Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Stoicism
- Introduction
- 1 The Socratic Imprint on Epictetus' Philosophy
- 2 The Stoics on the Voluntariness of the Passions
- 3 Stoicism in the Apostle Paul: A Philosophical Reading
- 4 Moral Judgment in Seneca
- 5 Stoic First Movements in Christianity
- 6 Where Were the Stoics in the Late Middle Ages?
- 7 Abelard's Stoicism and Its Consequences
- 8 Constancy and Coherence
- 9 On the Happy Life: Descartes vis-à-vis Seneca
- 10 Psychotherapy and Moral Perfection: Spinoza and the Stoics on the Prospect of Happiness
- 11 Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic Legacy
- 12 Stoic Emotion
- Works Cited
- Name Index
- Subject Index
2 - The Stoics on the Voluntariness of the Passions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Stoicism
- Introduction
- 1 The Socratic Imprint on Epictetus' Philosophy
- 2 The Stoics on the Voluntariness of the Passions
- 3 Stoicism in the Apostle Paul: A Philosophical Reading
- 4 Moral Judgment in Seneca
- 5 Stoic First Movements in Christianity
- 6 Where Were the Stoics in the Late Middle Ages?
- 7 Abelard's Stoicism and Its Consequences
- 8 Constancy and Coherence
- 9 On the Happy Life: Descartes vis-à-vis Seneca
- 10 Psychotherapy and Moral Perfection: Spinoza and the Stoics on the Prospect of Happiness
- 11 Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic Legacy
- 12 Stoic Emotion
- Works Cited
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
One of the most characteristic and, to the contemporary mind at least, bizarre theses of orthodox Chrysippean Stoicism is its insistence on the wholly rational character of the human mind or soul. The whole of the soul, or at least the whole of the hēgemonikon or “leading part” of the soul, is said to be reason (logos): there are no irrational parts or powers within the soul, no independent sources or faculties of emotion or nonrational desire, and all cases of apparent irrationality are supposed to be referred to the operations of thought itself (dianoia, another name for the mind). This seems to fly in the face of much of what we assume or feel sure we know about human psychology: not only do modern psychological theories tend to stress the role of irrational or subrational factors in human motivation, but we seem to be clearly aware in ourselves of major nonrational or irrational aspects of our own behavior and thought processes. Thus when confronted with Stoic claims such as that all emotions and desires are really just judgments or beliefs, or that passions or emotions are unnatural conditions that ought to be extirpated, we find these not only hard to swallow but difficult and nearly impossible even to grasp. However, there is nothing about this sort of difficulty with Stoicism that is specifically modern.
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- StoicismTraditions and Transformations, pp. 32 - 51Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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