“It’s all very well in practice, but will it work in theory?”  A Counter-Response to Massimo Pigliucci — by Chuck Chakrapani

Editor’s Note: This essay is the continuation of a discussion between Chuck Chakrapani and Massimo Pigliucci. You can read the earlier pieces here:

Pragmatic Stoicism: Making Stoicism Fit for Purpose — by Chuck Chakrapani

Against Pragmatic Stoicism: A Response to Chuck Chakrapani — by Massimo Pigliucci

 

It’s always worthwhile to read a response from a prominent modern Stoic like Massimo Pigliucci—even to the modest piece I’ve written. Massimo has interesting views on varied subjects, and one can always learn something valuable by reading his commentaries.

Here Is the Problem

The point I’ve been trying to stress is that our knowledge, to be applicable, must be fit for purpose. A highwire artist cannot perform if they violate the laws of physics. Yet one does not meet any highwire artist specializing in the study of physics. Conversely, we don’t expect a learned physics professor, well-versed in classical mechanics, statics, dynamics, rotational motion, oscillations, and friction, to be able to perform highwire acts.

Physics theory is not fit for purpose for the highwire artist, and performing highwire acts is not fit for purpose for the physicist. Stoic physics and Stoic logic may be fit for purpose for academic discussion, but they are not fit for purpose for someone who simply wants to practice Stoic ethics. The idea that something should be fit for purpose finds its echo in Pragmatism. Hence my choice of the title Pragmatic Stoicism.

Massimo says:

“Chuck Chakrapani, however, wishes to propose a form of Pragmatic Stoicism—notice the capital P—meaning a version of Stoicism rooted in the modern philosophical approach known as Pragmatism.”

Personally, I find it uncomfortable to describe myself as anything starting with a capital letter: Stoic, Epicurean, Pragmatist, Liberal, Libertarian, or whatever. I feel labeling myself obligates me to defend the entire field and confines me within its boundaries. One need only read the first few letters of the Epistulae Morales to see how often even the formidable Seneca feels compelled to justify quoting Epicurus, simply because he was the founder of a ‘rival’ school.

Here are some of Seneca’s explanations for quoting Epicurus:

• “I shall take what is good wherever I find it.” (Moral Letters 2.5)
• “We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each of us lays claim to his own freedom.” (Moral Letters 33.4)
• “I shall quote Epicurus not as an Epicurean, but as one who seeks truth.” (Moral Letters 6.5)
• “I do not quote Epicurus to adopt his views, but to strengthen mine by contrast or agreement.” (Moral Letters 33.4)
• “I quote Epicurus to show you that even he, who is often misrepresented, agrees with us on many points.” (Moral Letters 8.8)

—Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales [Moral Letters to Lucilius]. Translated by Richard Mott Gummere. Loeb Classical Library, Vols. I–III.

I am with Søren Kierkegaard when he says, “Once you label me, you negate me.” I used the capital P because the concepts I based my essay on are closer to Pragmatism, the philosophy, than to pragmatism, the common English word—not because of my allegiance to Pragmatism. Even so, I’m forced to defend Pragmatism, which I do later on, though not with much enthusiasm.

The Non-Issues of Pragmatic Stoicism

When someone explains a theory that purports to show how we can be happy forever, or how we can make three million dollars in three months, we are skeptical. We ask, “It’s all very well in theory, but will it work in practice?”

Academic philosophers are equally skeptical about accepting things just because they work. They ask, “It’s all very well in practice, but will it work in theory?” A fair question, I suppose. Massimo lists many “major philosophical objections” based on academic evaluations of why Pragmatism falls short as a respectable philosophical school—all variations of the theme, “It’s all very well in practice, but will it work in theory?”

The questions Massimo poses are rational and worth thinking about. But the trap is that answering them almost invariably leads us into an eternal loop of arguments and counterarguments with no solution in sight. The arguments that cannot be reconciled take precedence over the substance to which the arguments need to be applied. The process, rather than the content, becomes the focus.

We have seen this movie before—many times. I see the basic premise of Pragmatism as an antidote to the eternal loops of academic philosophy.

And yet, because I used the word Pragmatism with a capital P, I am called upon to justify the entire foundation of Pragmatism. It’s like challenging your neighbour who believes in God to justify the entire field of theology. I don’t think I’m equipped to undertake such a grand task but let me try to respond to these academic challenges the best I can.

To be clear, I was not proposing Pragmatism as a superior philosophy but only suggesting why some of its principles are relevant to practicing Stoics. So, it is only with great reluctance that I answer the following generalized criticisms of Pragmatism.

1. Pragmatism Confuses Truth with Utility

I doubt this assertion. I don’t think anyone seriously believes that Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey—and even I—couldn’t tell the difference between truth and utility. The implied argument of Pragmatism is that utility is the truth when “truth” makes no difference or cannot be established. Pragmatism does not deny distinctions that make a difference, only distinctions that make no difference. Utility is the truth when truth cannot be established otherwise.

Massimo may be correct in saying that, “…the Stoics would be adamantly opposed to using comforting lies. Precisely because they valued truth.” But I would tell a lie if I were comforting someone about to die, and if my telling the truth would add to their suffering, provided the dying person has no chance of finding out. It seems to me compassion is far more important than truth in some cases. I don’t believe I’m confusing truth with utility when I do this.

2. Relativism and Objectivism

If I start answering this, it will take me to places I don’t want to go. Is “objective knowledge” possible? Who is the judge? What are the criteria? Who decides the correctness of the criteria? Which theory of knowledge should I use—phenomenal epistemology, naturalized epistemology, evolutionary epistemology, social epistemology, postmodern epistemology? If travel this path, we will soon discover that we are wallowing in the eternal loop. Let me leave these questions to the academics. As a pragmatist, I’ll deal with such issues if and when they arise, depending on their practical relevance.

3. The Correspondence Theory

We are left with “useful fictions rather than genuine knowledge.” Returning to my earlier example: a highwire artist’s understanding of the principles behind why they don’t fall may be incorrect, but if that useful fiction keeps them safe, why object to it?

A highwire artist does not object to the theories of physics, although understanding them will not likely result in better highwire acts. They’re just not of any use to the artist. A Pragmatist would no more object to the pursuit of theoretical knowledge for its own sake in its context than a highwire artist would object to theoretical physics.

4. Anti-Intellectualism

Pragmatism is “dismissive of theoretical knowledge pursued for its own sake.” We could equally say that academic philosophers are “dismissive of practical knowledge pursued for its own practical value.”

Personally, I have no problem pursuing knowledge for its own sake. That doesn’t stop me from treating utility as truth in practical situations when no objective truth can be established or, if established, makes no difference. We all do something similar when we treat the latest scientific finding as true, although we’ve seen time and again that scientific findings are overturned.

If academic philosophers consider utility anti-intellectual, the rest of us can also consider academic philosophers “anti-practical.”

5. Moral and Political Concerns

I don’t even remotely touch upon this. I wasn’t advocating Pragmatism as a superior philosophy under all conditions.

6. Foundational Instability

A fertile field for academic philosophers. I’ll leave them to harvest it.

Experience has shown me that answering these questions at length will not end the debate but only extend it. That alone convinces me that Pragmatism is a better philosophy in many practical contexts. If my choice is between debating about something forever and making a choice based on its utility, I will choose the latter.

We Tried This Before, and We Are Still Standing

Massimo points out that, long before me, Aristo of Chios, a student of Zeno, argued about the irrelevance of Stoic physics and Stoic logic to the practice of Stoic ethics and failed.

Contrary to Massimo’s assertion that “we never heard of Aristo after he left the Stoa,” he was remembered more than five centuries later by the doxographer Diogenes Laertius, who devotes an entire chapter to Aristo in Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (VII.2)—a distinction shared by only six other Stoics.

Aristo was no Stoic slouch. He went on to influence others for centuries after his death, as evidenced by Marcus Aurelius’ comments below:

“Ariston’s books just now treat me well and at the same time make me feel ill. When they teach me a better way, then, I need not say, they treat me well; but when they shew me how far short my character comes of this better way, time and time again does your pupil blush and is angry with himself […] I will make my peace with Ariston’s works … However, I can only write on one side or the other, for as to my defending both sides of the question, Ariston will, I am sure, never sleep so soundly as to allow me to do that!!”

—Marcus Aurelius, The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto Vol. 1, Tr. C.R. Haines, London: William Heinemann, pp. 215–219.

The writings of Aristo had such a profound effect on Marcus Aurelius that, after reading Aristo, he wrote to his beloved rhetoric teacher Fronto that he [Marcus] could no longer pursue rhetoric because it lets you defend “both sides.”

After more than two thousand years, Brad Inwood goes even a step further:

“[O]ther followers of the school, such as Marcus Aurelius, were inclined to reject logic altogether as being not worth the time; in this they were following up on a trend that developed early in the school’s history, with Aristo of Chios, one of Zeno’s first students.”

—Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction, p. 94, OUP Oxford.

Not bad for someone whom Massimo dismisses as “a cautionary example of how not to approach philosophy”!

Other issues raised by Massimo

Massimo quotes Epictetus on the importance of logic, although I never said logic is irrelevant as a discipline or lacks merit. This is what I actually said:

“While the pragmatist agrees that the formal logic developed by the Stoics is useful and valuable, Stoic logic does not have any direct bearing on understanding Stoic ethics. A person with no exposure to Stoic logic can understand Stoic ethics as well as someone who is exposed to Stoic logic, just as a person not exposed to any formal logical training can understand subjects like psychology, philosophy, or mathematics, all of which presuppose logical thinking.”

I was making the distinction between formal training in Stoic logic and logical thinking. The former is not very common, but the latter is. QED.

Massimo says:

“[Chuck] says that it doesn’t matter whether God exists or not, or what its nature is, because this has no effect on our ethics. But it certainly does.”

Does it? Do agnostics rewrite Stoic ethics in any major way? I think not. Sure, the way we think about things alters the way we act. But we can easily reframe our acceptance of negative things that happen by following the self-evident Stoic tenet that there are things not in our control, and accepting things outside our control is a more effective way of dealing with them than trying to resist them.

We can remain well within the framework of Stoic ethics without having to accept any metaphysical concept that challenges our credulity.

When it comes to free will, Massimo resorts to empirical studies showing that a belief in free will “promotes cooperative behavior, while when people are led to think that free will does not exist, they tend to cheat more in various tasks.”

Good to know. As I said, “A pragmatist would go on acting, like everyone else, as though they have free will.”

It is quite valid to say, as Massimo does:

“An undecidable and irrelevant question actually plays a crucial role in shaping behaviors, moral judgments, and social interactions.”

However, I am a bit surprised that Massimo made this comment. After all, his first criticism of Pragmatism was that it confuses “truth with utility,” and it generates “useful fictions rather than genuine knowledge.”  Here he seems to be advocating something for its utility even though it is “undecidable and irrelevant.” I only hope the Stoics who “revere truth,” and would not deign to comfort someone with an untruth, are comfortable relaxing their standards and accepting “undecidable and irrelevant questions” that defy logic just to reap their pragmatic benefits.

I believe that the Stoic ethics framework is completely rational and offers alternative ways to avoid “undecidable and irrelevant questions.” While the Stoics claim that Stoic logic and Stoic physics lead to Stoic ethics, it is my contention that rationality by itself can also lead us to Stoic ethics. If X (Stoic physics) leads to Y (Stoic ethics), as Massimo seems to claim, it does not follow that X is necessary for Y to happen. Z (rationality) may also lead to Y (ethics). A sufficient condition is not a necessary condition.

So far, in my view, the differences between Massimo and me are minor and not of much consequence. But this is a big one. The six-hundred-pound gorilla. I believe it is possible to interpret Stoic ethics as a totally rational system without any help from any belief system based on unprovable metaphysics or questionable assumptions. If Massimo believes otherwise, we had better agree to disagree.

Seeing the Big Picture from Different Angles

I don’t necessarily disagree with Massimo’s formulation:

• [Science + Logic → Eudaimonia]

I would, however, add the following:

• [Stoic physics ≠ Science], and
• [Stoic logic > Logical thinking to understand Stoic ethics].

With these two corollaries to Massimo’s formulation, we are on the same page. So, after all, I don’t disagree with Massimo all that much—except perhaps for my belief that Stoic ethics is (or can be) a totally rational system.

I agree with Massimo that we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But neither should we cling to the bathwater long after the baby is out, dry, and warm.

We agree on fundamentals. Our big pictures look different because we see things from different angles.

About the Author

Chuck Chakrapani is the Editor-in-Chief and publisher of THE STOIC: The Journal of The Stoic Gym, and the author of many books on Stoicism, including The Power to Change and Unshakable Freedom. He serves as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. His weekly blogs can be found at https://thestoicgym.substack.com.