Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
All About Rules (Episode 113)
741 Plays11 months ago
Caleb and Michael talk about Seneca’s 94th Letter to Lucilius. In it Seneca debates the place of rules in the philosophical life with the ancient Stoic Aristo.
It's a topic of theoretical and practical importance. How do you use rules, proverbs, and precepts well when they are such imperfect tools? What's the difference between rules and principles?
(02:39) The Debate Over Rules
(16:19) Aristo
(21:40) Memorizing Philosophy Does Not Work
(26:02) Rules Are Either Obvious Or Misunderstood
(31:02) Summarizing Aristo
(32:53) Seneca's Response
(45:20) The Point of Rules
(49:54) Are Rules Specific Enough?
(52:38) How To Use Rules
***
Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we'll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Seneca's Views on Rules
00:00:00
Speaker
Anybody who's clued into the realities of progressing at any skill in personal improvement knows the importance of rules. But also the greatest people I think are those that understand then when to break them after they've had a good, a good mastery of them.
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ponceveros. And today we're going to be talking about Seneca on Rules.
00:00:32
Speaker
He's got this wonderful chapter or letter, I should say, in the letters to Lucilius, number 94, that I think is relevant to thinking about self-improvement, the role of things like rules. Sometimes we use the term heuristics, rules of thumb, proverbs, because on one hand, the Stoics give so many of those throughout their
00:00:57
Speaker
writing and works.
Ethics vs. Moral Education: Setting the Stage
00:01:00
Speaker
But on the other, there's always this question, what role should those play in self-improvement and self-development and becoming more stoic?
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, and the way I like to think about these things is you have ethics, which is the question of what's right and wrong. And then you have moral education, which is the question of, well, once you agree the right way to live, how do you go about becoming that kind of person? How do you engage in self transformation?
00:01:27
Speaker
And so this chapter that we're going to be talking about today, this letter from Seneca, is about that question of moral education. And as you said, what role do these precepts, these heuristics or these rules, what role do they play in moral education? Are they
00:01:45
Speaker
helpful, or are they something that a beginner should use, but the advanced person shouldn't use? Are they actually harmful because they make us think we've progressed when we haven't. They make us focus on memorizing lists of specific actions instead of becoming the kinds of people that can reason and act virtuously from our own decision-making process, things like this. So, I think a relevant conversation for today, certainly for the project we're doing here with Restoa Conversations.
00:02:14
Speaker
And I always love when there's something I find just as interesting today, and you have people like Seneca debating it 2000 years ago, that always just makes me think, okay, we're on to something really important here.
Seneca's Approach to Rules in Moral Education
00:02:26
Speaker
And we've landed on something that's worth talking about if we're still interested in it today. Cool. Anything else you wanted to say, Caleb, before I jump into it? No, no, let's do it.
00:02:39
Speaker
Cool. So yes, by way of context, we've already provided some background there. So this is Seneca's letters on ethics, also called his letters to Lekilius. It's a collection of letters that he wrote on ethics, sometimes thought to be
00:02:57
Speaker
a literary device, sometimes thought to also be a literal conversation with the understanding that it would be read by other people as well. But this is, I would say, Seneca's main ethical work or the one that I always go back to. And then in this letter, he's focusing on, well, what's the role of these instructions? What's the role of these precepts? Some examples he gives are things like how to be a wife or husband, how to parent,
00:03:25
Speaker
I think ironically, he talks about the rules about how to manage your slaves, which I think is an interesting example of maybe some of the issues of precepts, right? Well, if you're being given instructions on how to manage your slaves, there's nothing ethical about that. There's nothing ethical or beneficial about learning how to manage your slaves properly. You've missed the point entirely. So I
Debate on the Usefulness of Rules in Stoicism
00:03:49
Speaker
think that's a funny example that Seneca brings up.
00:03:52
Speaker
And then I would say that also falls under the category of what we're discussing. In my translation, Seneca is using the word precepts, but I think what also falls under that umbrella is proverbs, any sort of kind of emotional summary of how to act and how to motivate yourself. So, you know, examples of forgetting trouble is the way to cure it.
00:04:15
Speaker
or this idea that fortune favors the brave, but the coward is foiled by his faint heart. These are examples of proverbs that can maybe direct your ethical action, motivate you, focus your attention, things like this. And Seneca points out that there's actually a debate about the role of these rules and precepts in stoicism. So there's a debate between stoics.
00:04:39
Speaker
On one camp you have Risto. We did an episode on him, episode 41. He's really.
00:04:48
Speaker
If there was going to be a break from stoicism, a hardcore break or schism within stoicism, he was going to be the one to do it. I don't think he really ever got enough support, but to have to constitute an entirely different school or entirely different sect of stoicism. But Aristotle was radically different from previous stoics. In particular, we go into this in episode 41, but particular in the focus on
00:05:17
Speaker
virtue above all else and less emphasis on navigating indifference.
Criticisms of Rules by Aristo
00:05:22
Speaker
And that comes with that as less of an emphasis on role ethics, less of an emphasis on, you know, again, how to be a wife or husband, how to parent, these kinds of discussions. There would still be the kind of person who would say, well, this is pointless, figure out how to be virtuous. And then, you know, being a husband or wife will be easy after that.
00:05:40
Speaker
So on one, on one camp, we have Aristotle who argues that these precepts or these rules, they're useless. Um, the bad person will not do a good thing if you tell him to, and the good person does not need rules. So, you know, if I tell the thief not to steal, they will steal. And I can tell the good person not to steal. They won't steal anyway. That's Aristotle's point.
00:06:01
Speaker
And then in the other camp, we have Clanthes. Clanthes is one of the leaders of the Stoic school, the second leader of the Stoic school after Zeno and before Christmas. And Clanthes argues that these rules have value, more of like a common sense, let's say grounded position. These rules have value as long as they derive from the system of Stoic philosophy.
00:06:24
Speaker
So a bad rule is not helpful. A good rule is helpful. And a good rule is one that is grounded in stoic philosophy. It follows from what stoicism has to say. And so Seneca wants to dive into this question. So this is an interesting question. Let's dig into it. And he wants to frame this around to
00:06:44
Speaker
He asked two questions about this debate. First, are rules useless? So do they have any role in our moral education? And the second question, if they're not useless, do they make the rest of philosophy useless? So if you can be good just by following rules, what's the point of a deeper theoretical understanding of what underpins those rules? So he's kind of trying to respond to both extremes.
00:07:10
Speaker
Right? It, you know, is it the case that they're useless? How can you defend them from being useless? Or is it the case that they're worthwhile? And if they are worthwhile, what's the point of me studying logic? What's the point of me studying physics? Can't I just have the wise stoic tell me what to do when I do them? I do that and I'm good to go.
Seneca's Defense of Rules as Educational Tools
00:07:30
Speaker
I think this is a really interesting chapter and I wanted to dig into it for a couple of reasons. I think Stoicism is often something we worry about being applied philosophy, wanted to change our lives, but what it means to apply Stoicism, our podcast itself is called Stoicism Applied. What that looks like in practice can often be vague. We often run into this issue. I think we have this issue, Cale, on this show.
00:07:57
Speaker
You don't want to be too prescriptive. You don't want to say, well, this is exactly what you should do in this exact situation because we often don't know people's circumstances. We want to apply stoicism, but it seems like a lot of stoicism is contextual. It depends on the specific people and the specific places and their specific roles.
00:08:17
Speaker
Um, so there is even a, even between us, I think a worry that rules are harmful. And I think we're cautious not to provide rules too much, uh, maybe some general ones about, you know, this is what good thinking looks like. There's maybe some things you certainly shouldn't do. You shouldn't value things that are not worth valuing. You shouldn't have false judgments, but that's, we, I feel like sometimes we stay at this really general level. We don't come on this show and say.
00:08:47
Speaker
this is how you should treat, this is exactly how to treat your friends, this is exactly how to act in your job, because I think a lot of that stuff is contextual.
00:08:57
Speaker
Um, and I find also myself, I have a kind of aversion to these kinds of rules. I find myself, I find them a bit, oh, icky is the right word, but like things like don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat. These have always seemed too general to me. And I, and I, I've never been attracted to any sort of philosophy that, that presents itself in that way because I think, well, no, don't lie. Well, that, that depends on the circumstance. Don't steal. It depends on the circumstance.
00:09:21
Speaker
And so I think I'm sympathetic to Aristotle, even though I might not go the full way. And then the other thing I think to keep in mind here that's interesting is that a lot of ethical schools that are not stoicism do rely on these rules. Or do you think, at least for beginners, that these rules can capture much of ethical philosophy? So I think of something like the Ten Commandments, that's a set of precepts, a set of rules to follow that
00:09:49
Speaker
I mean, literally commandments, right? Literally a set of rules that encapsulate a lot of Christian ethics. So it is this active question in ethical philosophy that different schools use and some don't, so on and so forth. But that's my setup for why I think it's worth talking about before we dig into it. Anything for you to add?
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think another framing on this conversation is Seneca is defending, to some extent, the use of rules in Stoicism. And Seneca, he won. He won the debate. That's Stoics use rules. But then the question is,
00:10:29
Speaker
How do you do that well? And Aristo's challenge was taken seriously and I did cause people to at least reflect on how to use heuristics well and accurately captures ways they are misused.
00:10:47
Speaker
And in a sense, I think also even if Aristo didn't win in the Stoic tradition, there is still a fundamental philosophical challenge that's worth thinking through. So I think, but you both have that general, you have that theoretical challenge and then after that philosophical theoretical challenge, you have that other philosophical question, how do you use rules? Well, that's something you are going to do.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's great. A modern example, I can think of these inspirational quote Instagram pages where you have maybe a stoic quote taken out of context. That would be maybe my best formulation of, best
How Rules Aid Moral Development
00:11:32
Speaker
modern example, before we dig into Aristotle's criticisms, that example of where
00:11:37
Speaker
You know, that's a quote that follows from Stoic principles, according to Cleanthes, right? Because it's something that a Stoic said, assuming it's not a misquote. But there's something that I think I at least get, like some alarm bells go off if you think that is the way to become a better person is only, it has its rule, but certainly not only to be reading these kinds of quotes or even acting on them, right? Because sometimes we can't act on them properly without the greater context.
00:12:06
Speaker
So I think, yeah, those are great. I think Instagram pages are a great modern, or Instagram quote pages are a great modern example of what Aristo is complaining about, and perhaps what Seneca might issue warnings about as well, that they certainly have their uses. I suppose the question always arises then, well, can we be a little bit more precise about what a rule means? And my stab would be something like, well, there are two kinds
00:12:36
Speaker
rules or rules about what you this that the Stoics give in particular rules about sort of what you ought to do guides for action and then there are also these proverbs or heuristics about ways the world tends to be so for instance you can just go to Seneca and one piece of advice he gives is you should spend time reflecting on how you use your time you should have a time budget
00:13:04
Speaker
Now that's not something that is a strict fundamental stoic principle. It's not dogma, but it's a general piece of advice of this is something you ought to do if you want to be virtuous. Know how you spend your time.
00:13:21
Speaker
And then you also have rules that are about the way the world tends to be. So there are many common proverbs about this, like out of sight, out of mind. That's a claim about human psychology.
Seneca's Practical View on Rules in Society
00:13:32
Speaker
Of course, there are also contradictory ones like absence makes the heart grow fonder or something like that. I suppose a stoic one would be something like Seneca gives advice.
00:13:43
Speaker
If you choose to have a friend on reflection, trust them fully, and they in turn will repay that trust. So that's sort of a claim about human psychology, how things will turn out, and a claim about how the world will.
00:13:58
Speaker
tend to be in that sense. So you have those two kinds of rules, and the main difference, I suppose, between rules and what you might think of as fundamental principles of Stoicism, or you could say dogmas would be the traditional term, would be these rules are
00:14:16
Speaker
not foundational to the philosophy and they are usually you know these more general claims about ways things tend to be or things one generally ought to do you know these rules of thumb heuristics yeah i think that's so the distinction is between there's there's general advice on how to act then there's general descriptions of the way the world is and then in the third bucket there's the dogma which is like the core stoic claims
00:14:44
Speaker
virtue is the only good, maybe knowledge is virtue, things like this. And the idea would be like, those are not rules of heuristics. Those are fundamental pieces of stoic theory. That's your point. The rules of heuristics are these kind of general guidelines of how to act.
00:15:05
Speaker
You can have those at a more particular level. You can have those at like, as Seneca says, at the level of how to be a proper husband, you know, which maybe would, you know, detail how you're supposed to act with your wife, how you're supposed to act with your children, your responsibilities towards the household, things like this. And then you can have it at a more general level. I just opened up Seneca's letter four. The first line is, persevere in what you have begun.
00:15:30
Speaker
that kind of general advice about like stick to it. And so there's a difference there between those. And I think that difference from that and dogma is a really valid one. So it's not about, eristho is not concerned about, it's not a skeptical position, not concerned about us holding positions to be true in stoicism or arguing for better or worse ways to live.
00:15:55
Speaker
It's about the use of these kind of general prescriptive rules of thumb. Is that a fair summary? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's great. I think that makes sense to me. And I think we're set to dive into what were Aristo's problems with rules. Why is he so anti-rule?
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, anti-rule, but it's the bad boy. Um, so yeah, let's do it. Uh, so what are, what's Aristo's concerns? And as we go through these, I think for those listening, you don't need to be in fully, fully in camp, uh, Risto to say that he's got some good points, right? You can, you can say it, you can acknowledge that an over-reliance on, on these kinds of heuristics or these kinds of rules of thumb, uh, is.
00:16:47
Speaker
is harmful or can be harmful without going full Aristo, which is an intense position to take. So his first criticism, so actually the way the letter works for those who have read it, I'm summarizing Seneca here. So Seneca goes and lists Aristo's criticisms and this is like one of our actually best sources for Aristo's
00:17:08
Speaker
thought actually is this is this letter from Seneca, and then Seneca goes and counters those. So what we're really gonna do is discuss and break down the debate, which is what Seneca is doing in real time as well in his letter. So Aristo's first criticism is that rules ignore the root problem.
00:17:26
Speaker
To quote Seneca, if something affecting the eyes interferes with vision, it must be removed. As long as it is there, it's a waste of time for someone to advise the person, walk like this or stretch out your hand there. Maybe if I think of these rules in terms of productivity, like get out of bed at six in the morning every day, eat three balanced meals with the right amount of nutrition, workout five times a week,
00:17:57
Speaker
Telling me to do those things is not really helpful if I have a problem with my self-control, if I have a problem that's more of a root foundational problem. So when you tell me to get out of bed every morning at six in the morning and go for a run, that's not really...
Balancing Rules with Striving for Virtue
00:18:16
Speaker
I know that already, right? I know that that's going to make me healthier or help improve my habits. You're ignoring the root problem.
00:18:18
Speaker
It's like, well...
00:18:26
Speaker
Right. If I have an issue with my anger, if you tell me, don't be angry, don't tell what other, don't take what other people say personally, this is not really going to help with my anger. Right. That's, that's, that's Eristo's comment.
00:18:40
Speaker
And to quote Seneca again, rules will be of no use as long as the mind is clouded by error. Once this cloud is dispelled, one's obligation in each instance will become evident. Otherwise, you are not curing the sick person, but only telling them how a healthy person ought to behave. I think that's a great line. When you tell an angry person not to be angry, you're not curing the sick person, you're telling them how a healthy person is. That's not curing. So that's the first criticism.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I suppose another way to put it is if you're telling someone to, you know, giving them this sort of productivity advice or even advice of, you know, stick with it, persist and resist, the fundamental challenge I might be facing is that they overvalue the indifference of pain.
00:19:37
Speaker
or perhaps overvalue the indifference of material success. So if you tell someone who's, you know, as Seneca says, their vision is clouded to persist and resist, they might think something like, oh yes, pain is nothing to me. I need to sacrifice in order to achieve material success or excellent reputation because that's where my happiness lies.
Stoicism as a Craft: From Rules to Autonomy
00:20:00
Speaker
And in that sense, the person is not understanding stoic philosophy, right, because they don't
00:20:07
Speaker
they haven't internalized one of the core principles that the happy life is the virtuous one and isn't contingent on external factors.
00:20:20
Speaker
And that's a great point, Kiel, but that's Aristo's point is this idea that, you know, if you don't have your beliefs on, right, if you have an internalized stoic theory and actually made it part of your belief system, if you haven't moved towards knowledge, these rules are not going to be helpful because these rules are
00:20:38
Speaker
only actionable by people that already believe them, as you said, so you have some sort of issue in your belief system, you have some sort of issue in your character where, you know, with the example of sleeping in or something, you know, you overvalue the pleasure of staying in bed, or you overvalue the pain of getting out of that bed, or you don't value enough
00:21:03
Speaker
being the kind of person that can motivate yourself, having that kind of consistency of character. There's some sort of, whatever it is, there's some sort of knowledge and those are not necessarily easy things to change. I'm not sitting here pointing my finger at people that struggle with productivity. But the point is to say, to tell that person, get out of bed at this and this time, this many times a week is not solving the problem. There's the, there's the, there's the cloud and it's still there.
00:21:25
Speaker
Erso's point is not just that this is useless, it's that you're missing the important work, which is that internal character work, that internalization of stoic ideas. Great. Nice, nice, excellent. Yeah, I think that's my point. So the next criticism.
00:21:42
Speaker
So I'm going to go through five here. First was that rules ignore the root problem. Second one is that people who have memorized the rules often break them, showing that they are used, which shows that they're useless. This is connected to the previous one, right? It's the same idea. This person says, well, I know I'm supposed to get out of bed at six and go for a run, but I don't. So it shows that they're not really that helpful.
00:22:06
Speaker
Seneca provides this lovely example, maybe it's Aristo's example, that teachers will give all these rules to school children. They'll tell them how to act. They'll tell them how to behave. This is how you be a good person. And then the teacher turns around and breaks all these rules. And the quote here from Seneca, the teacher who argues that one should never get angry is himself highly irascible.
00:22:26
Speaker
If you go into an elementary school, you'll learn that these sayings gravely propounded by philosophers are in the children's exercise book. And so there's this point there that A, the teacher knows these rules and breaks them, but B, the kids have been learning these rules from your first first time you read a story in a children's book and you get this like moral of the story, be honest, or this moral of the story about
00:22:54
Speaker
You know, be kind to other people or don't lie. You learn these things when you're five, six, seven, kids are still lying. Kids are still breaking these rules. I wouldn't say they're helpful. I mean, it's a pretty extreme position that Eris is taking here, but clearly they're not by themselves sufficient. At the very least, we've seen that many people can recite them. Many people have memorized them, but fewer people are able to act on them.
00:23:19
Speaker
And one could say is that it's one thing to weakly believe a rule and another to know it, to deeply internalize it. And perhaps to make Aristo's argument as strong as possible, you're saying that latter part, that ability to deeply internalize the rule is what really matters. And once you've done that, then you're set. You don't need to worry about anything else.
00:23:49
Speaker
Well his point and then his point is that what does that work to deeply internalize the rule look like? It looks like doing the hard work towards virtue, it doesn't look like reciting and memorizing rules is what you're gonna say. So it's this way of, again it's a chicken, I don't know if it's a chicken and the egg issue, I don't know if that's the right metaphor, but it's the
00:24:07
Speaker
You know, the people who have internalized the rules don't need them and the people that haven't internalized them that they're useless for. So don't sit there. If you haven't internalized them, reading all the rules, go and, uh, you know, study, study philosophy, put in the hard work and, and become the kind of person that acts them out, not, not recites them or memorizes them.
00:24:29
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I think there's, Aristo's position is somewhat similar to I think other philosophers who in a sense think morality, if you have the right perspective, is easy. I think Confucius has this line, is goodness really so far away? If I simply desire goodness, I'll find that it is already here, which is an amazing quote, but also I think
00:24:55
Speaker
points out to this view of psychology where what matters is like, you know, connecting with the good, doing your best to, uh, be excellent. And then if you have that orientation, then in whatever context you're in, you'll be able to understand what needs to be done to the best of your ability. And that's where you start not with even, uh, you know, reading about start philosophy per se.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah. It's a totally different way of looking at moral improvement, right? It's a, it's a, it's a totally different way of thinking about the direction, the direction that you come at it from, which is always really helpful to just consider, uh, you know, am I, am I thinking it enough? Like, um, Aristotle, like, should I, should I come back to that? You know, am I making it harder than it needs to be? Can it just be easy to grasp? That's it's always a good thought.
00:25:51
Speaker
So those are the first two. Rules ignore the root of the problem, and then people who have memorized them clearly don't follow them, showing that they're on their own, not sufficient. The third criticism I'm paraphrasing as obvious rules don't need to be said. Complicated or confusing rules need further explanation.
00:26:12
Speaker
So if a rule is easily grasped by somebody, if it makes a lot of sense, if it's apparent and obvious, then you're not doing anything helpful by saying it out loud. But if it's not apparently obvious, if it's complicated and specific, well, then it needs further explanation. And then, well, it's not any helpful unless it's accompanied by that whole set of theory, that whole
00:26:40
Speaker
foundation of stoicism that comes along with it. So something to keep in mind there. And again, another variation on the play that, you know, the rule is helpful if you already understand everything behind it. And if it's, if it's not, if you can understand it as a non-stoic, then maybe Aristotle's fear is that it's a bit of a platitude or a bit of a kind of a something obvious, you know?
00:27:05
Speaker
So that's the third criticism. Number four is that giving rules to someone who agrees is unnecessary. Telling them to someone who disagrees is insufficient. Same kind of, same kind of play on the same theme here. Yeah. And I suppose that one interesting bit about this argument is I think this fourth one is that he's saying actually knowing about the rules. Once you internalized the core ideas of civic philosophy, isn't that useful?
00:27:34
Speaker
And because, you know, you just need that. Once you have the course of philosophy, you're presented with the situation, then you're going to be able to work through what needs to be done. Yeah, they're just, it's unnecessary because it's repeating back to them what they already know. And then the fifth criticism, if you give rules for specific situations, there will be an infinite number of rules. And so this idea that
00:28:01
Speaker
goodness can't come from knowing and applying rules because then there could never be a good person because there would be more rules to know than could be possible to know. So goodness must come from
00:28:17
Speaker
deciding upon the right thing to do, maybe creating rules in the moment. I think they're not really rules at that point. It comes from like reasoning what to do, being an agent, being proactive, but not from a deductive kind of rule-based reasoning. Okay, I'm in situation A, so I should do action B because there's just too many specific situations to account for that.
00:28:43
Speaker
And I think, I think with this last one, you can think of in terms of like any sort of skill based activity, right? This stoics thought of virtue as a craft. I think that's important to come back to and not forget. So anything else you do that's skilled painting.
00:28:59
Speaker
sports, art, anything like this, well, writing, any craft that we have, the stoics are going to say, well, it's very analogous to stoicism in terms of how you get good at it because they're the same kind of thing. They just have a different object of improvement.
00:29:14
Speaker
And I mean, most people would agree that there's a lot of rules at the beginning level, paint like this, don't do this. But then the brilliant people, the ones that break the rules from their position of knowledge, their kind of savant creation of something new, whether that's an excellent soccer player doing something that you would never recommend a U15 children's team to do, but they're just able to do it.
00:29:45
Speaker
you know, the way Picasso paints or the creation of a new type of art, there is a kind of brilliant perception of the correct course of action that's done by highly skilled people that necessarily requires a rejection of rules.
00:30:01
Speaker
And I don't know if that's a, that might not be in full support of Aristo's argument because he seems to be criticizing these rules for beginners as well. Um, but I think it at least speaks to the idea that the best people don't use these at best. They're probably something for an intermediate. I think that last, um, that last argument is particularly compelling in that regard.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, there's a sense in which these rules, they're just training wheels. And you see that they're going to be flawed in particular ways once you learn more and come to internalize more of a given skill, whether that's sports or art or broad skill, like how to think well, or how to be virtuous in different situations.
00:30:51
Speaker
Cool, so those are his five arguments against rules. Anything you want to add, Kel, before we get to Seneca's counter-argument, his defense of rules? Yeah, so we have rules, ignore the root problem. People who have memorized the rules often break them, showing that they're useless. Obvious rules don't need to be said, whereas complicated or confusing rules need that further explanation.
00:31:17
Speaker
And then fourth, giving rules to someone who agrees is unnecessary. Telling them that someone who disagrees is insufficient. Five, if you give rules for specific situations, there will be an infinite number of rules.
00:31:33
Speaker
I think of all these criticisms, I think the first one is interesting. I think that really focuses on Aristo's radical perspective of starting with ensuring that you're good and then letting those specific good actions fall out from that. And then some of these other ones are important as well, but I think
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
00:32:15
Speaker
The first one, rules ignore the problems. That would be the strongest argument for why they're not good things to use for beginners. And then the last one, if, if you give rules for specific situations, there'll be an infinite number of rules. I think that's a good example of why rules cannot be sufficient for advanced practice. And then as you said, those other three are just like.
00:32:35
Speaker
maybe warnings of wrong times to use them, but that, that clouding your judge, you need to remove the root cause. That's, that's what we need to do to help beginners. And then clearly the skilled soccer player doesn't just follow rules. They're kind of a, an expert in the moment. So is the skilled person, the excellent person. So, but how does Seneca counter these? How does Seneca defend Klyanthi's position here?
00:33:00
Speaker
So he goes through in the chapter and he defends. He goes, he's like, I'm going to talk about these one by one. I'm just going to go. So I'm going to dig straight into it. It's a fun chapter. Um, and so he goes through them one by one encounters them. So first is rules ignore the root problem. That was the one we just talked about as being strong and radical.
00:33:18
Speaker
Seneca's point response to this is that, yeah, look, you're right. Rules by themselves do not cure the root problem of ignorance, but they can be helpful when combined with other strategies. So they, they refresh our memory and they direct our attention. They break down complicated topics into manageable chunks.
00:33:37
Speaker
I think that's the main advantage of these inspirational quotes or these pithy lines is this idea that, look, you're really capturing a lot in a way that's easy for me to remember. Third, even those who cure their false desires or fears need to be told what to do. Beginners need advice.
00:34:00
Speaker
about what to do proactively. So they might be sick if we're using that analogy. They might be doing vicious things. They might be doing wrong things. But curing their vice doesn't give them proactive goals. OK, you're doing this wrong, but this is the right way to do it. And so they need that role model. They need those guidance for positive behavior.
00:34:27
Speaker
And I think it was a pretty common sense objection by Seneca, which is to say, look, like I'm not saying ignore the root cause. I'm not saying, you know, pretend like the root cause is there, there isn't a root character problem that leads to these things, but giving people reminders helps direct their attention and focus. It helps break down, um, you know, you, you raised the line earlier, Caleb of persistent and resist.
00:34:56
Speaker
Giving people a simple line to hold onto has a demonstrated motivational effect. Giving them like a phrase to latch onto has a demonstrated motivational effect. So don't ignore the root cause, but supplement your therapy of the root cause through focusing attention by using these kinds of heuristics or proverbs.
00:35:23
Speaker
And then second, tell people what, so we use the example of, we were using the oversleeping example.
00:35:32
Speaker
Um, so maybe you have some sort of character issue that causes you to over to, to, you know, procrastinate or stay in bed in a way that makes you frustrated with yourself. But attacking that doesn't give you an opposite course of action. And so the rules give you kind of a proactive goal or a positive goal the same way we would use a role model. I think that's a pretty compelling counter argument. What do you think? There are a few different ways to respond to this, but I suppose.
00:36:02
Speaker
Maybe one question is, which of these is the most important? And I think that, of course, part of one of the main focuses of stoicism is managing impressions. Well, how do you do that? You notice impressions as they arise. And then at that point, you can apply stoic principles, both the fundamental teachings, but also these rules or stoic advice you get.
00:36:29
Speaker
and the advice rules can be especially useful for the reasons that Seneca notes. They can bring our attention to what's important, break down the philosophy in an understandable way, and then also provide some of that knowledge about this is generally what you ought to do
00:36:52
Speaker
unless you have a strong countervailing reason to do something else, then just do this, right? And I think the fine approach. Yeah. And so let me get into the second one, but by the time we get to the second one, which was this idea that people who have memorized the rules often break them, like the school teacher, more like the kids who have learned this in their first time they read a fairy tale, they learned these lessons.
00:37:19
Speaker
When we get to that counter argument, Seneca's criticism of that point is this idea that reminders are a useful philosophical exercise because they work well with our attention. They focus our attention, and that's a reoccurring theme that Seneca is going to come back to here. I think he's a much more down-to-earth than aristo-practical about what actually helps people and what helps people.
00:37:46
Speaker
is this kind of memory aid, this kind of attention focusing, this kind of bringing your perspective onto a certain idea and focusing that perspective. And so his quote here around, what do we say to people who have memorized the rules but don't follow them?
00:38:02
Speaker
Seneca says, quote, a reminder does not teach, but it does call attention. It arouses us, focuses the memory and prevents it from slipping away. The mind often pretends not to notice things that are obvious. And so it must be forced to take note of even the most familiar matters. And Seneca's point here is.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah, you've already memorized it, but there's maybe three levels of understanding. One is memorization. I can retrieve this or recite it. Another is I'm focusing on it. I'm paying attention to it. I'm having it guide my action the best way that it possibly can, given my current level of progress.
00:38:45
Speaker
And then the third level is, well, I'm, I'm perfect. I'm virtuous. I don't need that rule called to my attention because I'll, I'll follow the rule. And you can think of this, you know, we talk about this in skill development about like, um, there's difference between unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and then unconscious competence. Unconscious competence being, you know, I can do the, I can do the thing without even realizing I'm doing it because I've practiced it so much.
00:39:12
Speaker
And we can think of precepts and reminders almost as this conscious competence. Okay, this is a rule. I know I'm supposed to follow it and I'm following it because I'm focusing my attention on it. And there's a real, and Aristotle was like, well, if you're unconsciously competent, why would you need that rule? Can't you just like, can't you just perfectly dribble the ball? Can't you just perfectly paint? Can't you just perfectly navigate this complex ethical situation?
00:39:39
Speaker
And it's like, well, that's not how people act when they're flirting between conscious incompetence and conscious competence. They need the help to practice. And one way to do that is to direct our attention and direct our focus. And so I love that reminder from Seneca. And I think that for me is the strongest theme around precepts and these heuristics is that idea of let's really focus our attention.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think running through these responses from Seneca is this theme that Aristo is overlooking the process of moral development and that at the end stage,
00:40:20
Speaker
you do see what Risto may be describing, but as one is, developing, learning about Stoic philosophy, improving one's beliefs, that's where rules and advice are going to be useful. And I think that's not so surprising when you think about skill development in other areas.
00:40:43
Speaker
as well, as you say. Often people will start with a mix of just engaging in the activity itself, engaging in small segments of the activity, maybe drilling or painting, particularly easy track to do, and then any good teacher will
00:41:05
Speaker
both let the students improve on their own without offering advice, but also maybe step back and help them reflect and even give them important rules that they might use. And then as they develop more, as they become more and more skilled, those rules might fall away and they'll see, oh, this is the real meaning of that advice. This is when it applies, this is when it doesn't, and so on. Yeah, I think about something like, you know,
00:41:36
Speaker
in basketball, like make three passes before you shoot or something. And it's like, you know, obviously you're restricting LeBron James, if you tell LeBron James in the NBA finals to make three passes before he shoots, but that doesn't make it bad advice for a bunch of grade sevens in terms of progression, in terms of this actual development.
00:41:58
Speaker
And maybe, maybe Aristotle was just the ethical savant, right? Same way. Some people are very talented at basketball and they're going to outgrow their grade seven coach quite quickly. Maybe he was that kind of person in terms of stoicism. And maybe there was a kind of lack of empathy for us, as mortals, as regular people. It's a, it is a.
00:42:21
Speaker
It's a tool to help progress by focusing attention. I think that's the strongest thing that we're going to come back to again and again that Seneca points out. So criticizing this leader or defending against eros those criticisms one by one. The third one was that obvious rules don't need to be said. Complicated or confusing rules need further explanation.
00:42:42
Speaker
Seneca's counter is that, well, look, obvious rules have an immediate impact on our nature and attention. So obvious rules, when you say they don't need to be said again, you're forgetting this point of progress. They, they immediately, they, they might be obvious or understood when called to our attention, but they can often fall out of our attention. Right. Remember to walk away when you're getting angry. That might be obvious to anybody you tell that to after they remember it, but it might not be in their mind when they're getting angry.
00:43:13
Speaker
So obvious rules immediately work on our attention. They can also articulate things you subconsciously hold to be true, but are not, again, are subconscious, are not recognized in the moment. This makes staying them useful, even if you already agree with them. And so another beautiful quote by Seneca here, virtue is roused by a touch, a nudge.
00:43:39
Speaker
Besides, there are some things that are indeed present in the mind but not accessible. These begin to be usable when they are put into words. Some things lie scattered over the mind's different compartments and an untrained intellect cannot assemble them. Hence, they need to be united and connected so they will be more effective and do more to elevate the mind. So this is a point
00:44:02
Speaker
I think that, so the first part is that obvious things, you know, they, they call it our attention. That's great. A virtue is roused by a nudge.
00:44:12
Speaker
But I think the second point has to do with that complicated claim, which is to say, sometimes we can hold bits of things that we don't see the connection between them, or sometimes we might know more than we realize. And a well put heuristic, a well put precept, a well put proverb connects these things. I think about when people first learn about stoicism and you tell them the dichotomy of control.
00:44:35
Speaker
You know, some things up to you, some things that aren't, and you should focus on the things that are up to you and do your best not to concern yourself with things not up to you. Most people will go, wow, that makes a lot of sense. That's something that I always kind of thought about, but never really knew how to say before, never put it into such clear words before.
00:44:57
Speaker
80% of people have that reaction when they hear the dichotomy of control. And that's Seneca's point here, I think, is that look, you recognize the truth of this kind of subconsciously, it's kind of scattered across your mind, and the heuristic or the rule of thumb here helps you unify it into something that's actionable for you. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Okay, so number four, giving rules to someone who agrees is unnecessary, telling them to someone who disagrees is insufficient.
00:45:28
Speaker
So Seneca points out again this theme of the progressor. So most people are struggling to be good, Seneca says, and rules can help the soul recover even if they initially disagree unless they're totally vicious. So you can disagree with a rule.
00:45:45
Speaker
But being given that rule can help put you down the path of progress, right? Unless you're totally, unless you're totally gone. Unless, you know, there's no point of talking to you about anger, stealing, murder, talking about this at all has no effect. You're totally gone. Well, then you're not a progressor anyway. You're just totally vicious.
00:46:05
Speaker
So, but for any progress or even if that person is fighting back against the in-person, it doesn't agree. You're still getting them in that kind of conversation. You're still rousing these thoughts in them and helping pull them towards a better life.
00:46:20
Speaker
And so the one thing Seneca says here, quote, is that the only difference between the principles of philosophy and rules is the generality of the former and the specificity of the latter. They are both prescriptive, the one universally and the other at the level of particulars. So Seneca's point here is to say, look, well, if rules are useless, then all of philosophy is useless because they're both just claims about how to live. Just one of them is particular and one of them is general.
00:46:47
Speaker
So, if that person can be helped at all by studying scientific philosophy, then they can obviously be helped by talking about specific rules, specific heuristics for specific situations as well. So, you know, even if someone disagrees, philosophy is helpful. Not everybody comes into philosophy thinking virtue is the only good.
00:47:10
Speaker
And so likewise with rules, even if someone disagrees with a rule, doesn't mean it's useless for them. You can begin engaging them in that exercise of philosophy by talking about these heuristics, these, these, uh, proverbs with them. Yeah. Yeah. I think Seneca is too strong against this objection. At least I think it's going to be more informative for practice and you might give it, give it credit. Um, and that's probably connected to the, this next objection, right? Which is that if you give.
00:47:39
Speaker
rules for specific situations there's always that concern well then there's going to be so many of them or say that another way many of these rules are approximate or general rules of thumb and there's that
00:47:54
Speaker
always that issue of do you understand the context in which a rule applies and the context in which it doesn't and merely hearing about it isn't going to help you know what particular does this rule apply to rather than not.
00:48:13
Speaker
Which is, I think, a significant difference between these universal principles of philosophy, which is applied to every situation. And then, especially some of these more specific rules about how to be a good husband, wife, child, citizen, and so on. Okay. So, Caleb, your point is like, you're not totally convinced by Seneca's counter-argument here.
00:48:39
Speaker
Seneca's counter-argument is something like, look, both principles of philosophy and rules are the same thing. They're just one's general, one's specific. And you're like, no, your point is like, no, that makes a big difference, Seneca, because things that are general, you don't need to know how to apply. You just need to work to understand them because they always apply. Where the specifics, how to be a good husband, there's a lot of nuance there that if you're not
00:49:06
Speaker
If you're not already a certain level of progress, you can get wronged and then it can actually be harmful. Is that what you're saying? Well, yeah, I mean, I think I generally agree with Seneca's objections. It feels like, you know, he's beating up on poor Risto here, but he's maybe at least not pulling out what's of value or that there is in fact a useful warning.
00:49:28
Speaker
here and the warning applies specifically to rules just because of what you said. They apply to particular situations and in order to know when they apply, there's that additional feature of knowing when a rule applies and when it doesn't, which you don't have with the core principles of philosophy. Yeah, that's a good point.
00:49:54
Speaker
Oh, there's one interesting thought with for the next objection, you know, if you give rules for a specific situation, so be an infinite number of rules, that objection, Seneca actually makes the move that with the most important things, you do have advice heuristics that essentially apply to every particular, you know, realistically, if you take something like
00:50:24
Speaker
don't lie, don't murder. Of course, you can think of some kind of counterexample, but in general, one should never do those things. At least that's a possible point of view that then there's going to be some amount of rules that meet that sort of stronger. They're almost effectively absolute rules.
00:50:46
Speaker
Rules just because the way the way the world happens to be set up. I think that's that's an interesting situation Maybe yeah opens a hole now that can't worms about whether there are these kinds of rules and stoicism or not But I think that that was that that was an interesting move that that stuck out to me from this letter Yeah, so Seneca's yeah, so Seneca's
00:51:09
Speaker
Rejection of the argument that is going to be an infinite number of rules is they, as you said, no, there's a, there's a limited number of rules around the most important things. There's maybe there's a slightly different articulation in terms of time, place, and person, but the generic rules are these essential general rules apply. Even if you're changing, you know, those specifics.
00:51:33
Speaker
I think you're right that it does open up that can of worms about, um, I guess how, like, um, how situational is stoic ethics. That difference between, um, because Seneca is not Epictetus, right? Like often we make this rule, we make this kind of play where we say, well, look, when we're looking at particular matters, we want to look at role ethics. Epictetus is really big on that. That comes from previous stoics, right? Like, um, Penatius.
00:52:02
Speaker
So that's not something Epictetus made up, but not something you see as much of in Seneca, who's maybe coming back to saying, look, there are some kind of general rules of action that you can follow 99% of the time. And that's what stoicism is, is understanding those rules of action. Or that's the bulk of what stoicism is.
00:52:27
Speaker
Interesting, an interesting way of thinking about it. And certainly not, not how Oristo thought about it. Hence Oristo's concern, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
00:52:38
Speaker
Um, then, then the last thing, this is not actually a criticism from Seneca, but I think it's a great, it's not a criticism of Aristo, but it's another argument Seneca makes in favor of precepts that I think summarizes his position really well. So I wanted to quote it. Um, he, and this is basically the argument that we need rules, reminders, precepts, quotes as a kind of counterbalanced, all the corrupting stimulus we receive daily.
00:53:02
Speaker
So Seneca says, quote, we need to counteract all these examples that crowd into our eyes and ears and empty the load of harmful speech from our hearts. Sanity consists largely in abandoning the advocates of insanity and getting far away from an association that is mutually harmful.
00:53:19
Speaker
Therefore, if we are situated in the midst of a noisy city, let there be a preceptor at our side to contradict those who laud vast amounts of wealth, and to praise instead the man who is wealthy on little, and who measures wealth by how it is used.
00:53:35
Speaker
And it's just, it's just this, almost just this like stimulus battle, right? It's like, well, you're getting advertisements that are like, care about how you look, care about the car you drive, care about what people think of you. You're constantly getting, constantly an input like this over and over and over again. And Seneca is saying, well, look, you need a kind of, you need another input to fight against that. And that's what precepts can be. It's this attention argument again, but it's this intention in, uh, attention argument.
00:54:01
Speaker
I'm meditating in a cave and I need to think of a quote to draw my attention to the right thing in my meditation practice. It's no, I'm walking through a city and I'm constantly getting hit by stimulus that pulls me in non-stoic directions. The least I can do is, you know,
00:54:16
Speaker
have some stoic, uh, have some stoic, uh, Instagram pages when I open up social media so that I can get some of that positive influence instead. It's this kind of war of stimulus in a way that, you know, Seneca living in the bustling city of Rome, I think was really aware of. I thought it was a good argument. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think that's well put. So I think, I think one of the key themes is the Seneca has a realistic picture of
00:54:46
Speaker
what moral development looks like for us. And rules are going to play a large part in that. And then what one can take from Aristo is many of these arguments are examples of ways people misuse rules, don't understand them, misapply them, and so on. And then we have that first
00:55:09
Speaker
argument, which is that focus on the root issue, which is ensuring that one is oriented towards virtue, I suppose, oriented towards the good. And then from there, then you can learn how to apply rules well.
00:55:29
Speaker
which is related to any skill. If you want to teach someone to be an excellent chess player, it's going to be extremely difficult to succeed if they don't have that desire to be good at chess at all. So maybe there's that reminder to value this project of becoming more virtuous, becoming more stoic, whatever it is. I think that's really well put, and I think that Seneca kind of
00:55:58
Speaker
I think Seneca almost strawmans Aristo or maybe Aristo strawmans himself because it gets framed in this rule of like, well, is Aristo right that rules are useless? And when you frame the conversation like that, I think Seneca rightly goes, that's dumb. There's clearly a use here. But I think as you pointed out, Caleb,
00:56:20
Speaker
There are problems with rules. There are problems with rules misapplied. And you need to be cautious of those in your own improvement. And I ultimately just end up in that Clancy's middle ground.
00:56:33
Speaker
A reasonable guy rules are good as long as they follow the stoic system. So, or whatever system you believe, as long as they come, they accord with, they have reasons behind them. They're not just things that sound cool in the moment or interesting. There's a, there's a, there's an argument behind them and they do not replace learning about that larger system. So you don't, you don't just rely on them and think, well, that's my moral education.
00:56:57
Speaker
And Caleb, I don't know if you've seen these, but I would encourage anybody who's, you know, has a nice connection to this to look up Picasso's paintings from when he was 14, 15. And they're just these beautiful, I would say like more traditional, I'm not an art historian, but very skilled kind of the ways that you would think of,
00:57:23
Speaker
maybe like realistic paintings. And so then Picasso is known for all this like more abstract modern art, right? But that's clearly someone who mastered the rules and then broke them. And I think that's, I think that's like a good analogy to end on, which is to say, anybody who, anybody who's clued into the realities of progressing at any skill in personal improvement knows the importance of rules.
00:57:48
Speaker
But also, um, you know, the greatest people, I think are those that understand then when to break them after they've had a good, a good mastery of them. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a, that's a great example. There's a nice blog posts.
00:58:05
Speaker
in a blog called the Atlas of Wonders and Monsters entitled the figurative to abstract art pipeline. And it shows for a lot of abstract artists, the skill in their earlier work, and then how their work evolved as it became more minimalist, more abstract. Because I think, especially when you look at some of these abstract works, these modern works, you think, you know, it kind of looks like these are a bunch of colored lines that could be put together.
00:58:31
Speaker
a five-year-old, but when you look at the trajectory a lot of these artists took, then you see the amount, they at least were skilled at doing some of these basic, more traditional, representational style paintings. And I think that, of course, you just see some of these later works in a different light. Yeah, absolutely.
00:58:58
Speaker
And just connect that idea of ethics, philosophy as a craft as well. And you don't get to that end state where you don't follow the rules by skipping that middle state. Awesome. Sweet. Well, check out Seneca's letter. That's the letter 94 if you want to go to the source. Otherwise, until next time.