On Nature, some methodological points

Dear Tony, and all:

Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful contributions to this conversation. Tony’s letter with which we started raises the interestingly framed and important issue of how the Stoics have a conception of nature – everything that exists – that takes life or “being alive” as a fundamental feature of the universe, and which is grounded in the idea, derived from Heraclitus, that change is also primitive and fundamental.

What Tony, as I read him, challenges us with is to do the work of thinking these conceptions through, in all of their implications for ethics, for knowledge, for living in agreement with nature as so understood. I think this is indeed a worthwhile philosophical project, and will make a couple of suggestions below.

But first I want to take a step back and consider what might be aptly called some methodological issues. Namely, what sort of inquiry are we pursuing by engaging in this conversation? While there are any number of ways to pose an answer to this question, I suggest three:

1. What do the ancient Stoics say?
2. Is what the ancient Stoics say true?
3. What is the conceptual structure of what the ancient Stoics say? How does it all hang together?

There are other questions we might be asking, but these seem to me to cover at least some of the important options. I also take it that these three questions are not completely independent of one another, and distinguishing them may prove helpful.

It seems to me that so far all of our contributions agree about question 1, or at least no disagreement has come up. The ancients conceive of nature as Zeus, as alive, as rational, as providential, as fate, as God. All of these are well supported in the texts and so on. I think it is less obvious from what has been discussed so far, but I am unsure that there is any major disagreement about question 2. Tony points out his “distaste for Stoic providence” and Massimo and Greg Lopez certainly seem to share that point of view. John Sellars points out that there is good reason to believe that some claims the Stoics make are “clearly false,” a claim I do not dispute by any means. The Stoics just get some things wrong about the nature of the universe and rationality, and many false empirical claims can be easily found in the extant texts.

But what about question 3? I think this is what Tony was challenging us to pursue. What would happen if we try to take seriously the Stoic idea of nature as alive. What are the inferential commitments forced upon us on that view? Are those implications valuable or unacceptable? Does understanding the conceptual connections alter or deepen our understanding of the Stoic philosophical project? Might a richer understanding of nature as alive and of the ethical or cosmological implications thereof illuminate our understanding of other important Stoic ideas? Might they even affect what we take to be true or useful, about Stoicism, ancient or otherwise?

I want to suggest that this may be the most important of the questions listed above, at least insofar as we are philosophers, and it is what I took Tony’s challenge to be. Further, I would suggest that the answers we develop in exploring this terrain may well help elucidate and refine our answers to the first two questions. As John rightly notes, it is possible for this sort of conceptual investigation to slide into special pleading and apologetics, and I would certainly hope to avoid that. Exactly where the boundary lies is certainly something about which we might disagree, but that would likely be another conversation!

What I do want to suggest is that we take question 3 seriously. I understand at least part of Massimo’s argument, for example, as going something like this:

1. Evolutionary theory tells us that life is not a fundamental feature of the cosmos.
2. So the Stoic view that life is fundamental is false, according to our best scientific understanding.
3. Therefore, there’s very little point in even considering the conceptual and other implications of the Stoic view that life is fundamental.

But I’m not at all sure that this conclusion follows, especially for the Stoically-inclined. I suspect Massimo has a ready rejoinder, and I look forward to further discussion on that point. Perhaps we have different conceptions of the philosophical enterprise (another great conversation!), but conceptual exploration and mapping of the conceptual space is fundamental to how I conceive of the work of the philosopher. I also think that thorough conceptual and inferential understanding is a necessary condition of that central Stoic virtue of Wisdom, which is what we as philosophers are supposed to love! For the Stoics, of course, Wisdom is not merely the having of true propositions. It also requires a thorough grasp of how all those propositions hang together. This is the only way to achieve that highest epistemic status that the Wise person has and the rest of us strive for. As a certain wise philosopher has put it, “Finally, true knowledge requires the ability to fit the specific impression within the broader context of our understanding of the world, and is achievable by the sage”.

Here’s a specific example of the sort I have in mind. I teach a survey course in ancient philosophy every year, and have done so for longer than I would like to admit. In that course, we cover the fragments of Parmenides, in which he seems to argue that the universe is one single, undifferentiated thing in which change is impossible. Obviously, this claim flies in the face of both empirical inquiry and common sense. Furthermore, I think the view expressed in these fragments is simply false. On the other hand, I teach the view because I think it is really important to think through, carefully and thoroughly, why Parmenides might have thought that, why his arguments seem as persuasive as they do, and also to consider what sort of implications the view has for other practical and theoretical concerns. In doing so, I think we can see things about our own thinking, things about philosophical methodology, and about the implications of our own views – even though the claims of Parmenides are false.

To look back at the questions I articulated above. What does Parmenides say? Well, he seems to argue for monism. Is it true? Well, no! It flies in the face of every aspect of our experience and thinking. So is it worth exploring anyway? My answer to this used to be: sure it’s worth thinking about pedagogically. We can explore its conceptual space and implications, and we can learn from that, but it’s not really worth taking seriously beyond that. Is monism worth taking seriously outside of the classroom? Of course not! At least that’s what I would have said earlier in my career.

Given that many scholars accept that the Stoics are committed to a sort of monism, this bodes badly for the ancient Stoics, right? I’m not so sure these days. At some point I became familiar with this article by contemporary metaphysician Jonathan Schaffer. Shaffer argues that monism, properly understood, is in fact true. His argument depends heavily on two things: an interpretation of quantum physics and modal/mereological arguments. He also argues that his version of monism is a better fit with ancient texts from as far back as Plato. Reading and thinking about Schaffer’s argument has not only helped me to better understand the conceptual space in which metaphysical questions of monism and fundamentality take place, but it has also changed my view about the range of interpretive possibilities for ancient texts that argue for monism, such as those of the Stoics, and even my view about what claims are or might be true!

Now I seem to have left myself with little room to discuss the substance of Tony’s suggestions, so let me finish with this: I think it is worthwhile for us as philosophers to take seriously ideas that we are (provisionally!) inclined to be skeptical of. Frankly, I am skeptical of anti-Darwinism and process metaphysics as well, although perhaps for different reasons than others. But my inclinations as to the truth of some claim is not the only criterion for the philosophical worthiness of exploring that claim and its implications. So, I’m off to dust off that old copy of Whitehead and see if I can find the Nagel! 

Vale,
Rob