Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Debatable Discussions podcast.
Speaker: Today you join us for season two, episode 10, as we talk about what is quite a loaded and dense philosophical topic.
Speaker: And this is, of course, Epicureanism and Stoicism.
Speaker: Yes, you're right John, today we are talking about Stoicism and most precisely we talk about how to be happy according to the Stoics and according to the followers of Epicurus.
Speaker: Now, these are schools of thought that have been around for millennia, back from the Roman and originally from the ancient Greeks.
Speaker: And I'd like to start with stoicism, but first I do need to make a distinction because there's a very big discrepancy from what stoicism actually is to what a lot of people think it is.
Speaker: So, stoic in Doc's for dictionaries has got two senses.
Speaker: So that's number one, which is someone who faces adversity without showing any emotion.
Speaker: And number two, which is a stoic, someone who follows stoicism.
Speaker: Now these are very different things, not very different, but quite different.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because there's this perception out there that if you're a Stoic, if you're a Stoic as a follower of Stoicism, you're a rock.
Speaker: You've got no soul, you've got no emotions, and you just go through life like this.
Speaker: This is false.
Speaker: This is not true.
Speaker: you look at the Roman Stoics, you can look at Marcus Aurelius, who does actually explicitly say that if you want to cry, you should stop and cry.
Speaker: But what Stoics do mean, it's not that you shouldn't have emotions in adversity.
Speaker: They don't say that.
Speaker: What they do say is that you shouldn't be trapped in them.
Speaker: So you shouldn't, because our, you know, our way as humans in some ways is that we can continuously just over and over and over, we delve in our suffering.
Speaker: So we're like, I should have done this, but maybe... And the Stokes, they don't do any of that.
Speaker: They just say, if you have an emotion, express it.
Speaker: But after you've expressed it, move on and put the thought behind you.
Speaker: Yes, as you said there, stersism, it's for me personally, I sort of view it as being really about virtues and showing certain virtues.
Speaker: And there are four exactly which they say that you should show.
Speaker: And these are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice.
Speaker: So in many ways, and I think this is why I think since the 1970s, especially, there's been quite a large revival of modern stoicism.
Speaker: And it's because these are sort of four values which are associated with being what can be described as, let's say, a good man, a good person.
Speaker: These positive virtues from stoicism are just good characters to hold yourself in.
Speaker: Yeah, I fully agree with you.
Speaker: And I think another thing that's also very important to say is why is Stoicism called Stoicism?
Speaker: So for this, we've got to turn back to ancient Greece, with the three major Stoics from ancient Greece being Xenon, Calanthus and Chrysippus.
Speaker: Unfortunately, we don't have any works of them.
Speaker: We only have the Roman Stoics, such as Seneca, Max Aurelius.
Speaker: We've got BF Cicero, and we've got Epictetus, who I've actually got here.
Speaker: And they would meet in the Portikos Gallery.
Speaker: Now, what does this mean?
Speaker: Gallery in Greek is called Stoa.
Speaker: So meeting the Stoa Portikos, which is a gallery in the Agora.
Speaker: So from the Stoa, because they would meet there, they gained the name of the Stoics.
Speaker: So the gallery seers, if you want to translate it.
Speaker: I think we got to talk a bit about, does Stoicism actually help someone to be happy?
Speaker: I would argue it does.
Speaker: How does it do this though?
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: The first distinctions that the Stokes make, and we can see this in Epictetus very, very clearly, is that some things are in our control and some things are not in our control.
Speaker: And we should not worry about the things that are not in our control at all.
Speaker: We should just say, that's not my business, that's not my problem, I can't do anything about it.
Speaker: Whilst the things are in our control, we can and we should worry about them because we can do something about it.
Speaker: Yes, that is quite Buddhist there actually.
Speaker: It's quite common in the Buddhist religion, not worrying about things which aren't in your control.
Speaker: And obviously, as you said, that is actually
Speaker: a very sort of good way to achieve happiness because it frees your mind of much anxiety.
Speaker: So, Darren, what are your opinions on stoicism as a theory?
Speaker: Do you agree with it to an extent or do you disagree with it?
Speaker: I do agree with it.
Speaker: I do agree with the raw stoicism.
Speaker: I think raw stoicism, if you look at it in the real form, I fully agree with it.
Speaker: I think it's a very good philosophy to follow.
Speaker: There's this very, very great emphasis on the sense of duty.
Speaker: Now what does this mean?
Speaker: Well, the sense of duty in Sturgeon is that, and I think the best example here is actually Marcus Aurelius.
Speaker: He did not want to be Roman Emperor.
Speaker: He had zero, zero regard for being Roman Emperor.
Speaker: He did not want to be in Germania for 50 years fighting savages.
Speaker: That was not his deal.
Speaker: But he had been chosen and he thought he could do a good job, so he thought it was his duty.
Speaker: to complete this.
Speaker: And we know he's one of the best emperors the Roman Empire has ever seen.
Speaker: Also, another thing that is very important to mention is in the Stoic philosophy, there's an emphasis, and we'll talk about this in comparison to Epicureanism, there is a divine providence.
Speaker: So if you do believe in God, you're probably more of a Stoic than an Epicurean, but we'll touch on to that later.
Speaker: What do you think, John?
Speaker: I definitely agree with Sturcism and I can see why it's had this sort of what they call modern Sturcism revival.
Speaker: And that really is because when you think of four traits you want to show, they are definitely the four virtues of Sturcism.
Speaker: Those are, again, wisdom, courage, temperance and justice.
Speaker: And you can definitely see how there's a link between achieving happiness and showing those four things.
Speaker: And it's slightly opposing, you could say, I guess to sort of hedonism as you're not sort of seeking pleasure through material things.
Speaker: But it's rather showing these positive traits in which you build yourself sort of stronger, more emotional happiness, totally detached from, let's say, having a nice car or various lots of parties, which is a very hedonistic way of viewing the world.
Speaker: I also want to say another thing here, which is Stoicism has a big, big, big emphasis on getting rid of passion and ambition.
Speaker: What does that mean, though?
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: Because in the English, in many languages nowadays, these have a different sense from what the Stoics mean when they say passion and ambition.
Speaker: So passion in the Stoic sense of the word is something that tolerates yourself.
Speaker: It's something that you're so obsessed with
Speaker: For example, for many Stoics, they would deem very intense passion and love as something that's a no-go, because it's such a thing that just gets rid of your reason.
Speaker: Ambition, again, is kind of the same, because Stoics don't believe that you should be ambitious into having, being a Roman Emperor in the case of Marcus Aurelius.
Speaker: They think it should just be your duty if you're chosen.
Speaker: And this also is an Epicureanism.
Speaker: It's the same principle of getting rid of those things that don't give you peace.
Speaker: Those things that take your reason away from you.
Speaker: and having a focus more on the simple pleasures, but also not really the simple pleasures, it's more the things that are virtuous and right and in accordance to nature.
Speaker: So I think the most famous stoic, I don't want to say quote, but principle, line and idea is Amor Fatih, the one that says, love your faith.
Speaker: live in accordance to nature.
Speaker: That's the core of Stoics.
Speaker: They want to live in accordance to nature and want to do good for others because that's what nature demands of them.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's definitely got that sort of idea of encompassing natural order, natural law, which you can obviously definitely see in how it's very much opposing to materialism.
Speaker: But it's more about achieving a sort of sense of harmony, which seems far more holistic, let's say, than... Yeah.
Speaker: opposing hedonistic beliefs.
Speaker: Perhaps we should also move on to Epicureanism.
Speaker: So Epicureanism is slightly, some will say it opposes Stoicism, but it's rather got slightly just different ideas about how to achieve basically happiness or pleasure.
Speaker: So Epicureanism, as in the name, comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus.
Speaker: And it's opposed to sort of Platonism from Plato.
Speaker: And it's similar to hedonism in that it believes that pleasure should be the sole intrinsic goal.
Speaker: However, it advocates for a sort of more simple, modest materialistic life in which you must avoid fear and pain.
Speaker: And by doing that, you can sort of achieve the state of pleasure.
Speaker: So from that, it's slightly similar, sort of more of the emotional way to stercism in avoiding fear and pain.
Speaker: However, it's got a far more sort of hedonistic grounding or roots and how it does sort of slightly advocate for you to seek pleasure in a materialistic way.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I agree with you that I think also a very important thing to say is that if you looked, so if we went back and we saw Stoic and Epicurean, their lifestyle would be 99% same.
Speaker: They would live in the same way.
Speaker: It's just the Stoics think you living that way is because of duty.
Speaker: Whilst Epicurean says, well, actually no, living in this way and living a virtuous life and helping others and not getting, you know, attacked by fears and ambitions, right?
Speaker: is actually making me happy, is giving me pleasure.
Speaker: But they would live in pretty much the same way.
Speaker: They just had different justifications for it.
Speaker: And this changed yet again when Kant came in the 18th century and in his groundwork for more romanticism, well, you know, stoicism, Epicureanism, they're good and they work as a practical lifestyle, but their justification is pretty weak.
Speaker: So here's mine.
Speaker: And he goes on to his justifications, which you can see in our first ever episode on the podcast called Ethics and Ethical Dilemmas.
Speaker: So how do you think of, what do you think about Epicureanism, John?
Speaker: Do you think it's better than Staticism?
Speaker: I think it's different.
Speaker: I have a certain sympathy towards it in the slightly hedonistic sense, because I have a slight sympathy towards hedonism in the sense that I think it's pretty hard to say that to an extent that materialism doesn't give you, doesn't make you happier.
Speaker: I think it's extremely hard just to be purely happy from those, let's say, the four virtues of stercism.
Speaker: But let's say if you had those four virtues and you were in poverty, you'd be less happy, in my opinion, than if you had those four virtues and you were living a comfortable lifestyle.
Speaker: But I am more sympathetic, however, to Stoicism in its more emotional sense, the virtues.
Speaker: So I can't really say our side of one over than the other.
Speaker: I am more sympathetic to Stoicism, purely just because they are the four values which I think anyone should encompass.
Speaker: And Epicureanism's you must avoid pain.
Speaker: In many ways, pain in the short term is bad, but it can be good in the long term.
Speaker: There's something called soul making, which talks about a bit in Christianity, amongst the problem of even suffering.
Speaker: And short term pain can make you stronger in the long term.
Speaker: And an example could be like the experience of, let's say, the pain of
Speaker: failing an exam can make you in the long term certain that you're never going to do it again because it gives you, let's say, some motivation.
Speaker: So, yes, I'd say I'm probably slightly more of a stoic.
Speaker: What about you, Dan?
Speaker: Yeah, I would also classify myself as a bit more of a stoic, I think.
Speaker: I definitely do believe in a sense of duty to the world, to other people.
Speaker: I think that's the main reason why, you know, I wake up in the morning is because I've got a position in which I can help other people.
Speaker: I'm healthy.
Speaker: I'm able to do things.
Speaker: I'm able to get out of bed.
Speaker: So I should because others aren't.
Speaker: And this is a...
Speaker: a thing that makes me able to give back.
Speaker: Also, I think it's important to say Epicurians, they don't believe in politics.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: They wouldn't do what we're doing.
Speaker: I mean, they would, but they wouldn't film it.
Speaker: They believe in philosophical friendships, which I agree with.
Speaker: I think the best sort of friendship is the one where you can actually discuss ideas and... Yeah.
Speaker: not just watch the football and grab a beer.
Speaker: I think it's fun, maybe, I don't know, but I'd argue it's probably more fun and definitely more stimulating to have an actual conversation where you discuss some interesting ideas about the world around us.
Speaker: But I would still classify myself as a bit more of a stoic because I have a sense of public duty in a way.
Speaker: I wouldn't live in a community of Epicureans and stay in my garden all day.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with you there, definitely.
Speaker: And I think I've always thought both of these ideas, when people say I'm an Epicurean or I'm a Stoic, it's more of something, in my opinion, that you aspire to be rather than am.
Speaker: Because...
Speaker: you know it's just so difficult to let's say really be a stoic to be a solid definition stoic and so i think of both of these sort of theories and sort of virtue ethics as a as more of an aspirational thing you aspire to show these qualities obviously you won't always be showing these qualities sometimes everyone inevitably does something bad and shows perhaps the opposite quality
Speaker: but I think they're good things as an aspirational.
Speaker: ethical theory.
Speaker: It sort of goes back into the idea of your personal philosophy.
Speaker: I think we probably have talked about this before.
Speaker: And it's that these are sort of ideas which you aspire to show.
Speaker: I mean, you don't, and you won't always show them.
Speaker: You won't always be a stoic, but aspiring to show these ideas is very valuable.
Speaker: I think also, you know, we need to say that stoicism and Epicureanism as well as the philosophy, they're a way of life.
Speaker: You can't say I'm an Aristotelian or I'm a, you know, Platonist as a way of life, but Stoics and maybe Kieranism, especially cynicism as well.
Speaker: They are a way of life.
Speaker: Um, just fully, fully be a Stoic.
Speaker: You got to embody it.
Speaker: You got to live that every day.
Speaker: And you know, I try, but that's always work out.
Speaker: Sometimes it's so hard in the realities of the modern world to be a Stoic.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I think probably to be a Stoke is probably the easiest out of the three, to be honest.
Speaker: I think it's probably hard to be an Epicurean because of the fact that you've got to live in an Epicurean community.
Speaker: I think that's hard to find.
Speaker: They are few and far between, yeah.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And then I think being a Cynic is probably the hardest of them all because I don't think I can rock up at school in a barrel.
Speaker: um, like Diogenes and scream and shout.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so I think the Stoic has probably been the easiest of them all, but it's still incredibly difficult, especially in a modern day and age.
Speaker: Another interesting idea, I thought, was, um, how Stoicism sort of tries to get people to detach themselves from ambition.
Speaker: Yes, and Epicureanism as well.
Speaker: And Epicureanism.
Speaker: However, as a young person, going back to the idea of duty, in many ways, I feel like my ambition is a duty.
Speaker: Because by achieving my ambitions, I can provide a duty to the world.
Speaker: Whereas a young person with school, you obviously can't provide much of a duty.
Speaker: You can't fulfil your sense of duty as much.
Speaker: I think this is a very...
Speaker: Important thing you said here, and I think this is coming back to the fact that the English language has evolved.
Speaker: Ambition in the stoic sense does not mean I have the ambition to be a doctor, I have the ambition to be a lawyer, I have the ambition to do this.
Speaker: Ambition is something that innerly kills you from the inside.
Speaker: So if you really, if you want to be like a politician so badly,
Speaker: that you're willing to cheat your way through it, bribe people, lie your way through it.
Speaker: And, you know, I think that's an ambition in the Stoic sense, but you wanting to be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever job you want to be in a fair and honest way, the Stoics would not say that's an ambition.
Speaker: They just say it's your duty because you're in the position that you're able to do that.
Speaker: So, yes, that sort of that ambitious, that style would be, I guess, more of a sort of a very hardcore,
Speaker: almost unhealthy addiction to achieving something in the future.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which obviously I actually can now see the arc.
Speaker: It's a guess, yeah.
Speaker: Well, I think, I hope it was interesting to talk about this for a bit.
Speaker: And I'm sure we'll continue with ancient schools of thought in the future, because they're incredibly interesting and very diverse, to be honest.
Speaker: But I think now, before we end, we should actually just say, how do we, how can we be happy according to these people?
Speaker: So there's a couple of steps that Epictetus says here in this, in his manual.
Speaker: This is a very tiny book.
Speaker: It's got about 50 pages and this sort of script.
Speaker: So very tiny book.
Speaker: And they say the couple of things.
Speaker: So number one, figure out what's not in your control and what is.
Speaker: Don't worry about the things that aren't in your control.
Speaker: Number two,
Speaker: do not continue in your suffering.
Speaker: Don't repeat the thought of suffering.
Speaker: Remove the thought and the suffering will go away.
Speaker: Number three, don't have stupid ambitions.
Speaker: Get rid of the things that hurt your life.
Speaker: Get rid of, you know, fears, anxieties.
Speaker: And, you know, so much of our time is spent imagining things that are never going to happen.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Get rid of that.
Speaker: And probably the fourth and...
Speaker: Arguably the most important thing is to embrace the fact that you're not going to be able to be perfect.
Speaker: Mark Sorrelius talks about this in his book.
Speaker: If you feel the need to express your emotions, do so, but don't remain in a sort of perpetual state of sadness or melancholy or...
Speaker: Yes, I agree with you there.
Speaker: And they are four values which you can definitely say will lead you to happiness.
Speaker: It's their four things I think we will try and embody.
Speaker: We will definitely try and embody these.
Speaker: Obviously, with the challenges of the modern world, it can be hard.
Speaker: But they're four things which I think if you can get into harmony with.
Speaker: you could live a very very very nice life.
Speaker: So I think that's perhaps the end of this episode.
Speaker: I hope you've enjoyed learning about these two quite interesting but more so applicable sort of philosophies.
Speaker: What philosophies are applicable in the sense that you can really apply them to your life.
Speaker: They aren't sort of normative ethical theories perhaps but they're more sort of
Speaker: things that you can really just say, well, I'm going to adopt some of these virtues of stoicism to my life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Thank you very much for listening.
Speaker: We hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker: If you did, do please give us five star review.
Speaker: Leave us a comment down below if you have any ideas for future episodes.
Speaker: And
Speaker: As always, do look back on our previous episodes on related themes such as politics, history and other philosophical questions.
Speaker: Thank you and see you next week.
Speaker: I'll see you next week.
Speaker: Bye.
