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Going Meta With Metacognition (Episode 169) image

Going Meta With Metacognition (Episode 169)

Stoa Conversations: Stoicism Applied
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The ancient Stoics never used the term "metacognition," but this modern psychological concept illuminates the core of their philosophy. Michael and Caleb explore how the Stoic emphasis on examining our thoughts—what psychologists now call metacognition—is central to both Stoic theory and practice. They unpack why the Stoics saw this capacity for mental self-reflection as divine, how it distinguishes humans from animals, and why mastering it is essential for living well. A practical discussion for anyone interested in training their mind the Stoic way.

(04:53) Metacognition in Stoicism

(10:11) Metacognition as Philosophy

(24:37) Judgement in Stoicism

(27:05) Metacognition in Practice

(41:31) Takeaways

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Transcript

Introduction to Metacognition and Stoicism

00:00:07
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about metacognition and stoicism. What's that all about? Yeah, so this is something I wanted to talk about. I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know if anybody listens to this and has psychological training and wants to call me out on anything. and Feel free to to send ah send an email. But um this is a psychological concept, metacognition. It's a relatively modern one.
00:00:34
Speaker
But I think it's really relevant for stoicism. There's a lot of overlap here. um

Understanding Metacognition

00:00:39
Speaker
And so I'm going to kind of explore, I'm going to explore the role that metacognition plays in stoicism and the role that metacognition plays in stoic practice because this is a podcast about practicing stoicism as well and i thought it was an interesting connection that seems to be really relevant i don't see it made that often but seems to be very relevant so what is medicognition medicognition is defined as an awareness or understanding of one's own thinking and the patterns behind them.
00:01:08
Speaker
So this was defined by developmental psychologist John H. Flavell, I think is how you say his name, in 1976, so as I said, relatively recent, especially compared to stoicism. um And what metacognition is, is it refers to a level of thinking and regulation of thinking, specifically the regulation of cognition and the subsequent learning experiences that help people enhance their learning through a set of activities. that's a bit that's like ah That's your Wikipedia definition. But what that means is it means it's really about the object of your thought. So whenever you're thinking about your thinking, whenever the thing you're talking about or reflecting upon is the way in which you think.
00:01:53
Speaker
That's metacognition.

Metacognition in Greek Philosophy and Stoicism

00:01:54
Speaker
So on one hand, you have the actual content of what you're talking about. If you're talking about thinking and the way you think, that's metacognition. And the other thing it involves is it involves something called metacognitive control, which is really your capacity to then direct your thinking or direct the content of your thinking moving forward.
00:02:16
Speaker
So it's both a reflection on on you know the subject of your thinking and the ability to control that set to to control ah that subject. So i i mean let me try an example to parse through that. So yeah here would be an example of metacognition related to self-improvement or stoicism. I might say something like, I'm a person who tends to jump to conclusions. That's a metacognitive claim, because it's thinking about the way that you think, thinking, well, i i often um I'm often quick to assume things. That's a metacognitive claim.
00:02:54
Speaker
And then I might also think, so you know when someone proposes an idea, I'm going to pause for a minute to consider if I agree or not. And that's an example of practicing metacognitive control and attention, which is to say I'm directing my thinking. I'm actually changing the way that I think and and applying that control control over my thought processes.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, so that's that's metacognition in a nutshell. It's just a way of talking about a certain type of thought process and a certain type of, um I guess, content of of thought, which is thinking about thinking, and then also a kind of a practical aspect, which is controlling what you think about as well. Anything anything you'd add to that, Kil?
00:03:38
Speaker
I think that's well put. Yeah, it's in a slogan form. I like how you you put it just thinking about thinking and then you get more specific with, okay, there are these two different, at least in the the modern way of talking about metacognition, you've got those two different aspects, control as well as a metacognitive knowledge. I'm sure you'll you'll get into a little bit more.
00:04:01
Speaker
it's It's a useful framework that, of course, has some and significant overlap with Stoicism. It's a modern way of speaking, I suppose. But I do do want to flag that, of course, I think the ancients touched on this idea. It's not especially novel, though it has developed into, say, different forms of therapies or thinking about development in particular in the modern context. But I think of many of the ancient Greeks, of course, talked about thinking about thinking in a sense the Delphic command is metacognitive, you know, know yourself.
00:04:31
Speaker
um Heraclitus, I go in search of myself as perhaps the beginnings of thinking about these sorts of issues. So ah yeah, I think we we should we should tie together some of these modern strands and these modern developments with some of the ancient Greco-Roman thought, Stoicism in particular, in this conversation should be fun.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, and that's what I wanted to do is I'm not arguing, well, stoicism should have talked about metacognition. What I want to, what I'm going to argue here is that stoics were actually really focused on metacognition and metacognition is an inch. It's just a way of.
00:05:10
Speaker
I guess summarizing a lot of the things the Stoics were talking about and doing. And I found it a helpful mindset shift when I thought, okay, well, we're we're talking about metacognition here. um That for me, it was like a helpful way to under to, I guess, connect a number of different Stoic ideas. And so I'm going to do that. and I'll start with Stoicism or metacognition in Stoic theory, and then move on to metacognition and Stoic practice, really, and the the role it plays in both.
00:05:38
Speaker
So the first thing I wanted to do is just make an argument, that's which you agreed with. and Maybe it's not that controversial, but ah stoicism in large part centers around metacognition. Metacognition plays a really important role, even though they didn't use that exact language in what stoicism is.
00:05:59
Speaker
The first role that a cognition plays in stoicism is that it really is, I'll argue, the basis of philosophy, or as you were talking about with Socrates and Heraclitus, the basis of the ability to do philosophy. And an argument for that, this is Epictetus's Discourses 1.1. So this is the very first thing, if you haven't read Epictetus's Discourses, I know you have killed it, but those listening, this is the very first thing Epictetus says. The very first line of the first page.
00:06:27
Speaker
Epictetus says the following, says, of the arts and faculties in general, you'll find none that contemplates and consequently approves of or disapproves of itself. How far does the contemplative power of grammar extend as far as the judging of language, of music as far as the judgment of melody? Thus, when you're writing to a friend, all grammar will tell you is that this is the way you should write. But whether or not you are to write to your friend at all, grammar will not tell you.
00:06:55
Speaker
What will tell you then? The faculty was which contemplates both itself and all other things. And what is that? The reasoning faculty. For that alone of the faculties which we have received, comprehends both itself, what it is, what it's capable of, and with what valuable powers it has come to us, and all the other faculties likewise. And so what Epictetus ah is is making this argument is that whenever you develop any sort of craft. So there's often this analogy that stoicism is like a craft, right? It's like learning an instrument. It's like playing a sport. But he says philosophy is very different from these other crafts in a way, because sport will tell you how to play a sport, but it isn't able to contemplate the act of playing a sport. Is sport worthwhile? Should we change the rules? What does it mean to play a game?
00:07:47
Speaker
Music tells you the notes to play, it tells you the technique to to use, but it doesn't. ah Musical theory, maybe this is ah maybe this is a bit bit simplistic, but musical theory doesn't have that contemplative aspect about you know the the function of music, the point of music, or really you know whether we should play music at all.
00:08:07
Speaker
But thinking is different. The faculty of reason is different in that it both provides these rules of good reasoning. Well, that's a logical fallacy. um you know This is how the premises to an argument works. It has the kind of content of reasoning.
00:08:23
Speaker
but then it also reflects upon itself and you so you can you can reason about reasoning. And really what I would say is there is you can do metacognition. You can think about thinking. And in that way, the faculty of reason thinking ah reasoning is different from these other crafts. It's what actually sets it apart and is what what makes it special.
00:08:45
Speaker
And so later, just to build on that, later in the same passage, just a little bit later on, Epictetus in the voice of Zeus says, I have given you, says this to students, I've given you a certain portion of myself, this faculty of exerting the impulse to act and not to act and desire and aversion, and in a word, making proper use of impressions.
00:09:05
Speaker
If you attend to this and place all that you have in its care, you'll never be restrained, never be hindered, you will not groan, you will not find fault, you will not flatter any man. And

Metacognition vs. Instincts and its Role in Stoic Psychology

00:09:17
Speaker
so there's this claim here. So we have this faculty of reason and then Epictetus embodying Zeus says, I've given you this special thing, this actual portion of myself, this actual divine ability.
00:09:27
Speaker
So it's not like there's all these crafts and thinking has this certain quirk. The metacognitive aspect of the the faculty of thinking, the self-reflective aspect, is that is divine, is special, sets it apart, puts it above all these other crafts. um What do you think about that?
00:09:47
Speaker
Well, how does that how does that connect to something we've talked about before, which is this four step process from Epictetus is psychology where you have impression, reflection, a sense and then impulse you see metacognition coming in both of that reflection and a sense stage or or how do you think about that?
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, maybe i'll um maybe I'll get ahead to my next part, because I think it connects. um I think it connects exactly to that four-step process. So I'll i'll jump ahead. um well I'll just keep going, and then we'll get to that question, because I think that's that's a good question.
00:10:25
Speaker
so The other argument I'm going to make that is, okay, so Epictetus calls out metacognition. He says it's special. But there's this other argument stoicism that actually humans are capable of doing philosophy because we possess metacognition. It's actually what enables us makes it possible. And so um the reason it's necessary, and the argument for this basically is that we can only reflect on impressions because our impressions are lekta, they're verbal representations of situations. So lekta is just what it what is said.
00:11:02
Speaker
that we can train our mind to reflect upon. So this is a bit technical, but basically if we contrast this with animals, the basic argument is the animals can't do philosophy. They can't participate in self-directed self-improvement because they're not able to reflect.
00:11:16
Speaker
They're not able to reflect because they're nonverbal. Because they're nonverbal, animals become these input output machines that youre you're able to train. So I have two cats. If I put the cat food down, my cat smells the cat food and goes crazy for for the cat food, right? they receive They're still receiving an impression.
00:11:35
Speaker
but they don't have this special ability to recognize that it's an impression, pause, reflect upon the impression, and then carefully give a scent. Humans can do this because we don't receive we don't actually reason about direct impressions. We don't actually reflect upon direct impressions of the world according to stoicism. What we do is we make a um we make a kind of mental representation,
00:12:03
Speaker
which is um the lecta which is to say we we think about or conceptualize the impression. someone Someone smacks into us, bumps into us. I always use this example, but somebody bumps into us and I think, oh, that person just bumped into me. What a jerk. That's the lecture.
00:12:19
Speaker
That's the representation of the situation in my mind that has aspects that are objective, has aspects that are subjective or value judgments. And that's what we're actually reflecting upon and assenting to as a stoic. It's kind of an imprecise use of language when we say we assent to an impression. We assent to really um our representation or our lekta, our lecta ah description of it.
00:12:42
Speaker
Right? And that ability is what sets us apart from animals. That ability, and then that's also what sets us apart from children. So the Stoics also have these arguments that babies or small children, they don't have reasoning. ah They're not capable of reason. And that reason comes about, there's disagreements in the literature about that that's seven or 14. I think it's, if you ever worked with children, I think it's more clearly seven. It's more reasonable, 14 is clearly much too old.
00:13:09
Speaker
um but it's the Which is this idea, I think I'm stretching here, but I would say that the the child below seven, six, five, two, whatever age you want, doesn't possess that metacognition, which is they they they don't they're not verbal. you know Seven's a bit of a stretch here, but they they don't have that ability to verbally represent what they're seeing in language, and then reflect upon that representation that they can kind of hold in space and time.
00:13:36
Speaker
um So that's a long way that's a long way of getting an answer to your question, Caleb. But essentially, you we receive an impression. So the first part process of stoic psychology according to Epictetus is you have your repress ah impression, you reflect upon it, you assent, and then you feel an impulse. What an animal has, they have an impression and ah and an impulse.
00:13:59
Speaker
Because humans have the capacity to reflect upon what they' they're thinking, reflect upon what they've experienced, reflect upon the content of their minds, they have this metacognitive ability, I would say that allows for ah reflection, allows for pausing, and then it allows for um ascent.
00:14:22
Speaker
I don't know if ascent is metacognition. I think ascent is more, it's a decision, it's a judgment, right? It it is more just a thought. It is is skilled thinking. I don't think it's necessarily metacognition. It's just deciding if something's true or not. But when I solve a math problem, when I say the multiple choice, the answer is C, even though it's complex, difficult thinking, I don't think it's metacognition.
00:14:41
Speaker
But when I reflect upon um you know my impulses, A, is that the right answer? What criteria do I use to come to the right answer? okay Applying that criteria, I actually arrive at C. I do think there is some um there's some going on that's allowing the direction and the directing of your thought process. um That's how I've tried to argue. what What do you think about that? No, yeah. That that makes sense to me. it's So you think of metacognition, especially that activity, metacognitive control, thinking about thinking that's reflection, that's thinking about the lekta or sayables for Stoics. What's you know what's the meaning of our impressions but specifically? the but
00:15:29
Speaker
modern philosophers might talk about the propositions they express and such and you can think about the thoughts you're having and and as such that's a metacognitive activity and perhaps ah in a sense you might build metacognitive knowledge so that might be the only thing I would add to what you just said ah because you can have decisions about what you think. You might come to say, this thinking style is a good one. This thinking style is a bad one. Endorse propositions like that. And I so i think that would be encoded as metacognitive knowledge because you're creating strategies that then you'll later use in other ah reflections about your thoughts, about participant in this example, different thinking strategies that work or don't work.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, you might say that this habit of assenting carelessly, this habit of believing whatever anybody tells me, what the news says to me, that's a bad way of thinking. And so that's, that's a kind of metacognitive knowledge, which changes the way that you assent moving forward. It changes the kind of things you believe moving forward. That's what you're saying. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, oh, go ahead. Oh, well, one other thing that I wanted to call out here as an aside, which I think is really cool is the,
00:16:53
Speaker
way in which stoicism is fractal, you know, the hole mirrors the parts, you know, the microcosm is reflected in the macrocosm and such, especially in this story about Zeus, you know, you have Zeus giving humans a portion of themselves. What is that? That here is the ability to make proper use of impressions. In particular, this way of thinking about thinking brings order and purpose to human lives, I suppose, you know, we're able to make sense of our impressions, and then with our purposes, program ourselves to be more than just input, output ah machines like computers or as a stoic saw saw animals.
00:17:43
Speaker
And I think that's reflected in this picture of nature as a whole. You know, Zeus has this attribute. What does that mean? Nature has this attribute of reason, and it has its own kind of order and purpose for the ancient Stoics in particular. So you and you have these ideas of Providence, things have a structure. The universe is intelligible. It is directed towards certain aims. And I think that's that's just really cool that you have that general picture of nature as having reason, order, and purpose. And then that every human has this fragment of reason themselves, this ability to reason themselves, this fragment of the divine as a part of the the greater whole. So I think that that part of Stoicism is a very beautiful part of the philosophy.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's really cool. I've never thought of the refractal as a good way of putting it. Uh, I just agree. That's a, it's a really interesting part of stoicism. Two things I wanted to add first is just about animals. I mean, you talked about the input output. I should clarify, cause that that's the same language I use that the stoics think animals are capable of reasoning. We want to be careful what the language you use here, but the stoics, they use this example of a dog.
00:18:58
Speaker
you know the the dog um comes to a fork in the road, it's chasing something, comes to a fork in the road, smells down the path number one, doesn't smell anything. It doesn't smell anything, immediately runs down the second path without taking the time to smell it. And they say, well, that dog is doing yeah this kind of deductive reasoning, right? A or B, not A, therefore B. So I don't even need to test B. I know my prey or what I'm chasing ran down B. But that's a type of reasoning, but the the dog is not able to, and everybody knows that who has relationship with pets, there's this degree of intelligence, but the dog is not able to reason about that that capacity. The dog doesn't say, well, last time I did A or B, not A, therefore B.
00:19:46
Speaker
But I really didn't leave enough space for an option C, which is maybe it ran off the path. i didn't the The dog's not able to conduct this metacognition. So I'm not trying to imply the Stoics thought that animals were unintelligent um or that a dog is like a bacteria or something like this. This is not this is this is doesn't make sense and not what they thought, just that they were lacking that metacognitive ability.
00:20:14
Speaker
um The other thing to add, which I guess is a criticism of stoicism in bringing in, Caleb, I'm interested in what you think about this. It always strikes me as strange here when Epictetus is pretending to be Zeus or acts out, says the universe has given you a piece, given you a piece of me, like a piece of the divine, when it seems to me, and then they point to that piece as the metacognitive aspect. They say, that's the best part of you. That's the part that's the most God-like.
00:20:41
Speaker
And it seems to me the part that we have the least in common with the universe. um It seems to me that like, you know, when I think of the universe, I don't think of its metacognitive ability. And maybe there's some sort of metaphor here or not even metaphor, but some sort of idea of providence or some sort of other kind of reasoning, but it's not a metacognitive reasoning. The universe isn't thinking about how the universe thinks. That that always kind of trips me up. Do you do you have any any thoughts on that?
00:21:11
Speaker
Well, i so the way I thought about it is if we think about The ability for—going back to our episode on the stoic god, and one of the analogies we talked about for the stoic god was thinking of it as a life force or a fire, you know that thing that ties things together, holds things together. and I like to talk about it as having those two aspects, one order and the other purpose. Things

Influence on Philosophical Inquiry and Ethical Living

00:21:41
Speaker
have a certain structure because of the life force. and
00:21:44
Speaker
they're driven in a in a specific way because ah because of that you know animating force, essentially that active principle. right So and in that sense, the Stoics thought of, and maybe this is where we're going to have some difficulty tying out how exactly these are identical, but they thought of reasoning as that ah basically an exercise of the active principle.
00:22:08
Speaker
has has has always been been my understanding. So you're bringing order to your life, thinking about yeah ah the purposes you have and and sort of applying ah applying it to impressions one is receiving. So in in that sense, that's how that's how I see it as the same. That's that's how you share ah fragment of the Divine, is because you are also able to
00:22:38
Speaker
utilize, you know, when you're thinking, well, the, the logos, you're able to harmonize with it through, uh, exercising your reason. Well, and there's probably something when you were talking, I think that made a lot of sense, but I was thinking there's probably something here also about like autonomy or self-expression. Just say you're harmonizing, but you're almost harmonizing through choice. You're harmonizing with a active awareness of the harmonization, which is probably better than It's like that, I've been thinking about that stoic metaphor of the person being dragged by the cart, which is to say, fate goes along and you, uh, it pulls you and you can walk alongside the cart or you can be dragged by the cart if if you're tied to the cart of fate. And so you're, you're doing the same thing regardless. You end up at the same spot regardless, but there's this almost, um, self-awareness autonomy, choice, participation. And so you talk about that harmonization, maybe there's a higher level harmonization when you're.
00:23:38
Speaker
you know Not only are you going along with the providential nature of the universe, but you're aware of that providential universe. You're aware of its purpose and you're choosing the same thing. Probably puts you at ah at a higher level than and what an animal is doing, let's say. Yeah, yeah I think so. and I think ah and perhaps another way to to get at it is...
00:23:59
Speaker
thinking about when humans lack reason, then things become disordered. we lack Our lives lack purpose. and Maybe most extreme forms, like you're extremely tired, a very fatigued. Your mind's a bit scrambled. and And am I in some way mirror, you know that the epicurean picture of the universe just randomness Yeah, things aren't tied together as opposed to you know, the stoic picture things Are intelligible they make sense. They're going towards a certain end. You know, that's what so we're thinking Well looks like that's what exercising reason well looks like. Yeah
00:24:37
Speaker
Um, and I mean, speaking of that, speaking of the disordered mind. So there's, there's this claim that metacognition is unique or this ability to reason, which I'm now drawing the, the, they would call it reasoning. I'm now drawing this comparison to contemporary psychology's view of metacognition because I think metacognition draws some aspects of it out that we lose when we think about reasoning. Reasoning is a bit more vague and metacognition is more precise. The Stoics are judgmental of those humans.
00:25:12
Speaker
that don't practice their metacognition. There's some metaphors and Epictetus about comparing them to animals says you've got a body and then you've got this piece of the divine. And if you're not sharpening or training that piece of the divine, just thinking about your body, just kind of, Oh, I want to eat that or I want to, I want to go ah pursue this pleasure. Then you're acting like the animal, right? You're acting like the, the input output.
00:25:39
Speaker
instead of this active development of how you make use of impressions. And so this would be a stoic view. I also think of somebody like the Neo in the Matrix or anybody in the Matrix. There's this judgment of those who live on autopilot. So those that don't make use of this metacognitive ability.
00:25:59
Speaker
ah And to go back to your reference to Socrates, um or or the Oracle of Delphi, which is referenced by Socrates, that maxim of know thyself.
00:26:14
Speaker
it is is

Practical Exercises for Metacognitive Development

00:26:15
Speaker
It's a call to action for metacognition. It's a call to action to think about how you think, to think about what you think. And that is, I really think there is a claim to be made that is the starting point of ancient Greek philosophy. And so there's a tradition the Stoics are following when they're placing it on such a pedestal, ah starting at least at Socrates and making its way to the Stoics.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's one of the constants to the ah Greek philosophical schools is that focus on not a sleepwalking through life, not living life on autopilot, but becoming free in some way. And that requires, I think that requires some investigation of one's beliefs, thoughts, desires, and that's just metacautism. That's what we've been talking about.
00:27:05
Speaker
And then um so that's metacognition in theory. That's in stoic theory. That's the role that it plays in stoic theory, which I've argued is a very big one. It is the starting point of philosophy. It's a necessary condition of philosophy. And it is the most important part of ourselves, the part that we need to really focus on um making excellent. And then I think there's a role for metacognition in practice.
00:27:32
Speaker
So something I hit on at at the start of the episode, the this idea that there's two aspects to metacognition. So one aspect, there's metacognitive knowledge. So an understanding of how you think and judgments or perspectives on thinking. So some examples of metacognitive knowledge.
00:27:52
Speaker
I have is just the claim I tend to think these kinds of ways like this is I, this is how I'm, I'm ah i'm a thoughtful thinker, I'm a careless thinker. um These kinds of I
00:28:06
Speaker
I'm really biased ah about this, have ah or I have this pattern of thinking, or I'm really easily persuaded when someone makes an appeal to emotion. This is knowledge about the way that you think. and Then there's metacognitive control, which is the ability to focus your attention to, I would say, determine the content of your thoughts.
00:28:25
Speaker
So, a metacognitive control will say, I'm going to work on focusing on my impressions when I receive them, really interrogating them, and that's practicing metacognitive control, which is directing the attention.
00:28:41
Speaker
So again, if you think of attention, like there's these metaphors you can use, but if you think of it like a flashlight, um, metacognitive knowledge is this awareness. I suppose really on both what's, what's under the lens of the flashlight and the kind of flashlight you have, like, you know, it's, it's got a really wide, it's really focused or it's got a really wide, um, view. And then a metacognitive control is if you're able to point that where you're able to point that flashlight for sustained periods of time and how you were able to direct it.
00:29:09
Speaker
And so, if we think of metacognition in these two ways, many stoic exercises or practices fall directly into these two categories. um So, prosoke or the the mindful attentive awareness of our own thinking, that stoic ah call to be mindful, I think that's the application of metacognition, that's metacognitive control.
00:29:32
Speaker
that that focus on, as I said, I'm going to interrogate every impression I receive. I'm not going to assent unless I've thought about the impression I'm going to be very careful about the beliefs I form because I want to be careful about my ah impulses and my emotions.
00:29:48
Speaker
that's a kind of metacognitive control. And then other things, these exercises, ah other stoic exercises, I really think of as as methods of rewriting our unhelpful, incorrect thinking patterns. And so I'm thinking of things like the view from above, memento mori, premeditatio malorum, these are all exercises we've talked about before. And

Metacognition as a Project for Character Development

00:30:09
Speaker
you can think about them Not as band-aids, not as even tools in the toolbox, but to say um applications of metacognitive knowledge. So they say, well, I tend to overestimate my importance or I really get caught up.
00:30:26
Speaker
and i ah dramatize what's occurring. So I'm going, that's a metacognitive knowledge. so I'm going to apply the view from above. I'm going to take a big picture perspective. I'm going to extend my view. um I tend to be blindsided when things don't go my way. I get really optimistic. That's a metacognitive knowledge. That's metacognitive knowledge. So I'm going to practice pre-meditatio malorum. I'm going to consider all the bad things that could happen so that I'm not surprised by them. I'm prepared for them.
00:30:56
Speaker
So and I don't want to shove a forced stoicism into this box, but I do think it's an interesting way of thinking about how how we practice. Because often we think of about, for me at least, I often think about practice in this almost therapeutic way of like, oh, I've got this problem and I'm going to apply the melody.
00:31:15
Speaker
or the remedies, sorry, have the melody. I'm gonna just listen to some some sad music and feel better. um I've got this problem, I'm gonna apply the the remedy. But instead, thinking about it, well, stoicism about this, a big part of stoicism is this metacognitive skill. I'm gonna focus my attention, that's number one. And number two is I'm gonna understand where I think poorly. I'm gonna be really self-aware because I journal, because I reflect,
00:31:42
Speaker
ah about where I go wrong when I think, and i'm going to and then I'm going to apply the appropriate solution. So it's more, I guess, preventative than reactionary. um What do you think on this framing of stoic practice as as this metacognitive practice?
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is really helpful because um as you said, sometimes if we have a given problem or goal, we go immediately to how can I fix this problem? How can I achieve this goal? yeah Even with ah if we have an ah excellent strategic framing, we're thinking about you know what's what's up to us? What are those next few decisions that I need to make? And what what you're calling attention to here that I think is really useful is that sometimes you almost want to step back a little bit and maybe think of in a case of a problem, like what are those thinking styles, those beliefs you have that are contributing to the problem? So I think in magna-cognitive therapy, sometimes people talk about a belief like, I think rumination is a useful way to solve my problems. It's something like that driving
00:32:57
Speaker
whatever you're facing at hand and maybe that kind of thinking style, yeah you know, you want to address that. um And that's going to be more promising than tackling whatever is right in front of you. And I think also fits in well with that stoic project of building character, you're thinking about yourself as, of course, someone who exists through time. And you know one of the essential parts of stoicism is just that you think about character through time and not just one-off decisions. You're thinking about you know what is the that the the what is the most most stoic person do in this case. And I think that can generate different answers perhaps than just thinking about an isolated decision at this at this very moment. So what you're bringing out
00:33:52
Speaker
for me here is that sometimes maybe we we go a little bit too far into just wanting to solve the problem in the moment. But on the margin, perhaps we ought to move more to at least ah thinking about you know what's what are these beliefs that are causing some of these issues or might be holding me back from achieving my goal. What are these character traits, thinking styles, and then you know making ah progress on those. It might be a little bit harder than fixing the issue at the moment, but it's the kind of project that I think pays off over time. So that's a I think that's ah that's a nice reminder and a good thing to call attention to. Well, I love that idea of stoicism looks at character over time. And in many ways, I think I'm going to blame Epictetus here. I think sometimes when Epictetus frames it as making proper use of impressions, it can seem like, well, that's all doing a good stoic is you kind of walk down the street and
00:34:49
Speaker
somebody calls you a bad name and you go, that's nothing to me. you higher Or somebody offers you some riches and you go, oh, these are externals. And it's kind of like um like a whack a mole of bad impressions.
00:35:00
Speaker
ah But the metacognition is this, okay, well, if it is, I'm going to take a step back and I'm going to ah equip myself with the right tools. I'm going to make sure I know where I tend to fail. I'm really going to understand myself as a thinker. I'm going to understand my faults as a thinker, and it's not as simple as me adeptly navigating the situation.
00:35:23
Speaker
Or I should say, um it is that simple. Maybe it's that simple for the sage. The real stoic in progress is about taking a step back, evaluating the kind of the ways you tend to think incorrectly, as you said, making it a longer term project, a more self-aware project.
00:35:39
Speaker
Now, that is really practicing stoicism. right it's It's a deep practice of stoicism instead of just, oh, well, you're feeling sad about this. If you thought about the dichotomy of control, now you're less sad. um it is It is really the stoic goal of knowledge of being an excellent thinker is this real long-term metacognitive practice.
00:36:01
Speaker
Which is not to say they're not unrelated. So we've we're kind of painting two pictures here, at least the way I'm understanding what you were saying. One is the person who treats stoicism as like this reactionary in the moment.
00:36:14
Speaker
Okay, there's a mistake I made. Can I avoid the mistake or there's a tempting impression? Can I not get angry or jealous or envious or something like this? And then yeah there's this other thing, which is the person who's writes, ah your journals, meditates, really understands kind of the contours of their own mind and where the faults are.
00:36:36
Speaker
and And point one is that you gotta be doing that second kind of work. You gotta to be doing that real metacognitive work. um That's point number one, which I think is right. And then point number two, which I'm adding, is that I don't think we dismiss that first kind of work, which is to say, if you've got a really good understanding of yourself, and then you go and non-reflectively walk down the street and get upset about things, what doesn't help you You know there's there's always that weird thing i noticed when someone's like oh i'm an angry person and they go and get angry and you're kind of like well shouldn't you shouldn't you have put something in place to stop that like you you still need to be skillful in the moment that's still an important part of it but then there's this background work to it too no yeah i think that's right right the way what i understand what you're saying is you've got this project of
00:37:24
Speaker
you know but Basically, the metacognitive project of building up metacognitive knowledge, improving your skills of metacognitive control, attention. Of course, I bet he just talks about this, the importance of intention. Attention, I should say, to be clear. um ah But at the same time, you need to do that day-to-day work. Not all knowledge as metacognitive is ah perhaps like a good way to put it. oh that's that's that yeah just I'm interrupting you to say that's the that's the part that I was missing.
00:37:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so, ah and um and there there certainly is a sense when sometimes people might spend too much time on the men in cognitive. and they They ought to be spending more time just, you know, living in the present and tackling the problem at hand. You you know, you have Marcus Aurelius reminding himself,
00:38:10
Speaker
to do that. Many anecdotes, perhaps personal experiences of people say going to things like therapy, learning about the causes of their problems, how it originates in some childhood experience or something like this, and then they and so come to understand the origin of their problem and then what's next. Sometimes for some people it'ss it's not not that useful. It's just sent to know, okay, and I know i know they know the origins of my thoughts. I know these different beliefs about thinking styles, but there's maybe something there still that's missing that needs needs to be applied. and I think that's part of a um both a metacognitive skill and a cognitive skill as well. I think there's a you do need both of those aspects. and I think Marcus Aurelius perhaps in his meditation is a good example. of
00:38:55
Speaker
how you might apply both of those, where he's doing both of those things at the same time, reminding himself to be present, focus on the task at hand, while also thinking through yeah about the character traits he admires, or particular ways of thought that he thinks he needs to correct, um different thinking styles he needs to correct, um and strategies for for overcoming that, whether that's anger, anxiety, or what what have you.
00:39:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a good example. You know, why not? It's just not a dichotomy, right? Like why not both? But as you raised, that's, the I'm going to keep going back to that phrase of not all knowledge is metacognitive. So

Encouragement and Conclusion

00:39:35
Speaker
to understand your own thinking.
00:39:37
Speaker
is not sufficient. You need to go out then and think well. So you do need to go out and navigate the the situations effectively. I think what we're landing on is for not only A, not only B, getting a good mix of... A good stoic practice looks like a mix of going out and navigating your particular messy, stressful life and the roles you have. and the parts you have to play in it well. And then it also involves going back and journaling, reflecting, ah thinking about how you're thinking contributed to what you did well and what you did poorly. um So kind of fluctuating between those two states. um Anything you want to hit on that we we haven't talked about before I get to um my conclusion?
00:40:27
Speaker
One thing I'd like to emphasize is that that those list of stoic exercises that you hit on which um which I think can be essential, useful for improving metacognitive skill, whether that's building up attention ah you of your own thinking, or also taking that view from above practicing cognitive distancing. to Donald Robertson is very, very good about this. Or using some of those other traditional stoic exercises to to get distance get some perspective on
00:41:02
Speaker
how you're living your life, what your thinking patterns are in Epictetus's language, you know, how you reflect on the impressions you face, or that's memento mori pre-meditatio malorum, or and maybe even ah practicing voluntary discomfort and seeing if you come to insight about your your thinking styles and such. So I think those are those are good things to emphasize, to experiment with, and to to tinker with um as a you are as you become more stuck.
00:41:33
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's the main takeaways. so Okay, we've talked about metacognition. How do you practice it? Well, you practice it by being reflective. You practice it then by applying these kinds of exercises to change your thinking. As you said,
00:41:51
Speaker
And then you practice applying applying mindfulness and attention, you practice that metacognitive control as well, which you have to do to do these things, right? It's not easy to sit there and premeditatio malorum in a healthy way. It's easy to ruminate or memento mori in a healthy way to think about death in a way that is um instructive or insightful. Yeah, so that's all really helpful.
00:42:17
Speaker
And so to to to wrap up here, i i just I'll just summarize what we what we went over. I've introduced this idea of metacognition, which is an awareness or understanding ah of one's own thinking and the patterns behind it. um And then this was not something the Stoics talked about, but basically saying, hey, I think this is really important how the ancient Greeks think about philosophy more generally and the Stoics specifically.
00:42:47
Speaker
And bore out some examples of that, how Epictetus talks about how this ability to be reflective is something special. It's something God has given us, something that is different from all the other crafts or all the other really skills we can engage in, sets it apart from everything else. And it is the the craft of philosophy is this thinking about thinking.
00:43:09
Speaker
um Or at least it's I might say it's the the foundation of it or it's a necessary component of it. And the Stoics even go so far as to say, as we talked about that humans are only capable of doing philosophy and we're set apart from other kinds of things because of this metacognitive ability.
00:43:25
Speaker
It is the thing that lets us, instead of just thinking, like the dog who is still thinking, but the the dog who just goes about and and pursues their goals non-reflectively, it lets us reflect on our goals. It lets us reflect on our beliefs. It lets us reflect on our first impressions and reflect on the whether we're doing that well or poorly as well, right? Whether we're being effective at trying to think well.
00:43:52
Speaker
And that sets apart from animals. It also sets us apart from from small children. There's just this type difference here. And then the the the last thing was that you those a lot of stoic exercises are about developing your metacognition by either developing this metacognitive control, your ability to control your focus.
00:44:10
Speaker
or by intervening on incorrect or unhelpful thinking patterns that you've recognized in yourself ah by reflection or um by self-awareness. And I think one of the upshots we've got from this conversation was that in thinking about metacognition as an important part of your practice,
00:44:32
Speaker
ah it it It helps put that focus in that long-term project of stoicism, helps put that focus on, you know it's not just about driving in traffic and not getting upset as frustrating as traffic can be. It's a multi-year decade process of turning yourself into the best thinker you can be and the best person you can be, because the better you are at thinking, the more truthful your thoughts, the better you will be as a person.
00:44:59
Speaker
Um, and so it shifts the focus also into that domain instead of this stoicism that's about kind of playing defense, I would say of just, okay, you're upset because you thought something false. How can we make you not, how can I become not upset in this moment? Which is part of stoicism. It's part of stootherapy, but it's it's not the entire project. And.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I always like that offensive offensive versus defensive framing on stoicism and stoicism is so useful for defense, you know, becoming more resilient. But I think ultimately the project has that that positive vision as well as essential to it.
00:45:35
Speaker
and to I think that's ah's so that's what most people learn when they when they practice stoicism. I think, of course, personally, I found a focus on resilience, defensive stoicism, initially attractive, and then discovered there's this whole powerful there's this whole life philosophy behind ah behind a the system and the a you know aims at something paul positive. Perhaps that purpose, that's an essential part of stoicism. Awesome. Great note to end on. Cool. Thanks, Michael.
00:46:05
Speaker
and go
00:46:07
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become.
00:46:26
Speaker
more stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyer.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.