the Sage's knowledge. This view presupposes a conception of reason [logos] that the Stoics do not share, and once the Stoic conception of reason is clarified, a very different picture emerges. I propose that Stoic wisdom consists in the careful, methodical, and perfectly rational disposition exemplified by the Sage. Stoic wisdom is much closer to what might be thought of as a Socratic ideal of knowledge which features consistency and clarity than a modern model of comprehensive, scientific mastery. At stake in this discussion is how we understand the nature of Stoic philosophy and the new form of life it seeks to foster. Stoic views on the difference between Sage and Fool could not be more absolute or uncompromising: it is the all-or-nothing difference between knowledge and ignorance, virtue and vice, happiness and misery. Since the Stoics claim that the vast majority of humans--if not all of them--are completely ignorant, vicious, and miserable, the Sage has seemed come to seem more like a fiction or an unattainable regulative ideal than any achievable reality (Alexander, De Fato 199=SVF 3.658; Hankinson 2003, 59; Long 1970/1, 151). It is therefore easy to get carried away with abstract-sounding, high-flying descriptions of the wisdom of the Sage. But it is worth recalling that Stoicism is, above all, a practical philosophy And the Stoic way of life is not supposed to be a merely theoretical possibility, but an attainable reality for all. Any interpretation of Stoic wisdom which cannot convincingly account for this practical demand is flawed. On my interpretation, the Sage appears surprisingly ordinary and, in certain lights, even indistinguishable from the Fool. This is not to deny that the Sage is extraordinary, but rather to say that sometimes the most extraordinary differences are the subtlest.

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