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Stoic Sam !zQ8ry.WSMk started this discussion 8 years ago#66,387
A running joke here is "stoic acceptance", so I wanted to touch on the concept.
What we're calling stoic acceptance can best be understood as a form of self-discipline on the emotion of desire and touches on the stoic philosophy of cause and effect.
If you're stoically accepting something, you should, in the words of Epictetus, "endure those things the universe provides and renounce those things the universe does not allow".
By practicing stoic acceptance, you are embodying the virtues of courage, by following the order of the cosmos, and temperance, by controlling your experience of the emotion of desire.
When the stoics say that The Universe is ruled by fate, it's because everything is caused by a prior action pushing that thing to motion. With any particular set of events, given that the circumstances are the same, there could only ever be one outcome. What we perceive as chance or luck is actually just our ignorance of how the Universe works.
I also ought to say that the Stoic notion of free will is a little different to the common definition in use today. When stoics say that a man has free will, we mean that a man is able to pursue his own motives without being prevented from doing so by another.
I feel your question, in the stoic context, is best understood as "Are humans responsible for their own virtue?". The stoic stance is that a man's motives themselves are determined by the Universe, but that he has the freedom to select for himself any of the available choices the Universe provides for him. Because he has the freedom to select from the available choices, he therefore has the freedom to select the virtous choice, and so should be held responsible for himself.
Hope this clears it up a bit for you!
Anonymous C replied with this 8 years ago, 7 hours later, 13 hours after the original post[^][v]#816,605
@previous (Stoic Sam !zQ8ry.WSMk) > With any particular set of events, given that the circumstances are the same, there could only ever be one outcome.
Doesn't that preclude choice?
Stoic Sam !zQ8ry.WSMk (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 44 minutes later, 14 hours after the original post[^][v]#816,623
No, because the properties of our mind (that is to say, our ability to make choices) it itself a cause.
I've mentioned in the past the cylinder rolling down the hill which Chrysippus used as an example: you can push it to start it rolling, but it will continue to roll even after you are no longer in contact with it. This is because it has the property of being round... If it wasn't round enough, it wouldn't roll!
Obviously a human being isn't a cylinder. When "pushed" by what stoics call an Impression, the rational human can decide what to do next.
But just as the cylinder had causes which produced its roundness, for example the manufacturing process, the choice of the shopkeeper to sell it or the choice of the teacher to buy it, the human mind has causes which produce its own property; upbringing, education etc.
Put simply, if you're made round, you're going to roll down the hill. But you still make that choice to do so. We all choose what's in our nature.
Don't think of fate as something that happens to people, but which happens through people.
Meta joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 5 minutes later, 14 hours after the original post[^][v]#816,625
@816,520 (C)
Just shut and stop asking questions and Stoically accept it. Whether there is free will or not is beyond your control.
Anonymous C replied with this 8 years ago, 5 minutes later, 14 hours after the original post[^][v]#816,626
So the future is going happen no matter what, and we should accept that. How we face that future and what we decide to do with the options it presents is what we are free to choose?
Sheila LaBoof replied with this 8 years ago, 15 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#816,630
chaos is the ghost in the newtonian machine apparently
Stoic Sam !zQ8ry.WSMk (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 17 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#816,641
If you're interested I can suggest books which can give a much better answer, but I'll also try:
The goal in life for a stoic is to live in agreement with Nature.
Only humans have been provided the faculty for reason by Nature. It's our innate ability which differentiates us from all other animals so far as we know.
So for a human, living in agreement with nature necessitates living in agreement with reason. The perfect nature of a human is the perfection of reason. The perfection of reason is to live a life of virtue.