“We shouldn’t overly focus on heavy duty metaphysics. Finding out what the world is really like is not really our area of expertise anymore. Physics, chemistry, and evolutionary biology take care of that. The one job we have is to remain Stoics whatever the world is like.”

Stoics and their rational world

To the ancient stoics, the universe has a rational and logical order. Nothing happens by accident. Everything is organized and serves a certain goal. Things are not random. Instead, they are carefully arranged towards the ultimate goal and supreme good.

In a word, the world is purposeful: there is logic in it, there is a meaning in it. The task of a human being (or of a Stoic at least) is quite simple. One needs to grasp that universal harmony, find one’s own place in it, and stick to it. That – in the original Stoic teaching – brings a satisfying, flourishing, and altogether happy life.

For Marcus Aurelius, it just didn’t matter

Was this, however, the one and only point of view the Stoics admitted? In Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, arguably the most famous and most widely-read Stoic book of all time, there are a number of curious passages where Marcus entertains quite a different take.

What he does is to spell out alternatives, either-or. Either the universe is rationally organized as the orthodox Stoic teaching holds and as described above, or maybe, just maybe, it is random, haphazard and heeds the Epicurean teaching instead? Can we really be sure what is it like? Can we truly know which of these options is true? And if we can’t be sure, then what, in turn, are we supposed to do? Having pondered such doubts Marcus arrives at the only possible conclusion. Regardless of the true nature of the world we ought to live stoically. This is the best way to go regardless of the

Just as he was seemingly unsure on the true state of affairs – we can’t be sure as to whether his doubts were for real. Maybe he truly had some deep-seated doubts about the Stoic doctrines... or maybe this was just a rhetorical device aiming to inculcate the immutable conclusion that we should stick to the Stoic principles no matter the circumstances. We can’t ask him that and we can’t be sure. The curious point though is that it doesn’t matter. Whether this was rhetoric pure and simple, or it was real soulsearching, the conclusion is the same: we need to live stoically.

Relevance to modern times

In my view, this way of thinking speaks directly to our modern experience. By “modern” here I mean the 20th and the 21st century in general but also the 2020s specifically, i.e., the time of COVID with its ramifications, the time of the latest Russian war and all that it spells.

I was born in 1983, I turned 18 the year the Twin Towers fell. My generation has witnessed the last spasms of the Cold War, the alleged “end of history,” the war on terror, two recessions, and a global pandemic. We’ve lived in five (sic!) decades and two centuries, while we aren’t even forty yet. The reality my peers know is not the mentioned “end of history” but rather the opposite. The new millennium brought breathtaking complexity, growing incomprehensibility, and daunting unpredictability of life.

Metaphysics and the Stoic life

Maybe here is the reason that makes Marcus Aurelius so popular? The profound lesson we may learn from him is that a Stoic life doesn’t have to consist in inferring practical conclusions from metaphysics. This was the orthodox teaching after all: the universe is such-and-such, therefore we need to act in a certain manner. Moral teaching, the guidance for action, and the discipline for thought were deduced from the general metaphysical theory about the universe. And yet, Marcus Aurelius shows us another way.

We may find our Stoicism not in holding on to a given belief but in our reaction to the lack of such belief. Not in the certainty about how the world works but in how we react to uncertainty. Our notion about the grand arrangement of the cosmic and social world may change over time. Our faith in its logic may erode or collapse overnight in the face of a sudden disaster. It doesn’t define our Stoicism though. These are, after all, matters beyond our control. The only thing that defines us as Stoics is – as always in Stoicism – how we respond to them.

We shouldn’t focus on heavy duty metaphysics

This is exactly what I propound in reformed Stoicism. We shouldn’t overly focus on heavy duty metaphysics. Finding out what the world is really like is not really our area of expertise anymore. Physics, chemistry, and evolutionary biology take care of that. The one job we have is to remain Stoics whatever the world is like.

Needless to say, a time like today – with the international order falling apart, a new war raging in Europe, and victims of a new genocide lying across the streets of Bucha – makes this position only more relevant.

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Dr. Piotr Stankiewicz, Ph.D., is a writer and philosopher, promoter of reformed Stoicism. He authored Manual of Reformed Stoicism, and Does Happiness Write Blank Pages?

 

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