Good read! I think the Stoics differentiated between internal control and external control, so even if our thoughts are not necessarily “freely chosen” they are still under our control in a way that the weather is not. I’ve heard many say that the Stoics were basically compatibalists, so this may just boil down to a hard determinism vs. compatibalism debate.
I think you’re basically objecting to Stoicism on the grounds of hard determinism if you’re saying that the Dichotomy of Control is wrong because we don’t control our thoughts. Ironically, even though I call myself a Stoic…I am a hard determinist.
I guess I sort of just interpret Stoicism as “pro-social behavior (virtue) is the goal of life” and also think that I live a happier life focusing on that and focusing on my internal states than on external goods like wealth. But I am also determined to think that way! So there is no moral blame to go around.
I also tend to think there are multiple valid philosophies of life rather than just one. Stoicism just resonates with me the most. Perhaps this way of thinking is compatible with Stoicism, or perhaps it is not… I would be interested in exploring Buddhist ideas more one day too.
As someone suffering from some seriously extended mental illnesses, I’d have to question the idea that we can control motivation too.
Much like desires and aversions I suspect it is controllable to a point — you can suppress or embrace parts of your sexuality and preferences on a conscious level, though we obviously know quite a lot more about what suppressing sexuality and orientation entirely does to a person. Greece notably had an “acceptable outlet” for homosexuality — pedastry — that perhaps normalised the idea that homosexual desires should be “channelled” into young boys, thus supporting the stoic ideal that such desires are controllable. But when people deviated from this narrow allowance of sexuality, they were as quickly condemned as they would have been in many other ancient anti-gay societies.
Likewise, motivation is controllable but only up to a point. Or rather, it SEEMS within our control, a tool we are consciously using, a state we are skillfully psyching ourselves into. But that is what it is — a state, a fluctuating reading on a meter — and our ability to ‘control’ our motivation is much more about working around our inbuilt response to stimuli which we are constantly refining the circuitry of.
But psychology would suggest that motivation, like desire, is something we think we have a lot more control over than we do.
Don't Stoics explicitly differentiate between first and second impressions (or emotional reactions), the second being the one where assent to judgment is the crucial factor? In other words, the second arrow? You seem to be conflating physical/basic needs and reflexes with core assumptions/judgments.
You also seem to be falling into the same strawman of "Stoics want cold apathy".
We Buddhists are the ones with a plethora of exercises to overcome physical desires and aversions to establish a peaceful mind. For instance, the meditation on the 32 parts of the body is a staple in most Buddhist schoolings. Which, in essence, is simply a cool analysis of the desired or adverse object by its constituent components. Just like the Stoics recommend as a complentative practice.
I agree that Buddhists are way more strict with the dichotomy of control. The Pali Canon even includes an argument for Non-Self by probing if one has control over this or that aggregate. By a Buddhist standard, we might be able to say that we control nothing.
Perhaps I misunderstood something. I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Yes, the Stoics have a spiritual exercise known as the discipline of assent regarding examining initial impressions. The article even mentions it. And, yes, this practice is analogous to the Buddhist practice of the second arrow, in that they're both two-step processes. The issue is the process to be used in the second step. By the process Epictetus gives us, we have control over our desires and aversions. My point is Epictetus is too optimistic here about what we control.
I'm aware that there's a strawman about the Stoics wanting cold apathy. The Stoics, however, embrace positive pathe, such as joy. Apatheia is about avoiding negative pathe such as fear. By criticizing Epictetus on the plain meaning of what he says, I'm not strawmaning him. I do, however, suspect that many other ancient Stoics did not share Epictetus' version of the dichotomy of control, and that this version might even be unique to Epictetus. But, it's the one handed down to us and the one that is considered unique to Stoicism.
PS: It is also not my reading of the Stoics or Epictetus in particular that ataraxia is a result of avoiding "negative pathe" or "unpleasant emotions", but by avoiding the passions. This is an important distinction. And again, quite analogous to Buddhist psychology, in my opinion.
Thank you for your response. I have reread the article.
Again, I think there may be a conflating of physical needs vs desires and an issue of what we understand as control (rather than influence).
My reading of Epictetus is different. It seems clear to me that he differentiates between physical impulses/needs and desires/aversions born from judgment. In your example of homosexuality, the unchangable, uncontrollable bodily function (or preference) would be the sexual orientation. He judges this as an ill and reacts with aversion. Since this is clearly against his nature, he suffers.
These judgments, I believe he would concede, are subject to habit and conditioning. In your example of the death of a child, there is a natural grief response (Discourses 3.24ff). He never claims that one can control this. He recommends premeditatio malorum as training for the second response. (Why training if the response is as controllable as closing your fist?)
He posits that the unnecessary (second arrow) grief is, in fact, born from an inflated sense of control (D 1.11). "I have lossed my child!" vs "My child shouldn't have died!"
This temperance of emotional responses by reflecting impermanence and aligning judgments with it is obviously also the core of Buddhist thought.
In fact, there are very similar dialogs in the Pali Canon concerning death and grief.
If all of this still seems too optimistic to you, it might be useful to know that analogous reflections are used in modern cognitive therapy to great effect. In fact, in my practice as a therpist, I find that a huge portion of suffering derives from patients implicitly (or explicitly) demanding things of themselves/others/the world that are outside of their control ("musterbation"). This habitual judgment can be let go, even without conceding the basic preference.
I will cut my answer off here. Again, perhaps I misunderstood your intent.
I read Discourses 3.24 as supporting my point. Epictetus says, "the grief of another is not in my power; but my own grief is. I will therefore absolutely suppress my own."
Yes, much suffering derives from demanding things that are outside one's control. The recognition that this is a problem is not Stoic (TM), but widespread, not only among the philosophers but among non-philosophers as well.
In Greek I don't think one finds Stoics endorsing ataraxia. It's only in translation into Latin does the distinction between ataraxia and apathia gets murky.
think the idea is that you build up control from smaller to larger issues over time like honing any muscle. It's not a expectation of brute willpower from my reading. Then it's as natural as any other cultural response, no?
While there's a lot I like in Stoicism, and it helped me through a difficult chapter in my life, I got out of it around the same time the cool kids were getting into it, and the dichotomy of control was one factor. Lucretius does a pretty good demolition of it in Of the Nature of Things. If by "control" we mean "subject to our conscious decisions," it is clear that there is a spectrum, on which some internal events are veryuch not in our control while some externals are in our control for all practical purposes, and furthermore the status of these things changes constantly.
Good read! I think the Stoics differentiated between internal control and external control, so even if our thoughts are not necessarily “freely chosen” they are still under our control in a way that the weather is not. I’ve heard many say that the Stoics were basically compatibalists, so this may just boil down to a hard determinism vs. compatibalism debate.
I think you’re basically objecting to Stoicism on the grounds of hard determinism if you’re saying that the Dichotomy of Control is wrong because we don’t control our thoughts. Ironically, even though I call myself a Stoic…I am a hard determinist.
I guess I sort of just interpret Stoicism as “pro-social behavior (virtue) is the goal of life” and also think that I live a happier life focusing on that and focusing on my internal states than on external goods like wealth. But I am also determined to think that way! So there is no moral blame to go around.
I also tend to think there are multiple valid philosophies of life rather than just one. Stoicism just resonates with me the most. Perhaps this way of thinking is compatible with Stoicism, or perhaps it is not… I would be interested in exploring Buddhist ideas more one day too.
As someone suffering from some seriously extended mental illnesses, I’d have to question the idea that we can control motivation too.
Much like desires and aversions I suspect it is controllable to a point — you can suppress or embrace parts of your sexuality and preferences on a conscious level, though we obviously know quite a lot more about what suppressing sexuality and orientation entirely does to a person. Greece notably had an “acceptable outlet” for homosexuality — pedastry — that perhaps normalised the idea that homosexual desires should be “channelled” into young boys, thus supporting the stoic ideal that such desires are controllable. But when people deviated from this narrow allowance of sexuality, they were as quickly condemned as they would have been in many other ancient anti-gay societies.
Likewise, motivation is controllable but only up to a point. Or rather, it SEEMS within our control, a tool we are consciously using, a state we are skillfully psyching ourselves into. But that is what it is — a state, a fluctuating reading on a meter — and our ability to ‘control’ our motivation is much more about working around our inbuilt response to stimuli which we are constantly refining the circuitry of.
But psychology would suggest that motivation, like desire, is something we think we have a lot more control over than we do.
Don't Stoics explicitly differentiate between first and second impressions (or emotional reactions), the second being the one where assent to judgment is the crucial factor? In other words, the second arrow? You seem to be conflating physical/basic needs and reflexes with core assumptions/judgments.
You also seem to be falling into the same strawman of "Stoics want cold apathy".
We Buddhists are the ones with a plethora of exercises to overcome physical desires and aversions to establish a peaceful mind. For instance, the meditation on the 32 parts of the body is a staple in most Buddhist schoolings. Which, in essence, is simply a cool analysis of the desired or adverse object by its constituent components. Just like the Stoics recommend as a complentative practice.
I agree that Buddhists are way more strict with the dichotomy of control. The Pali Canon even includes an argument for Non-Self by probing if one has control over this or that aggregate. By a Buddhist standard, we might be able to say that we control nothing.
Perhaps I misunderstood something. I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Yes, the Stoics have a spiritual exercise known as the discipline of assent regarding examining initial impressions. The article even mentions it. And, yes, this practice is analogous to the Buddhist practice of the second arrow, in that they're both two-step processes. The issue is the process to be used in the second step. By the process Epictetus gives us, we have control over our desires and aversions. My point is Epictetus is too optimistic here about what we control.
I'm aware that there's a strawman about the Stoics wanting cold apathy. The Stoics, however, embrace positive pathe, such as joy. Apatheia is about avoiding negative pathe such as fear. By criticizing Epictetus on the plain meaning of what he says, I'm not strawmaning him. I do, however, suspect that many other ancient Stoics did not share Epictetus' version of the dichotomy of control, and that this version might even be unique to Epictetus. But, it's the one handed down to us and the one that is considered unique to Stoicism.
PS: It is also not my reading of the Stoics or Epictetus in particular that ataraxia is a result of avoiding "negative pathe" or "unpleasant emotions", but by avoiding the passions. This is an important distinction. And again, quite analogous to Buddhist psychology, in my opinion.
Thank you for your response. I have reread the article.
Again, I think there may be a conflating of physical needs vs desires and an issue of what we understand as control (rather than influence).
My reading of Epictetus is different. It seems clear to me that he differentiates between physical impulses/needs and desires/aversions born from judgment. In your example of homosexuality, the unchangable, uncontrollable bodily function (or preference) would be the sexual orientation. He judges this as an ill and reacts with aversion. Since this is clearly against his nature, he suffers.
These judgments, I believe he would concede, are subject to habit and conditioning. In your example of the death of a child, there is a natural grief response (Discourses 3.24ff). He never claims that one can control this. He recommends premeditatio malorum as training for the second response. (Why training if the response is as controllable as closing your fist?)
He posits that the unnecessary (second arrow) grief is, in fact, born from an inflated sense of control (D 1.11). "I have lossed my child!" vs "My child shouldn't have died!"
This temperance of emotional responses by reflecting impermanence and aligning judgments with it is obviously also the core of Buddhist thought.
In fact, there are very similar dialogs in the Pali Canon concerning death and grief.
If all of this still seems too optimistic to you, it might be useful to know that analogous reflections are used in modern cognitive therapy to great effect. In fact, in my practice as a therpist, I find that a huge portion of suffering derives from patients implicitly (or explicitly) demanding things of themselves/others/the world that are outside of their control ("musterbation"). This habitual judgment can be let go, even without conceding the basic preference.
I will cut my answer off here. Again, perhaps I misunderstood your intent.
I read Discourses 3.24 as supporting my point. Epictetus says, "the grief of another is not in my power; but my own grief is. I will therefore absolutely suppress my own."
Yes, much suffering derives from demanding things that are outside one's control. The recognition that this is a problem is not Stoic (TM), but widespread, not only among the philosophers but among non-philosophers as well.
In Greek I don't think one finds Stoics endorsing ataraxia. It's only in translation into Latin does the distinction between ataraxia and apathia gets murky.
Great reply
Don’t agree with all the points here, but very well written
think the idea is that you build up control from smaller to larger issues over time like honing any muscle. It's not a expectation of brute willpower from my reading. Then it's as natural as any other cultural response, no?
While there's a lot I like in Stoicism, and it helped me through a difficult chapter in my life, I got out of it around the same time the cool kids were getting into it, and the dichotomy of control was one factor. Lucretius does a pretty good demolition of it in Of the Nature of Things. If by "control" we mean "subject to our conscious decisions," it is clear that there is a spectrum, on which some internal events are veryuch not in our control while some externals are in our control for all practical purposes, and furthermore the status of these things changes constantly.