A Guide to the Good Life Read online

  What this means is that it is entirely possible these days for someone to have been raised in a religion and to have taken philosophy courses in college but still to be lacking a philosophy of life. (Indeed, this is the situation in which most of my students find themselves.) What, then, should those seeking a philosophy of life do? Perhaps their best option is to create for themselves a virtual school of philosophy by reading the works of the philosophers who ran the ancient schools. This, at any rate, is what, in the following pages, I will be encouraging readers to do.

  In ancient Greece, when schools of philosophy were still prominent features of the cultural landscape, there were any number of schools to which parents could send their children. Suppose we could travel back in time to 300 bc and take a thinking person’s walking tour of Athens. We could begin our tour in the Agora, where Socrates a century earlier had philosophized with the citizens of Athens. On the northern side of the Agora we would see the Stoa Poikile, or Painted Porch, and holding forth there might be Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy. This “porch” was actually a colonnade decorated with murals.

  As we walked through Athens, we might come across the Cynic philosopher Crates, whose school of philosophy Zeno had once attended. Although the first Cynics met near the gymnasium of Cynosarges—hence their name—they could be found anywhere in Athens, attempting to draw (or drag, if need be) ordinary people into philosophical discussions. Furthermore, whereas parents might have willingly sent their children to study with Zeno, it is unlikely that they encouraged them to become Cynics, inasmuch as Cynic doctrines, if successfully internalized, would guarantee their child a life of ignominious poverty.

  Heading northwest and leaving the city by Dipylon Gate, we would come to the Garden of the Epicureans, presided over by Epicurus himself. Whereas the Painted Porch was in an urban setting, with Stoic lectures periodically interrupted, one imagines, by noise from the street or the comments of passers-by, Epicurus’s Garden had a distinctly rural feel. The Garden was in fact a working garden in which the Epicureans grew their own vegetables. Continuing toward the northwest, about a mile from the Agora, we would come to the Academy, the school of philosophy founded by Plato in 387 bc, a bit more than a decade after the death of Socrates. Like Epicurus’s Garden, the Academy would have been a striking place in which to philosophize. It was a parklike retreat, furnished with walks and fountains.

  On the Academy grounds were buildings, paid for by Plato and his friends. Holding forth there in 300 bc might have been Polemo, who had inherited the position of master of the school. (The Stoic philosopher Zeno, as we shall see, attended Polemo’s school for a time.)

  Doubling back, going through the city again, and exiting the city gates into the eastern suburbs of Athens, we would have come to the Lyceum. In this wooded area, near a shrine to Apollo Lykeios, we could see the Peripatetics, disciples of Aristotle, walking and talking, and at the head of the group might be Theophrastus.

  But this is only the beginning of the educational options open to ancient parents. Besides the schools mentioned in connection with our walking tour, there were the Cyrenaic, Skeptic, Megarian, and Elian schools mentioned earlier, to which we can add several other schools mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, including the Eretrian, Annicerean, and Theodorean schools, along with the schools run by the Eudaemonists, the Truth-lovers, the Refutationists, the Reasoners from Analogy, the Physicists, the Moralists, and the Dialecticians.6 As it so happens, young men (and, rarely, young women) weren’t the only ones to attend schools of philosophy.

  Sometimes fathers studied alongside their sons. In other cases, adults attended a school’s lectures by themselves. Some of these adults were simply interested in philosophy; perhaps they had attended a school as a youth and now sought “continuing education” in the philosophy of life taught by that school. Other adults, though never having belonged to a school, might have attended its lectures as guests. Their motives were probably very much like the motives modern individuals have in attending a public lecture: They sought to be enlightened and entertained.

  Yet other adults had an ulterior motive for attending schools of philosophy: They wanted to start their own school and listened to the lectures of heads of successful schools in order to borrow philosophical ideas they could use in their own teaching. Zeno of Citium was accused of doing just this: Polemo complained that Zeno’s motive for attending lectures at the Academy was to steal his doctrines.7

  The rival scho ols of philosophy differed in the subjects they taught. The early Stoics, for example, were interested not only in a philosophy of life, but in physics and logic as well, for the simple reason that they thought these areas of study were inherently entwined. The Epicureans shared the Stoics’ interest in physics (although they had different views about the physical world than the Stoics did) but did not likewise share their interest in logic. The Cyrenaics and Cynics were interested in neither physics nor logic; at their schools, all one was taught was a philosophy of life.

  Those schools that offered students a philosophy of life differed in the philosophy they recommended. The Cyrenaics, for example, thought the grand goal in living was the experience of pleasure and therefore advocated taking advantage of every opportunity to experience it. The Cynics advocated an ascetic lifestyle: If you want a good life, they argued, you must learn to want next to nothing. The Stoics fell somewhere between the Cyrenaics and the Cynics: They thought people should enjoy the good things life has to offer, including friendship and wealth, but only if they did not cling to these good things. Indeed, they thought we should periodically interrupt our enjoyment of what life has to offer to spend time contemplating the loss of whatever it is we are enjoying.

  Affiliating oneself with a school of philosophy was a serious business. According to the historian Simon Price, “Adherence to a philosophical sect was not simply a matter for the mind, or the result of mere intellectual fashion. Those who took their philosophy seriously attempted to live that philosophy from day to day.”8 And just as a modern individual’s religion can become the key element of his personal identity—think of a born-again Christian—an ancient Greek’s or Roman’s philosophical association became an important part of who he was.According to the historian Paul Veyne, “To truly be a philosopher was to live out the sect’s doctrine, conform one’s conduct (and even one’s attire) to it, and if need be, to die for it.”9

  Readers of this book should therefore keep in mind that although I am advocating Stoicism as a philosophy of life, it isn’t the only option available to those seeking such a philosophy. Furthermore, although the Stoics thought they could prove that theirs was the correct philosophy of life, I don’t (as we shall see in chapter 21) think such a proof is possible. Instead, I think that which philosophy of life a person should choose depends on her personality and circumstances.

  But having made this admission, let me add that I think there are very many people whose personality and circumstances make them wonderful candidates for the practice of Stoicism. Furthermore, whatever philosophy of life a person ends up adopting, she will probably have a better life than if she tried to live—as many people do—without a coherent philosophy of life.

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  T W O

  The First Stoics

  Zeno (333–261 bc) was the first Stoic. (And by Zeno, I mean Zeno of Citium, not to be confused with Zeno of Elea, who is famous for a paradox involving Achilles and a tortoise, or with any of the seven other Zenos mentioned by Diogenes Laertius in his biographical sketches.) Zeno’s father was a merchant of purple dye and used to come home from his travels with books for Zeno to read. Among them were philosophy books purchased in Athens. These books aroused Zeno’s interest in both philosophy and Athens.

  As the result of a shipwreck, Zeno found himself in Athens, and while there, he decided to take advantage of the philosophical resources the city had to offer. He went to a bookseller’s shop and asked where men like Socrates could be found.

/>   Just then, Crates the Cynic was walking by. The bookseller pointed to him and said, “Follow yonder man.” And so it was, we are told, that Zeno became Crates’ pupil. Looking back on this time in his life, Zeno commented, “I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered shipwreck.”1

  The Cynics had little interest in philosophical theorizing. They instead advocated a rather extreme philosophical lifestyle.

  They were ascetics. Socially speaking, they were the ancient equivalent of what we today call the homeless: They lived in the streets and slept on the ground. They owned only the clothing on their backs, typically one poor cloak, what the ancients refer to as “Cynic garb.” Theirs was a day-to-day, hand-to-mouth existence.

  When someone told Epictetus—who, although himself a Stoic, was familiar with Cynicism—that he was contemplating joining the Cynic school, Epictetus explained what becoming a Cynic would entail: “You must utterly put away the will to get, and must will to avoid only what lies within the sphere of your will: you must harbour no anger, wrath, envy, pity: a fair maid, a fair name, favourites, or sweet cakes, must mean nothing to you.” A Cynic, he explained, “must have the spirit of patience in such measure as to seem to the multitude as unfeeling as a stone. Reviling or blows or insults are nothing to him.”2 Few people, one imagines, had the courage and endurance to live the life of a Cynic.

  The Cynics were renowned for their wit and wisdom. When, for example, someone asked what sort of woman a man should marry, Antisthenes replied that no matter what woman he chose for his wife, he would live to regret marrying:

  “If she’s beautiful, you’ll not have her to yourself; if she’s ugly, you’ll pay for it dearly.” Concerning our dealings with other people, he commented that “it is better to fall in with crows than with flatterers; for in the one case you are devoured when dead, in the other case while alive.” He also advised his listeners to “pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.” Despite, or perhaps because of, his sharp wit, Antisthenes was described as being “the most agreeable of men in conversation.”3

  Diogenes of Sinope (not to be confused with Diogenes Laertius, who wrote a biographical sketch of him and other philosophers) was a student of Antisthenes and went on to become the most famous Cynic. In defense of simple living, Diogenes observed that “the gods had given to men the means of living easily, but this had been put out of sight, because we require honeyed cakes, unguents and the like.” Such is the madness of men, he said, that they choose to be miserable when they have it in their power to be content. The problem is that “bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters,” and because they cannot control their desires, they can never find contentment.4

  Men’s values, Diogenes insisted, had been corrupted. He pointed out, by way of illustration, that a statue, the only function of which is to please the eye, might cost three thousand drachmas, while a quart of barley flour, which when consumed can keep us alive, can be bought for only two copper coins.5 He believed hunger to be the best appetizer, and because he waited until he was hungry or thirsty before he ate or drank, “he used to partake of a barley cake with greater pleasure than others did of the costliest of foods, and enjoyed a drink from a stream of running water more than others did their Thasian wine.”6 When asked about his lack of an abode, Diogenes would reply that he had access to the greatest houses in every city—to their temples and gymnasia, that is. And when asked what he had learned from philosophy, Diogenes replied, “To be prepared for every fortune.”7 This reply, as we shall see, anticipates one important theme of Stoicism.

  The Cynics plied their trade not in a suburban setting, as Epicurus and Plato did, but on the streets of Athens, as Socrates had done. And like Socrates, the Cynics sought to instruct not only those who offered themselves as pupils but anyone at all, including those who were reluctant to be taught.

  Indeed, the Cynic Crates—who, as we have seen, was the Stoic philosopher Zeno’s first philosophical teacher—wasn’t content simply with badgering the people he encountered on the street; he also entered people’s homes uninvited to admonish those within. For this habit, he became known as “the Door Opener.”8

  After studying with Crates for a time, Zeno decided that he was more interested in theory than Crates was. He therefore came up with the idea of focusing not just on a philosophical lifestyle or a philosophical theory, but combining lifestyle with theory, the way Socrates had done.9 The nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer summed up the relationship between Cynicism and Stoicism by observing that the Stoic philosophers proceeded from the Cynics “by changing the practical into the theoretical.”10

  Zeno therefore set out to learn philosophical theory. He went off to study with Stilpo, of the Megarian school. (Crates responded by physically trying to drag him away.) He also studied with Polemo at the Academy, and in around 300 bc, he started his own school of philosophy. In his teaching, he appears to have mixed the lifestyle advice of Crates with the theoretical philosophy of Polemo. (According to Polemo, Zeno did little more than give the doctrines of the Academy “a Phoenician make-up.”)11 Into this mix he incorporated the Megarian school’s interest in logic and paradoxes.

  Zeno’s school of philosophy enjoyed immediate success.12 His followers were initially called Zenonians, but because he was in the habit of giving his lectures in the Stoa Poikile, they subsequently became known as the Stoics—as, by the way, had been the poets who had formerly been in the habit of hanging out there.13

  One thing that made Stoicism attractive was its abandonment of Cynic asceticism: The Stoics favored a lifestyle that, although simple, allowed creature comforts. The Stoics defended this abandonment by arguing that if they avoided the “good things,” as the Cynics did, they thereby demonstrated that the things in question really were good—were things that, if they did not hide them from themselves, they would crave.

  The Stoics enjoyed whatever “good things” happened to be available, but even as they did so, they prepared themselves to give up the things in question.Zeno’s philosophy had ethical, physical, and logical components. Those who studied Stoicism under him started with logic, moved on to physics, and ended with ethics.14

  Although the Stoics were not the first to do logic—Aristotle, for example, had done it before them, as had the Megarians—Stoic logic showed an unprecedented degree of sophistication.The Stoics’ interest in logic is a natural consequence of their belief that man’s distinguishing feature is his rationality. Logic is, after all, the study of the proper use of reasoning. The Stoics became experts on argument forms, such as “If A, then B; but A, therefore B” or “Either A or B; but not A, therefore B.” These argument forms, which are called modus ponens and modus tollendo ponens, respectively, are still used by logicians.

  To understand the Stoics’ interest in logic, it helps to remember that parents sent their children to schools of philosophy not just so they could learn how to live well but so they could sharpen their skills of persuasion. By teaching their students logic, the Stoics were helping them develop these skills: Students who knew logic could detect the falla-cies committed by others and thereby prevail over them in arguments.

  Physics was the second component of Zeno’s Stoicism. Living, as they did, in a time without science, Zeno’s students doubtless appreciated explanations of the world around them. And besides providing explanations of natural phenomena, as modern physics does, Stoic physics was concerned with what we would call theology. Zeno, for example, tried to explain such things as the existence and nature of the gods, why the gods created our universe and its inhabitants, the role the gods play in determining the outcome of events, and the proper relationship between people and the gods.

  Ethics was the third and most important component of Zeno’s Stoicism. The Stoic conception of ethics, readers should realize, differs from our modern conception. We think of ethics as the study of moral right and wrong. A modern-day ethicist might wonder, for example, whether abo
rtion is morally permissible, and if so, under what circumstances. Stoic ethics, in contrast, is what is called eudaemonistic ethics, from the Greek eu meaning “good” and daimon meaning “spirit.”

  It is concerned not with moral right and wrong but with having a “good spirit,” that is, with living a good, happy life or with what is sometimes called moral wisdom.15 As the philosopher Lawrence C. Becker puts it, “Stoic ethics is a species of eudaimonism. Its central, organizing concern is about what we ought to do or be to live well—to flourish.”16 In the words of the historian Paul Veyne, “Stoicism is not so much an ethic as it is a paradoxical recipe for happiness.”17

  It is easy for modern readers to misconstrue what the Stoics had in mind by “a good life.” Indeed, many readers will equate having a good life with making a good living—with, that is, having a high-paying job. The Stoics, however, thought it entirely possible for someone to have a bad life despite making a very good living. Suppose, for example, that he hates his high-paying job, or suppose that the job creates conflict within him by requiring him to do things he knows to be wrong.

  What, then, must a person do to have what the Stoics would call a good life? Be virtuous! But again, “virtue” is a word that invites misunderstanding. Tell a modern reader that the Stoics advocate that she live in a virtuous manner, and she might roll her eyes; indeed, to this reader, nuns would be prime examples of virtuous individuals, and what makes them virtuous are their chastity, humility, and kindheartedness. Are the Stoics, then, advocating that we live like nuns?

  In fact, this isn’t at all what the Stoics have in mind when they talk about virtue. For the Stoics, a person’s virtue does not depend, for example, on her sexual history. Instead, it depends on her excellence as a human being—on how well she performs the function for which humans were designed. In the same way that a “virtuous” (or excellent) hammer is one that performs well the function for which it was designed—namely, to drive nails—a virtuous individual is one who performs well the function for which humans were designed. To be virtuous, then, is to live as we were designed to live; it is to live, as Zeno put it, in accordance with nature.18 The Stoics would add that if we do this, we will have a good life.