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Stoic Courage (Episode 133)
939 Plays5 months ago
The Stoics promoted the four cardinal virtues: courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom. In this episode, we talk about Stoic courage. Caleb and Michael discuss what it is and how the Stoics broke it down into different subdisciplines.
Their breakdown still provides an effective framework for building the skill of bravery today.
(01:03) What Is Courage?
(10:19) Aristotle
(14:14) The Subcomponents Of Courage
(15:36) Endurance
(19:03) Confidence
(21:23) Greatness Of Soul
(27:34) Vitality
(33:54) Love Of Work
(39:07) Not Just Overcoming Fear
(40:59) Seneca Motivation
(46:18) Summary
***
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Stoa Conversations'
00:00:00
Speaker
Somebody here who, you know, confidently thinks what they think, prepares for what they're about to do, doesn't sweat the small stuff, has a vitality and kind of joy as they go about picking their tasks. And then a love for the tasks as they, as they do them. Wow. That's like, that's a kind of, that's a more specific type of person. That's really admirable. And I'm really getting a kick out of it. Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontodaris. And I'm Michael Trombley.
What is Courage in the Stoic Tradition?
00:00:29
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about courage, one of the cardinal virtues. It's a central one for the Stoics, of course, and we're going to be talking about what it is. Talk about the subcomponents of courage, something that's not talked about as often.
00:00:50
Speaker
And then if we have some time, some of our thoughts about what the Stoic tradition gives us to become more courageous. Yeah, looking forward to it. Let's do it.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, we're just going to dive right into this one, sort of a, I suppose, a deep dive into one of the cardinal virtues in addition to courage. You have moderation or discipline, wisdom, and then justice. So the question is, you know, what is courage for the Stoics? At the highest level, courage is the knowledge of what to avoid.
00:01:32
Speaker
That's all it is. So, and I think that the obvious next question here is, you know, why are the Stoics speaking about knowledge as opposed to something like the ability to overcome fear, which might be a popular understanding of courage or
00:01:48
Speaker
Uh, perhaps another account would be the mean between recklessness and cowardice would be a, that would be an Aristotelian account of courage. So, but yes, they're talking about knowledge, particular in particular kind of knowledge, the knowledge about what to avoid.
00:02:07
Speaker
And I think it's important to remember here just a little bit of stoic psychology to get this going, which is that the stoics are focusing on knowledge because that's what drives our decisions and judgments.
Decisions and Character in Stoicism
00:02:23
Speaker
And our decisions and judgments are what make up our character. And for the Stux, what matters? The happy life is the life lived with excellent character. And hence, what do you want to avoid? You want to avoid any damage to your character, risks. You want to avoid not acting rightly, not acting skillfully, and so on.
00:02:50
Speaker
and instead pursue the excellence of character. So that's very briefly, I think, at the high level what courage is. Do you want to add any details to that, Michael? No, I mean, I think you explained it well, Caleb.
00:03:08
Speaker
This is an idea we talk about all the time. That idea in stoicism about how, you know, who you are follows from what you think. So the stoics think simply, you know, you do what you think, right? You pursue what you think is good. You avoid what you think is bad. So your behavior corresponds to your beliefs, your thought patterns. So if you have good beliefs, good thought patterns, you have good behavior.
00:03:32
Speaker
If you if so, then what is good thinking? Well, it's knowledge. It's thinking that aligns with the truth of the matter. So if you know what to avoid and not like somebody told you this, but like you really understand why this these are the things you should be afraid of and you know what isn't worth your fear.
00:03:52
Speaker
Because the corresponding idea is if you know what to avoid, if you know all the things that are in the avoid bucket, you also know all the things that are outside of the avoid bucket, things like damage to your reputation or other things we might be afraid of, things that we consider kind of like irrational fears today. And so if you have knowledge about that, you really understand it, you're going to act in accordance with that and you're going to
00:04:19
Speaker
Uh, you're going to be all right. I think another way to think about this is the opposite side, which is like, well, if that's courage, what is cowardice? Well, cowardice or lack of courage is trying to avoid something that isn't worth avoiding or being afraid of something that isn't deserving of fear. Right. That's, that's what ignorance looks like on this picture. Knowledge looks like, well, only avoiding what deserves, uh, avoiding and, uh, not being afraid of anything else.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Cato the Younger: A Model of Integrity
00:04:49
Speaker
So a concrete example of this from Stoic history is there's, we have the Stoic, Cato the Younger, a ancient Roman politician, was something he was known for was being exceptionally principled. And one way he showed that was by
00:05:08
Speaker
as soon as he received a position in the Roman treasury. And it was the kind of position that was generally seen as a stepping stone, the sort of thing aristocrats wouldn't take seriously or just a, you know, perhaps a certificate of sorts on your way to much more prestigious.
00:05:24
Speaker
positions. Cato knew that there was corruption in the Treasury, so he purged, essentially purged the set of corrupt officials, cleaned the books. And in doing this, he risked his reputation, his chances of political office, because those were bureaucrats, essentially, who were
00:05:48
Speaker
keeping the records in the way that some Roman elites wanted them to, and the records of credits, debts, and so on had a lot of political power, so even though perhaps it's clearly the right thing to do.
00:06:05
Speaker
it was a risk to his reputation, to his political prospects, and of course was probably uncomfortable in a real sense. But what it wasn't a risk to was his character. So perhaps if you want to frame this another way, he has the decision between
00:06:22
Speaker
continuing on comfortably in a bureaucracy that's not serving its proper function. And by doing so, he'd risk put his character at stake, you know, becoming the sort of person who lives with that. Corruption cannot be a good thing. Alternatively, he can be the kind of person
00:06:43
Speaker
takes that risk and risks externals for the sake of a greater purpose, a greater cause. And I think that's also something that other people are going to recognize and appreciate him for. I think a lot of courageous acts probably have this trait in common where, yes, he's pissing off a lot of the Roman elites. He's made a lot of enemies, but he's also made a lot of friends by cleaning the books and doing that sort of thing.
00:07:09
Speaker
So that's, I think, a nice example of a courageous act because what's at stake is clear. And even though it's an ancient Stoic example, it's the sort of thing that is perhaps more similar to our modern lives than a lot of martial or military examples that come to mind from the
00:07:32
Speaker
from the ancients, where Cato essentially, when he's cleaning the books, when he's getting rid of the crooked bureaucrats, is just being a good bureaucrat, you know, being a good knowledge worker, as it were, if you wanted to put it in the more modern terms. And it's perhaps not the kind of decision that's so alien to many people in the modern world as well.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a great example. I was thinking of a martial example, but just that idea of if somebody's getting bullied, we all want to help that person that's getting bullied, or hopefully you do. If you don't, you're missing another virtue, maybe justice or something like this.
00:08:14
Speaker
But then what stops you from helping the bully? Well, you're afraid of getting bullied yourself. You're afraid of that aggression getting turned on you. And so that's the courage is the courage is not wanting to help the person. The courage is then not being dissuaded by the consequences of that decision. If those are the kinds of things that shouldn't be discouraging. Um, so with the example of Cato, you know, hopefully when we get into that,
00:08:38
Speaker
When we take a new job when we get into new work we come in kind of bright eyed and optimistic and we have this enthusiasm for doing things the right way. Well what stops us from doing that we get discouraged what people are gonna like me I'm gonna have consequences I'm not gonna get promoted as quickly or move up my job and so courage is just not being dissuaded from the thing you think is you you know to be right.
00:09:02
Speaker
Uh, when so many other people would be dissuaded, they would be pushed away from that right path because of their fears and courage, courageous person just doesn't have those fears because they know those bad things aren't actually bad. And that's, I think that's the stoic distinction there is like not doing it anyway.
00:09:20
Speaker
not doing it because the calculus comes out ahead in the positive things, but just not actually thinking those things are bad, not actually thinking they may be not preferable, but not, they're not actually the kind of things worth being afraid of.
Subcomponents of Courage
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's a key. That's one of the key points is.
00:09:39
Speaker
So I think in mainstream popular culture, courage is often thought of as a way to manage fear, or I guess a virtue which represents somewhat overcoming fear, which I think it is in a stoic sense, but more fundamentally, it's about what
00:10:02
Speaker
deserves caution at all to begin with. And becoming a courageous person does involve overcoming fear. But I think especially as we start talking about the subcomponents, that's only a part of it. It's not the whole story by any means.
00:10:19
Speaker
Before you jump into those subcomponents, one other popular ancient account of courage comes from Aristotle. And he had this idea that many of the virtues were means between the vices. They lay in between the two vices, at least as a heuristic. So courage then would be the mean between recklessness and cowardice.
00:10:47
Speaker
which I think is a useful heuristic to think about courage not in terms of charging in without any regard to the facts on the ground that's reckless and also of course not acting like a coward sitting on the sidelines when you should be jumping into the fray and so on but acting
00:11:08
Speaker
with the right amount of prudence, skill, and caution that the situation demands. So I think that is a, it is a good rule of thumb. But if we wanted to be really precise about the stoic account, what matters is
00:11:28
Speaker
building that excellent character taking advantage of or using what is up to you well and these ideas of you know maybe recklessness skill and cowardice so on at least for Aristotle sometimes depended on externals but I'd like to hear hear your your thoughts on that too yeah I don't like there's a way to get into it into
00:11:53
Speaker
So obviously what Aristotle thinks is not the same as what the Stoics think in terms of the way that virtue, there's a knowledge component to virtue for Aristotle, but there's also kind of habituation, training, irrational component.
00:12:09
Speaker
But I think you can totally adopt the mean for the Stoics as well, because this idea of courage being in between recklessness and cowardice, because this Doic view of the virtue of courage is you're correctly understanding what to avoid. So there's two kinds of ways you get that wrong. You could be afraid of things that aren't worth being afraid of.
00:12:31
Speaker
That's cowardice or you could not be afraid of things that are worth being afraid of. That's recklessness. So I still think you can still have this balance. Um, you're still looking for the balance. It's just the stoics would think of this more like a binary. You either have it or you don't. Where, uh, if I, if I was trying to make them as similar as possible, aerosols pointing to, I guess the two kinds of ways you could go wrong.
00:12:56
Speaker
The thing with Aristotle, though, is Aristotle, I guess, in the stoic picture, there's nothing stopping me from being both reckless and a coward, right? Sure, sure, yeah. I can be both of those things at the same time because I can be not afraid of acting like a bad person when I should be, but I'm afraid of what other people think of me when I shouldn't be. I'm both reckless and a coward.
00:13:18
Speaker
Whereas Aristotle, you went more along a continuum because it was kind of how you were habituated or how you were trained. So you tended to be reckless all the time, or you tended to be cowardly all the time. But I think for the Stoics, you could have both those errors at the same time, no problem.
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. You could be, I suppose that, you know, the virtues are unitary for the Stoics. You either have it or not. And if you think about different ways of carving up the virtue or a vice, in this case, you just can have multiple vices. There's
Endurance and Confidence
00:13:53
Speaker
no, uh... Yeah. No. Yeah. Unfortunately.
00:13:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, I thought that was very clear. Um, so one of the, so we've got this account of what courage is for the stocks at the highest level knowledge of what to avoid.
00:14:14
Speaker
but and oh we've offered some examples of course but it's not as well known that the Stokes also broke things down at quite a level of detail and included the sub-components of these different virtues and we have several ancient sources that list about five to seven sub-components of courage usually because we've
00:14:41
Speaker
usually we don't have access to the direct texts, but they're compiled by either biographers of ancient philosophers like Diogenes Laertes or other philosophers interacting with the Stoics. But I think
00:15:01
Speaker
there's enough overlap in these different sources that we can say, yeah, there were about five, seven or so different aspects of courage that these techs recognize. And I think going through these items can help make
00:15:17
Speaker
what courage is more complete? Because we have this large abstract idea. Now, what does it look like in different situations? How can one improve courage, I think can be aided by that, by some more detail. Yeah, let's do it. We're totally worthwhile going into these.
00:15:36
Speaker
All right, sweet. So the very first one I want to talk about is endurance, which is the lasting knowledge of having judged correctly. It's also put by another secondary.
00:15:53
Speaker
commenter as the knowledge of what is abiding, secure, what is not, and what is neither. So an example of this would be persistence, maybe not giving up one's judgment just because one is hungry, tired, pressured, or anxious. Epictetus is someone who talks a lot about how the strength in which we hold our beliefs and the thought is it's important to
00:16:20
Speaker
When you come upon something that is true, hold that belief tightly such that it is knowledge and not be swayed from it in situations where either internal or external pressure is tempting you to do so. So that's this first element. Endurance is an important aspect of courage.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's really, really cool. And not the kind of thing we would typically think about as courageous. I mean, I love that, right? You think of courageous as the big moments, not, you know, how many, how many bad days in a row can you have without breaking while keeping on while doing what you're supposed to do?
00:17:04
Speaker
And you think of that as a kind of courage, a kind of slow, simmering courage, instead of this kind of fire in the moment. I find that really inspiring. Yeah, so just that kind of strength of knowledge. No, Epicatus talks about digesting your knowledge, but thinking about it in terms of courage.
00:17:23
Speaker
I really, really like that. That's something that I'll be thinking about a lot is just persistence as a quality, persistence in your beliefs, not being knocked off course as a component of being a courageous person is really, yeah, that's inspiring.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think one example of that is there are a set of well-known social experiments called the ASH experiments where participants would be, you know, set in a room of other people who were all in on this study and they'd be shown some simple diagram like is line A.
00:17:57
Speaker
bigger than line B when line A was clearly bigger and they would, you know, raise their hand. Yes, of course, line A is bigger than B and everyone else would disagree and so on. And in some versions you can have people do that experiment where, you know, they just re-record their answer in their memory and then everyone reports their answer at the end and you can imagine someone having
00:18:23
Speaker
doubt at the end. Like, did I really see that line A was bigger than line B? And for me, I think if you have that perception at the beginning, just that, of course, line A is bigger than line B, and no reason to doubt your perception, something about holding firm to that memory, even in the face of moderate social pressure, I think is a good example of courage.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great example. That is like, that's the courage to not be persuaded, hold true to what you know to be true. Yeah, cool.
00:19:03
Speaker
Cool. All right, so that's one component. Another component translated as confidence, the knowledge that we are prepared, or said in another manner, the knowledge according to which we know that we are prepared. So it's a reminiscent of Seneca's line, all things happen in a more endurable fashion to men who are prepared for them.
00:19:31
Speaker
And I think this is connected to confidence because one definition of confidence is that expectation of success. Why do you expect success is because you are prepared, you're confident in, say, doing whatever it's going to be, because you've done it before, you've prepared for the moment, you know what's coming, and you expect things to go well.
00:19:55
Speaker
So I think this is a nice practical part of courage because it's something that connects directly to practice, which is coming to the different situations in life with that adequate preparation so that you aren't, so that you don't make mistakes, you can act skillfully in the moment.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And what a great idea of how do you become more courageous? Well, you prepare more, right? If you think of courageous as... And you're connecting now with persistence, too, right? That idea. Well, how do I become more... Because they're all interconnecting, is another thing, with these subject virtues.
00:20:39
Speaker
Uh, or these like different types of courage is they're all connected courage, right? And it's like, well, number one, one way to be courageous. Don't change your beliefs as you go. Don't change your mind. Okay. What's another way to be courageous? Prepare for the situation like that. And that's another way to not change your mind is to have prepared for it appropriately. Be confident in your preparation and you won't, I think of that in sports, right? You have a game plan.
00:21:04
Speaker
There's kind of a courage required to commit to the game plan. You're losing one, nothing. You're losing two, nothing. You're losing three, nothing. And you start to say, part of you wants to say, well, screw it, you know, but there's a kind of courage that comes this thinking to it. And that is only increased by preparation, by practice, by training. So that's great.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So we've got endurance, we've got confidence, confidence built by through preparation.
Greatness of Soul and Nobility
00:21:31
Speaker
This other aspect of sub-virtue, if you will, in Greek is megalopsychia, which is, I notice in a lot of
00:21:45
Speaker
Commenters was translated as high-mindedness or nobility. So it's the knowledge of being above what be—one person puts it as the knowledge of being above what befalls both the wise and fools. What it literally means is greatness of soul. I think you can imagine someone who
00:22:11
Speaker
goes to the world with a kind of nobility or presence that isn't disturbed by the happenings of the day. They're able to handle both great fortune and adversity because I think they put it in their place. They don't overvalue it. They're, in a sense, above it.
00:22:38
Speaker
I mean, I think the, in terms of the translation, I think Megalo psyche is, yeah, it's just a great soul in this. It reminds me of Aristotle's magnanimous. But now that I think about it, Aristotle, they talk about the magnanimous person in Aristotle, but now that I think about it, that's actually Latin. You know, anima is Latin for the soul. So I wonder if, I wonder if Aristotle was talking about Megalo.
00:23:05
Speaker
Megaloseikea 2, but that's something for me to look up. But what I was struck by was how all of these are not about like,
00:23:16
Speaker
There are types of courage of being kind of like cool, calm, and collected. All of them are coming together. Like I think about, you know, who's that kind of person who like, you know, they would just be the coolest, calmest person under pressure. Well, they'd be the kind of person who doesn't change their mind just because they're being peer pressured. They'd be the kind of person who would be prepared for the situation. And then this one, greatness of soul, sounds very dramatic, but it's just like they don't sweat the small stuff.
00:23:41
Speaker
You know, they know what they're there to do. They're not going to get stressed out by changes, like small changes. They're even going to have a good perspective on big changes. And like, you know, if you lose the game, well, sometimes people lose the games, that kind of perspective to rise above the, you know, the waves that thrash other people around.
00:24:03
Speaker
And so I guess I'm, I shouldn't be surprised. Stoicism teaches you how to be stoic, teaches you how to be cool and calm and collected and not the, not, you know, the first person charging into the battlefield. But I'm struck by these, by these, how much these ideas of courage are like connecting with that and not connecting with like the big climactic moment in the fight or the sacrifice. It's just like, yeah, how to be, how to be calm. Well, don't split the small stuff again.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think yeah, I think that's that's important. I think one aspect of this of greatness of soul or this reminded me of Epictetus and he talks about wanting to be the purple thread in the toga, which is that
00:24:54
Speaker
thread that I think was on the outer layer of fancier, more prestigious togas that was more expensive to make because of the dye involved in producing it. And it stood apart from the rest from the other thread. And I think the person who has greatness of soul in a sense has the courage to stand
00:25:20
Speaker
apart from others because they ultimately value different things or at least are committed to valuing.
00:25:31
Speaker
their character, these internal aspects, as opposed to what so many people value, like externals or comforts and so on. So that's not a push to be alienated, but I think there is always some amount of social pressure to go along
00:25:54
Speaker
with others by valuing the same things, even if those things are not important in the long run. Yeah, I mean, well, the purple thread is just that keystoke idea. You're not sweating the small stuff, not because you're numb or you're tougher, but because you don't care. You genuinely don't care because you value something different. You value being the purple in the robe or
00:26:20
Speaker
You value your character, not the other things that are actually upsetting people. And then this is a bit of Greek nerd out, but the magnanimous soul from Aristotle, which in Nicomachean ethics, he talks about that as being like.
00:26:35
Speaker
you know the key I think like the the this like the key crown virtue right like this this this this ultimate state that is megalosikea in the gree so that is that same idea that aristotle talks about kind of being the highest quality or the best quality to have the stoics here are putting it as a type of courage because i guess the main benefit of this well
00:27:02
Speaker
Maybe it's not the benefit, actually, of the cause. What causes this greatness of soul is that ability to rise above. Does that ability not be affected by what effects pulls down and disturbs normal people? Yep. Yeah, it's an ability to rise above common desires, fears, and have a better sense of, you know, what to desire, what to be averse to, I suppose, is the thought.
Vitality and Industriousness
00:27:32
Speaker
Awesome. So now we're at three. The fourth component I wanted to talk about is you psyche, which translates a very basically into a good mind or a good soul. But.
00:27:48
Speaker
Is also put as Also translated as cheerfulness by some or in English is translated as cheerfulness by some modern commenters commentators And described as a good tone sort of having vigor Especially towards the completion of your projects The way I think about this is
00:28:18
Speaker
I think cheerfulness doesn't exactly capture what's expressed though. Perhaps some people, some who are, you know, better ancient Greek can, you know, argue with me on this. But especially in the records we have, the use of this term was sort of like having the vigor to complete
00:28:46
Speaker
what was important. So perhaps I think vitality may be a better translation as opposed to cheerfulness, which probably in English has a kind of lightness now to it. Not exactly a frivolity, but just feeling good and expressing that feeling outwardly. I think vitality might capture the root of it, where it's being alive, healthy, and having the energy to
00:29:15
Speaker
complete what's needed in the moment is how I think of this component. Yeah, well, I wonder, I mean, yeah, the you psyche, I like to see the rest of the Greek. I mean, that's just you is just good. So it's just good soul. Whereas the other one was a great soul.
00:29:31
Speaker
Um, so it's just interesting to hear what that good means. I think you're right. Cheerfulness doesn't get it right. I think vitality is, is a better translation. I agree. But I'm wondering, I mean, I want to spend time around the guy that's you. That sounds fun, but I'm wondering what the stoics are defending against here. Like, cause I love, I love this picture. The stories are giving, like you want to be great sold, but then you don't want to take yourself too seriously, right? You don't want to be.
00:29:57
Speaker
The way I'm understanding it, you know, you don't want to be such a, so intense about everything. You want to have a bit of, uh, a bit of a vitality and vigor to what you do. But I guess it's like, what, what's the, why would it be cowardly not to have that vitality? Maybe you're taking something too seriously or you're missing out on good things. I'm not sure you're avoiding good things that shouldn't be avoided. Maybe that's it.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, Arius Didymus is the fellow who talked about this. He has a small tract called the Epitome on Stoic Ethics that might be worth going through. It's, I suppose, one of those less well-known Stoic-type works. What they're trying to get at here, my sense is
00:30:51
Speaker
what can take many people away from finishing what they started as a lack of strength of mind. So I think they're talking about a strength of mind that's connected with what we've discussed, endurance, confidence, greatness of soul, but has a kind of positivity.
00:31:15
Speaker
to it. You know, that's I think that's what cheerfulness gets right. What vitality gets right, and energy towards doing what needs to be done. So my sense is that's, you know, we're asking what's new in this account, or at least what would separate it from someone who is cowardly. And that's that sometimes the cowardly might be
00:31:46
Speaker
fail to be courageous because they don't have the energy to complete what's important, what they ought to be doing. And it's not just that they're, I think they're literally, you know, falling asleep, but it's not something like they're physically
00:32:10
Speaker
unable to give a, if they're doing something courageous, maybe it's a simple matter of giving a speech. Their body isn't putting them to sleep or anything like this. It's that they don't have the skill for working with fatigue or the skill to be energetic.
00:32:31
Speaker
in order to be courageous. That's how I understand this. Maybe it's going a little bit too far afield, but how I was both separating it from those previous subcomponents and also thinking about the aspect of courage that this is pointing out is that often courage requires a kind of
00:32:53
Speaker
working with negative feelings, one of those negative feelings is fear, but another kind of negative feeling that can prevent acting courageously is fatigue, not being energetic in the right way. And those either need to be overcome, or, you know, one needs to sort of be energetic enough, such that you're able to follow through and not worry about whatever negative feelings arise.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think that makes sense. Like while you were talking, I was thinking of this idea based on what you were saying of no carpe diem of seize the day. Well, what stops you from seizing the day fear or anxiety, but also, uh, you know, a lack of energy, a lack of excitement.
00:33:40
Speaker
procrastination, sloth, things like this. So a certain degree of vitality gets you out there doing those courageous things instead of, I guess, being lazy, I guess, not getting out there and doing it.
00:33:54
Speaker
Cool. So last one I want to talk about is industriousness in the Greek philoponia, which just means a love of work. And in particular, going back to this aspect of knowledge, I think it's important for the Stoics that you know what your work is and why you're doing it. You know, why is it worthwhile? And because you have this love of the task,
00:34:24
Speaker
you're better able to stick with it, better able to be industrious when it matters.
00:34:32
Speaker
And they're not talking about being a workaholic or working for its own sake. Seneca himself rails against people who are busy. Busyness for its own sake is a sign of a haunted mind. Instead, I think this aspect of courage is about knowing what your work is.
00:34:54
Speaker
and why it's important, why it's worth doing. And from that, that knowledge grounds a love of war. And we can think about, again, how this connects to some of these other subcomponents. With that love comes motivation, the ability to endure, persist through internal and external obstacles.
00:35:19
Speaker
these are these are popping me up Caleb these are getting me these sub virtues I mean courage doesn't really do much for me I'll be honest be courageous I don't know it doesn't really I guess because it's too amorphous it's too general it's like yeah of course it's kind of like you know be a good person or something it's like yeah well I'm already trying like thanks for the help but the these are like a nice level of specificity that really uh I see the appeal here
00:35:45
Speaker
I've always been one, this is a bit of a side topic, I've always been a person to like, not really understand the four stoic virtues, or I understood them, but I would say, well, you know, I wouldn't really use them too strongly as part of my practice, being like, well, I'm going to focus on wisdom today, or I'm going to focus on temperance. I wouldn't really do that. But these subtypes, they're really, really helpful for getting specific. And I really see how, you know, a courageous person, yeah, sure, maybe that's good, maybe that's not.
00:36:15
Speaker
I mean, certainly good, but it's kind of general. But somebody here who confidently thinks what they think, prepares for what they're about to do, doesn't sweat the small stuff, has a vitality and kind of joy as they go about picking their tasks, and then a love for the tasks as they do them. Wow, that's a more specific type of person that's really admirable, and I'm really getting a kick out of it.
00:36:41
Speaker
The other thing I was thinking here with Philoponia or Ponia was that the Epicureans have a Ponia as an end goal, which is really like the absence of pain that comes from kind of toil or forced work. And so I think the Stoics are kind of like
00:37:02
Speaker
me sticking it to the epicureans here which is to say you know another way to be happy is to like what you do instead of just like you know not having to do it um and i think that's true right like i don't think you should do work you don't like or you should try not to we shouldn't glorify work we don't like but i think we should try as much as possible to to like the work that we do do and to come to terms with or find a way to find meaning or engage with the work that's
00:37:32
Speaker
And that's such a, again, it's that knowledge of what to avoid, right? It's like meaningful work isn't to be avoided. Unnecessary work, unnecessary toil, inefficient work, something that doesn't connect well with who you are or what inspires you or what you're good at or what's necessary. This is to be avoided, but good, meaningful, productive work is something to find meaning purpose and enjoy it. And I think that's, that really resonates with me.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, excellent. These subcomponents are useful for thinking about, you know, what are concrete situations that arise? How can I be more courageous? Again, that's pretty general. Maybe, but you can get make some progress by thinking about, you know, where can I have more endurance?
Everyday Courage
00:38:23
Speaker
Where should I prepare more?
00:38:25
Speaker
Where, if anywhere in my life, should I exhibit more of that greatness of soul? How can I cultivate vitality? How can I be industrious? Not just for its own sake, but loving worthwhile tasks. Some commonalities of all of these is that they all focus on knowledge. Knowing what is good, what's worth enduring, worth doing, worth standing up for.
00:38:52
Speaker
And of course that comes back just to the general aesthetic picture, and the fact that all of these are part of courage, which is knowing what to avoid, and gives you that sense of if you know what to avoid, you also know what to pursue. Something else that's took out to me while reading over this list, as we've already mentioned, but can make, I think, explicit is that
00:39:16
Speaker
They're not all about managing fear. If you think about something like industriousness, that's just cultivating love for a task or vitality. That's not so much about managing fear as being a
00:39:38
Speaker
energetic, positive person as opposed to thinking about where can I be less anxious and so on. So I think you both get that broader focus on different kinds of traits and also something that can
00:39:59
Speaker
replace that project of simply reducing negative feelings, reducing negative emotions, maybe it's better to focus on what sorts of positive traits can one create in different circumstances. So I think that's an important lesson that I've been trying to put more and more and more into practice and also trying to communicate, I think, to the stoic community as it were.
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's an aspirational goal. And when you set your sights on these things, there will be no fear left to battle, right? So if you're battling fear, you're kind of...
00:40:40
Speaker
I don't know, I don't know if you're starting at the wrong spot, but you're kind of focusing on the, it's like you're trying to build knowledge and you're like focusing on your ignorance. Well, no, try to learn something, try to move towards knowledge, set that, that positive goal for yourself instead of, you know, focusing on your ignorance, right? Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:02
Speaker
So we can end by talking about this quote from Seneca on making progress and then summarize our thoughts. So this is from letter 71 and it's a long quote. I'll just read it out now.
00:41:22
Speaker
I do not withdraw the wise man from the category of man, nor do I deny to him the sense of pain as though he were a rock that has no feelings at all. I remember that he is made up of two parts. The one part is irrational. It is this that may be bitten, burned, or hurt, and the other part is rational. It is this which holds resolutely to opinions, is courageous, and unconquerable.
00:41:47
Speaker
In the latter is situated man's supreme good. Before this is completely attained, the mind wavers in uncertainty only when it is fully achieved as the mind fixed and steady.
Seneca on Progress and Setbacks
00:42:00
Speaker
And so, when one has just begun or is on one's way to the heights and is cultivating virtue,
00:42:06
Speaker
or even if one is drawing near the perfect good, but has yet to put the finishing touch upon it, one will retrograde at times, and there will be a certain slacking of mental effort, for such a man has not yet traversed the doubtful ground. He is still standing in slippery places." And I think that I chose this quote just because there's
00:42:32
Speaker
Of course, a reminder that the stoic path involves progress on one hand, but also setbacks. There's that message of, one, the stoic path involves progress and setbacks. And then, two, a large aspect of making progress is being courageous, managing doubt, managing those
00:42:59
Speaker
temptations to either act with recklessness or cowardice as it were. Yeah, what a great quote. Standing in slippery places we all are. And yeah, the courage as the
00:43:16
Speaker
I don't know if courage is a special place among the virtues, but it seems to be the one that, as you said, is responsible for whether or not you maintain the progress in everything else you've made, right? It all is a kind of intellectual courage. I think of this in terms of people who
00:43:32
Speaker
You know, they start a diet and they have one bad day and then the whole diet falls apart or you set a goal for yourself and you have one bad plan, one, you know, one setback and the whole thing falls apart. And we can, we don't often call that courage, but it is a kind of courage to get back on, you know, get back on the horse to try again, just stick with the plan. And so that'll be really my big takeaway besides those, those specific ideas.
00:44:02
Speaker
the specific subtypes of virtue, that idea of thinking about perseverance as a virtue, thinking about handling doubt as a virtue, staying true to what you know as a virtue, as a virtue of courage specifically. Yeah, really well put by Seneca.
00:44:23
Speaker
The diet gets across is, are people failing to live up to their diets and so on? The related phenomenon that happens when people set these rules for themselves fail, and then often because they failed, there's that permission to fail completely, as it were, either in the diet case or you wanted to go to bed by a certain time, you look at the clock, you realize it's past that time.
00:44:49
Speaker
and then decide, well, I didn't make it, so I might as well continue working, watching this Netflix show, whatever it is. You fail with abandon. And I think part of- Caleb, did you just- Oh, it's too late. Might as well keep working. I think that speaks to your work ethic more than the common experience.
00:45:14
Speaker
Most people, myself included, it's like, well, can I keep going through these Instagram memes? Can I keep writing some content? Are you saying I have a haunted mind? Yeah, exactly. It's a nice kind of trouble to have.
00:45:31
Speaker
But I think part of addressing that issue, I suppose, has to do with discipline and moderation. But I suppose there is also a kind of courage to recognize, you know, I made this plan for myself, even though I failed my initial goal, that shouldn't distract me. One can still hold firm what was important and then, you know, close the laptop or whatever.
00:45:59
Speaker
Well, maybe moderation sets the plan, says, that's probably good if I go to bed at this time or I don't go to bed past this time. And then courage is what keeps you on it, both to do it and to kind of cut out the silly excuses if it's 20 minutes too late.
00:46:17
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, I think that's right. All right, cool. So just to summarize, we've got talked about courage, one of the four cardinal virtues for the Stoics at the highest level. It's the knowledge of what to avoid. And then we broke down some of the subcomponents of virtue, the ability to endure with one's judgments, especially when those judgments amount to knowledge.
00:46:44
Speaker
having the confidence that's grounded in preparation, exhibiting a kind of greatness of soul that's grounded in the knowledge of what truly matters, acting with vitality, and then also showing a kind of industriousness, a love of the task. I think that those are some aspects of courage that we see in the ancient Stoic tradition.
00:47:12
Speaker
I think one last thought I wanted to leave with is that I think especially when we talk about courage, there's this thought to think about the big historical moments where one is courageous, which there certainly are. I think probably many people in their life, even if they're not faced with big historical moments, there are, in a real sense, epic challenges and so on.
00:47:44
Speaker
But virtue, if someone's virtuous, they show that, exhibit that virtue in whatever circumstance they're in, even if they're, so to speak, small situations, domestic situations and ordinary life. And I think what matters is whether you have that, for the Stoics, what matters is whether you have that character trait at all, not really what situation you find.
00:48:12
Speaker
yourself in. So it can be just as valuable to show virtue, show courage in those ordinary, ordinary moments. I think one line that I really like is, you know, the stoic is someone who does the ordinary in extraordinary ways, which I think gets at this idea.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yeah, well to build on it, if the stoic idea is that you can be happy on the torture rack, which means even if something terrible happens to a great person, it doesn't make them any less of a great person, the flip side to it is like, even if that great person just lives a very ordinary life.
00:48:51
Speaker
They don't lead an army, they don't rule a country, they don't invent something. They're still a great person because that greatness can't be hampered by negative thing, negative externals, nor can it be magnified by positive externals. The greatness is the greatness.
Comparing Stoic and Aristotelian Views
00:49:08
Speaker
That's a difference with Aristotle, right? Because Aristotle would argue that, well, to have a really great life, you need a certain amount of success, both to avoid, both because your life wouldn't be great if your family died, if you had bad health, things like this, but also because your greatness was magnified. The rich, great person has more money to donate. They have more
00:49:32
Speaker
They can help more people And this is something the Stoics aren't thinking your your greatness isn't magnified by the circumstance You find itself yourself and it's still that just as great in ordinary situation as you were saying Right, right. Yep. Yeah, that's well fun Awesome Anything else to add? No, it looks like we're gonna have to do a courage part two at some point, but that was really fun
00:49:56
Speaker
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00:50:15
Speaker
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