Stoic Logic
Introduction
At the time of the writing of this essay (January 2021), the world continues to witness chaos and violent protests against law enforcement, the government, big tech companies and political parties. Much of the year 2020 has seen a deluge of information and specious claims from news outlets, elected officials, and social media. Virtually anyone can make any claim, truthful or not, and have it go viral if they say it provocatively enough. Information and disinformation is shared and the more emotive it is, the quicker it spreads. The consumer of the information then has to decide a number of things: whether it is truthful or not; whether it is wise or not; whether they agree with it or not. At the heart of the individual’s choice, is if she can apply sound, wise reasoning. Now, more than ever, logical thinking is needed to steady the helm of our world.
Carl Sagen elucidated on the importance of learning and sound reasoning in 1996, when he wrote:
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number one video cassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. Beavis and Butthead remains popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning - not just of science, but of anything - are avoidable, even undesirable (The Demon Haunted World, p. 28).
Stoic logic is a good response to the problem our world faces today. While this essay will not argue for the strict advocacy of the use of Stoic logic, it will explain how the Stoics view the learning process and how to reason objectively. If the essay can provide a good framework for how a person learns and grows intellectually, it will help the student understand how she can use sound logic and reasoning to agree, disagree, or remain neutral to many data points, propositions and ideas which flood her views every day. Furthermore, this essay will argue that the Stoic student should spend time learning how to conduct clear discourse in both speaking and writing. For if we are unable to communicate and teach with clarity, then all the learning of sound reasoning and logic prove mostly useless. Lastly, the essay will briefly discuss exercises in the discipline of assent as they relate to Stoic logic.
Cognition Analysis and Assent
The ancient Stoics compared the newly formed human mind to un-touched wax and to a blank sheet of paper. The wax analogy was used due to the nature of a seal being used to make a print on the wax - this is essentially how a human mind begins taking in sensory data and imprinting them on her soul. The short-coming of this analogy is the process of repeated, multiple prints as well as dealing with incorrect prints or mistakes. At most, a block of wax could hold one imprint at a time. Therefore Chrysippus revised the analogy to a blank sheet of paper which can hold and accumulate many impressions or be erased and revised. (see The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, Hankinson, p. 62 and Stoicism, Sellars, p. 65).
Sticking to the blank paper analogy, a human mind is ready to receive impressions. The human is also born with a hegemonikon or ruling, commanding, controlling part of her soul. The hegemonikon inscribes onto the mind various sense impressions.
There are various kinds of impressions, which when presented to the hegemonikon are inscribed. The first are by way of her senses. Through many early years, the child begins to see, taste, hear and sense many things around her. As these are imprinted on her mind, and as she experiences them over and over again, she is able to recall these impressions. Consistent, repeated and reliable impressions are assented to by the hegemonikon, while novel, infrequent and unique impressions may either be assented to or not.
For example, a child is shown an apple, which is red. The child tastes and eats it, while at the same time is told by her mother that it is an apple. Having already learned the color red, she comes to associate the look, feel and taste of an apple with the red apple she saw, touched and tasted. If this experience is repeated often and consistently, the girl comes to a knowledge of what an apple is - she assents to the sight, touch and taste of a red apple. But, let’s suppose after many experiences with red apples, she is presented with a green, very tart apple. When she sees, touches, and tastes it, she may not, at first, assent to this object being an apple - for it is not red and it tastes differently than the red apples she has eaten many times before. At this point, her mother tells her it is an apple, to which the girl may ask why it is green and tart. The mother then explains that not all apples are red and sweet. The girl will then need to imprint additional information about the concept of apples - that they can be sweet or tart, green or red.
But let’s suppose the mother takes the time to further explain to the little girl that apples can be pink, yellow, a bit of red and yellow or green or dark red; and that they can be very large or small or very sweet, in between or very tart; and that they can be mushy or crisp. If the girl has never experienced all these types of apples previously, but she knows the qualities of sweet, tart, in between sweet and tart, mushy and crisp, then the girl can begin to imagine things she has never experienced via her senses. This is a second method of inscription the hegemonikon can imprint on the mind - through conceptual ideas.
At this point, let’s pause and consider, at least in part, the goal of knowledge. We assume that the mother seeks to instruct the girl about how the world really exists. While the mother tries to explain the reality of all the different attributes of apples, alternatively, she could have told the girl that some apples are in fact orange and the girl may decide to believe her. The girl may tell her father that she hopes to taste an orange apple someday to which her father may respond by laughing and saying that no such thing naturally exists. The point is: humans seek knowledge in order to try to understand things as they really exist and are. To leverage fictional or inaccurate ideas and notions in order to make real world decisions causes confusion, harm, injustice and foolishness. For the Stoics, they aim to assent to the truth - they want to ensure they see the cosmos as it really is.
Through the course of her life, the girl gains much knowledge of the world as it is. There may be times when she has to revise her learning based on new experiences. She may encounter experiences which nearly cause her harm or actually cause her harm. She may first learn that wind and lightning cause damage to her home. And she may conceptually envision a wind storm knocking down a tree, collapsing into her home and into her bedroom while she is sleeping in it. This idea may cause her to be anxious and fear wind and storms. Through repeated experiences, she develops a fight or flight response, in order to ensure she survives such storms. But does the girl truly have to assent to her anxiety and fear of storms? This is where the delineation between first movement impressions and assent occur. While she may have cause to fear for her danger in a storm, she does not necessarily have to agree to the idea that she is in danger. She can be cautious, while she seeks to understand to what extent she needs to be cautious when storms are whipped up.
Another example which contrasts the first movement of genuine fear and anxiety with actual, rational assent based on empirical data is that of kidnapped children. This example comes from the book by Jonathan Haidt entitled The Coddling of the American Mind. After retelling the chilling stories of Ethan Patz and Adam Walsh, Haidt describes how Adam’s father, John Walsh, made it his mission to increase the awareness of crime across America. Haidt writes,
In 1988, Walsh launched a true-crime TV show, America’s Most Wanted, which presented cases of unsolved crimes, including child abductions, and asked the public for help. Walsh was instrumental in a novel method of disseminating photographs of missing children: printing them on milk cartons, under the big all-caps word MISSING. The first such cartons appeared in 1984, and one of the first photos was of Etan Patz. By the early 1990s, the program had spread, and photos of missing children were reproduced on grocery bags, billboards, pizza boxes, even utility bills. Norms changed, fears grew, and many parents came to believe that if they took their eyes off their children for an instant in any public venue, their kid might be snatched. It no longer felt safe to let kids roam around their neighborhoods unsupervised.
Indeed, any parent who raised kids in the 1990s or any child who was raised in that decade will tell you of the heightened anxiety of kidnapping. While John Walsh’s efforts have helped many people and saved many lives, the collective consciousness of many others has become more fearful and anxious - much to the harm of the psychological development and learning of children and teenagers. Haidt continues,
The abduction and murder of a child by a stranger is among the most horrific crimes one can imagine. It is also, thankfully, among the rarest. According to the FBI, almost 90% of children who go missing have either miscommunicated their plans, misunderstood directions, or run away from home or foster care, and 99.8% of the time, missing children come home. The vast majority of those who are abducted are taken by a biological parent who does not have custody; the number abducted by a stranger is a tiny fraction of 1% of children reported missing—roughly one hundred children per year in a nation with more than 70 million minors. And since the 1990s, the rates of all crimes against children have gone down, while the chances of a kidnapped child surviving the ordeal have gone up.
So while a parent may be frightened into thinking their child will be kidnapped while walking home from school (first movement), upon learning via empirical, real-world data, that the threat is far, far less significant, they may decide to reject the proposition that their child is in danger and instead assent to the fact that she will most likely be safe while walking home from school.
This brings us to the next key aspect of the discussion: how we interpret things in our mind. The world and our environment is constantly presenting new situations, circumstances and impressions to our minds. Because our nature is based on the desire to survive (see discussion on oikeiosis in Long, p. 172 and Sellars, p. 107), our hegemonikon interprets these circumstances into a value proposition. This is the next important point in understanding how humans learn. The hegemonikon not only inscribes impressions on our ‘blank paper’ but also acts as an interpreter by proposing a value judgement on an event or sensory perception. When an event happens, the hegemonikon recreates the physical world event into a phantasia and often proposes a value or risk to it. This is presented in the form of discourse or inner dialogue. The mind or soul then chooses to agree or disagree with what has been presented (see Hadot, The Inner Citadel p. 102).
While the focus of this essay is Stoic logic, it is important to note at this time that the key premise of Stoic ethics is the impulse for self-preservation. For animals, the impulse to survive physically is the strongest. While for humans, we not only have the impulse to survive physically, but also to flourish as fully rational agents. This is why first movement within our souls might propose fear and anxiety in the face of a strong thunderstorm or the kidnapping of our offspring. But upon further reflection, the rational sides of our nature need to be developed to see the world as it really exists (see Sellars p. 107-108 / DL 7.85).
Therefore, to this end, Stoic logic aims to help us ensure our interpretation of the world matches the reality of the world. The aim of Stoic logic is to develop the correct inner discourse to ensure we only assent to adequate impressions and reject inadequate impressions. In other words, the Stoic is constantly ensuring her judgements and interpretations of the world are accurate as well as understanding why she may have inaccurately assented to impressions and propositions.
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations are full of examples of him attempting to ensure the integrity of his rational judgement - that it matches the real world (objectivity) - and that he recognizes the difference between perception and value judgement or opinion (subjectivity). He learned this from Epictetus, who instructed his students about this key distinction.
As we train ourselves to deal with sophistical questioning, so we should also train ourselves each day to deal with impressions, because they too put questions to us.
‘The son of So-and-so has died.’—Reply: That lies outside the sphere of choice, it is nothing bad.
‘So-and-so has been disinherited by his father.’—That lies outside the sphere of choice, it is nothing bad.
‘Caesar has condemned him.’—That lies outside the sphere of choice, it is nothing bad.
‘He has been distressed by these things.’—That lies within the sphere of choice, it is something bad.
‘He has endured it nobly.’—That lies within the sphere of choice, it is something good.
If we adopt this habit, we’ll make progress, because we’ll never give our assent to anything unless we get a convincing impression.*
‘His son has died.’—What has happened?—‘His son has died.’—Nothing more than that?—‘Nothing more.’
‘His ship has gone down.’—What has happened? His ship has gone down.
‘He has been taken off to prison.’—What has happened? He has been taken off to prison. But the observation ‘Things have gone badly for him’ is something that each person adds for himself. (Discourses 3.8).
In all the above examples Epictetus offers, he strictly maintains the delineation between seeing the world as it is (objectively) and added value judgements (subjectivity). The more the Stoic student practices viewing the world in this way, the stronger she will become at seeking the wise reaction and opinion to events.
In one passage, we see Marcus admonish himself on this process of delineating the objective and subjective.
The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh—gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into your thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don’t try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don’t let the mind start in with judgments, calling it “good” or “bad.” (Meditations 5.26).
We now see much Stoic work occurs at this demarcation between objectivity and subjectivity. As a side note, this exercise is more commonly known as the dichotomy of control (I don't prefer to use the word 'control', but prefer to simply say what is 'up to us' and what is 'not up to us'. See "What Many People Misunderstand about the Stoic Dichotomy of Control" by Michael Tremblay). It now becomes the hard task of the Stoic student to implement tools to help her see the world objectively, while reserving judgement. This will give herself enough space to reflect and attempt to make wise judgements and assents, while rejecting specious and unsound propositions. The ancient Stoics devised tools to help with this effort. This essay will simply note those tools, but will also recommend some new tools to help the modern Stoic develop a strong, sound inner discourse.
Dialectic and Discourse
As seen above, in the Epictetus quote, our minds (more specifically, our hegemonikon) are sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously proposing something about an event or person or a circumstance or even what another person is saying or writing. Our minds are receiving or making propositions about the reality of the situation all the time. These propositions may be completely true, partly true, partly false or completely false. Our job, if we are striving to be excellent human beings, is to first become keenly aware of all these propositions, and then secondly to evaluate them and then thirdly to either reject or assent to the proposition, or perhaps to enter into dialogue in order to resolve the veracity of the proposition before finally assenting or rejecting.
Stoic dialectic gets very specific about what a proposition is and the meaning or significance of the proposition as well as how one can form and combine them in order to evaluate them. Below is a summary of Stoic dialectic and logic as found in Sellars Stoicism, p. 55-64. One may also find many excellent summaries of Stoic logic on the Internet, some of which will be included in the citations section of this essay.
In sum:
A proposition is a physical entity or corporeal (spoken or written) which carries meaning/sense, which subsists and is incorporeal.
Sayables are the subsistence of the meaning of the proposition.
Sayables are either complete or incomplete.
Complete sayables are called assertibles used in Stoic dialectic.
Four kinds of assertibles (true/false/simple/complex) can be combined with other assertibles to form syllogistic arguments.
While the Stoic student may learn how to form syllogisms, she must be careful not to take it up as a hobby and be distracted from the real purpose of applying logic. The goal is to see the world and events and what people say from an objective standpoint, in order to evaluate the proposition on its merits for truth and wisdom. The goal is to help train your directing mind (hegemonikon) to interpret events as they are without adding on subjective value statements.
Epictetus instructs us on the purpose of sound logic:
For in every area of study, we’re seeking to learn how a good and virtuous person may discover the path that he should follow in life and the way in which he should conduct himself (Discourses 1.7).
For the modern student, she can cast a wider net to include learning not only Stoic logic, but also all available resources for learning and applying logic to argumentation. Two resources to help the student begin to understand and practice sound logic are:
A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston, 4th ed, 2009
Beyond learning sound logic, the student must learn to communicate effectively and persuasively. Weston’s book goes a long way to help the student form arguments in a clear and concise way. But the student should also spend time learning how to effectively write and speak. These skills can be learned in school, college or via any number of on-line resources.
As the student learns logic and how to form propositions and arguments, the only way to ensure that the logic is sound is to share it and discuss it with others, in order to receive feedback. Feedback from experienced teachers and mentors as well as peers, offers the student a wider perspective, correction and enrichment. Furthermore, the collision and sharing of ideas solidifies truths and wisdom, not only for the student, but also for those who participate in the feedback process. We see an example of this type of feedback loop in Seneca’s Moral Letters to Lucilius.
And even if one were to not engage in receiving feedback with regard to argumentation and discourse, the student may still reap benefit by writing out their inner dialogue in the form of written meditations. This exercise for the self has the benefit of distancing oneself from one’s thoughts and then trying to analyze them objectively. We see an example of this form of discourse in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.
Stoics can also practice logic and discourse through conversation. If the Stoic student has the opportunity to meet with other lovers of wisdom, she can share her thoughts through propositions and argumentation. Modern-day meetup groups offer excellent opportunities to share ideas and discuss. As the student offers points, she has the opportunity to organize her thoughts, share them and receive instantaneous feedback from those who listen.
In sum, if we cannot think logically, speak, write and communicate clearly, our inner dialogue will be weak and we will be prone to assenting to inadequate propositions. Sharing our inner dialogue with knowledgeable others and receiving feedback on it, will help us in our pursuit of truth and wisdom.
The Discipline of Assent
The Stoic can immediately apply Stoic logic in her life by practicing the discipline of assent. In everything she sees and encounters, she will strive to see things and restate them in her mind as close as possible to reality. This may seem cold and unfeeling, but if the student wants to reign in unbridled passion and wild logic, she must start by ensuring the way she sees the world is indeed objective.
For example, instead of owning a piece of smoking hot new technology in the form of a smartphone, with which she can take hi-res, glamorous selfies and get millions of followers on social media, she might consider possessing some metal, circuits and glass, which function on 1’s and 0’s, which digitally replicate images of her face in order to share with many people and gain fame. Marcus called delicious meat “dead body of fish” and he called sexual intercourse “no more than the friction of a membrane and a spurt of mucus ejected.” He went on to remind himself of why he should practice this.
How good these perceptions are at getting to the heart of the real thing and penetrating through it, so you can see it for what it is! This should be your practice throughout all your life: when things have such a plausible appearance, show them naked, see their shoddiness, strip away their own boastful account of themselves. Vanity is the greatest seducer of reason: when you are most convinced that your work is important, that is when you are most under its spell (Meditations 6.13).
As the Stoic student improves at the practice of seeing events and things objectively, she can begin to separate her objective view of the thing from any value judgment of it. Her value judgement of it comes from her unique self - it comes from within her space of determining what is 'up to her'. She sees her unique self delineated from time and space. She begins to see there is a space and a gap between an event or thing and her reaction to it. This “circumscribing of the self” as Hadot calls it, becomes an important exercise for allowing herself to see things as they really are, before she chooses to react (or not) to them.
We can see plenty of evidence, in the world, of people who do not mind the gap between an event and their reaction to it. From the angry driver who is cut off in traffic, to the distraught person who is laid off from their job, to the athlete who is angered from a call by the referee or to the mystified soldier who is thrown into a heated battle - all are instinctive and somewhat instantaneous reactions for survival. Consequently, their snap judgements and reactions may exacerbate a situation for them if they cannot control their reactions. The angry driver may cause a crash, injuring himself. The distraught person who is laid off may make a regrettable remark and cause a delay in re-employment. The angered athlete may say something regrettable to the referee and cause her team to lose by a single point. And the soldier may make a logical mistake in judgement if he does not consciously assess the situation. Seeing an event or situation objectively, without piling on emotion and judgement allows the individual to consciously triage circumstances and apply sound logic in reacting to things. And her value judgement of events and things should be informed by wisdom, sound logic, virtues and the moral good.
Much more will be written about the discipline of assent in later essays, as we will review various exercises the Stoic may apply in her daily life.
Conclusion
In sum, this essay attempted to outline a good framework for how a person learns and grows. In a world spinning with complicated cause and effect and mind-boggling amounts of data, this framework will help the student understand how she can use sound logic and reasoning to agree, disagree, or remain neutral to many data points, propositions and ideas which flood her views every day. The essay also advocated that the Stoic student should spend time learning how to conduct clear discourse in both speaking and writing. Lastly, the essay also discussed exercises in the discipline of assent as they relate to Stoic logic.
Citations
Epictetus, ., Hard, R., & Gill, C. (2014). Discourses, fragments, handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hadot, P., & Marcus, A. (1998). The inner citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Hankinson, R. (2003). Stoic Epistemology. In B. Inwood (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, pp. 59-84). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lukianoff, G. & Haidt, J. (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Press.
Aurelius, M., & Hammond, M. (2014). Meditations.
Sagan, C. (1997). The demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark. 1st Ballantine Books ed. New York: Ballantine Books.
Sellars, J. (2006). Stoicism. Berkeley: University of California Press
Weston, A. (2009). A rulebook for arguments. 4th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub.