If the word “Stoic” has been totally misunderstood in the English language, as we talked about the other day), then it must be said that as a concept, “philosophy” has also been perverted.
The mere mention of the word makes us bored or intimidated. Because philosophy today is not thought of as something someone can use, but instead a mostly academic pursuit, an abstraction too big for us ordinary people to comprehend. It is not thought to be for, as Epictetus said, “the lovers of wisdom” (Philosophy comes from Greek philosophia, literally “love of wisdom”), but instead for geniuses, people who love puzzling over paradoxes and riddles, for asking questions without answers. Our modern philosophers debate whether we’re living in a computer simulation or if reality is anything but a hallucination or how to respond to the so-called “Trolley Problem” or whether the ship of Theseus, if every single plank were replaced, would or wouldn’t be a fundamentally different ship. Which is why far too many philosophy books, as Nietchze said, feel like words are being used to argue about words.
What a sad, ironic fate for something that traces its roots back to just about everywhere but the classroom. As Plutarch observed, “Socrates did not set up desks for his students, sit in a teacher’s chair, or reserve a prearranged time for lecturing and walking with his pupils.” On the contrary. “He practiced philosophy while joking around and drinking and serving on military campaigns and hanging around the marketplace with some of his students, and finally, even while under arrest and drinking the hemlock. He was the first to demonstrate that our lives are open to philosophy at all times and in every aspect, while experiencing every emotion, and in each and every activity.”
Beautiful.
The truth is that you will never have to pull a lever to stop a trolley from running over one person or five. You have no way of knowing whether this life is real or an illusion. We do have, however, just as the citizens of the ancient world had, real concerns and decisions to make on a daily basis. This is what philosophy is. It’s something the doers of the world use—and have used throughout history—to solve their problems and live a good life.
That’s what the Stoics were after, what we remain interested in to this day: lights to illuminate the path in life. They wanted to know, as we want to know, how to find tranquility, purpose, self-control, and happiness. Which is why, instead of interesting questions like is this just a hallucination?, the Stoics asked practical questions like, who can help me? What is right? What should and shouldn’t I do?
