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Can I keep Stoic advice and leave Stoic determinism behind?

Rohan Desai Fellow
· 5 replies · 205 views
Virtue & characterChineseGreek & RomanIndianDaoismStoicismChrysippusEpictetusMarcus AureliusZhuangzi#acceptance#burnout#dichotomy-of-control#stoic-determinism
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I founded a startup in Mumbai, burned out badly last year, and Stoicism, along with the Gita, has been a big part of how I've been reading my way back. The first line of Epictetus's Handbook changed how I work: some things are up to us and some are not, and suffering comes from confusing the two.

But I've just learned that Stoic ethics isn't separable from Stoic physics in the way the self-help books suggest. The Stoics believed the cosmos is rational and providential, that everything happens by fate, and that accepting what is outside your control means accepting a rational order you are part of. The advice "accept what you can't change" made sense to them because what happens is what reason ordains.

I don't believe in a providential cosmos. I believe things happen because of markets, weather, other people's bad decisions and luck. So when I "accept" my startup's failure, what exactly am I accepting? Not divine reason. Just stuff.

Is the dichotomy of control still coherent without the metaphysics? Or am I making exactly the error of pulling practical advice out of a tradition while throwing away what made it make sense?

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5 replies

  1. Elin Lindqvist

    Fellow

    I read the Stoics on night shifts in intensive care, and I've wondered the same. Marcus Aurelius helps here, because he keeps posing a dilemma in the Meditations: either providence or atoms. Either the world is ordered by reason, or it's a random scattering, and either way, he says, my task is the same. He seems to have thought the practical advice survives even if the physics doesn't. Whether he was right is another question, but you're not the first Stoic to wonder.

  2. Serkan Aydoğdu

    Contributor

    I drive a bus in Ankara and Epictetus makes sense to me in traffic. I don't think about providence at all. Traffic is not up to me. My temper is. That works fine without any cosmos behind it. Maybe the metaphysics was the reason the Stoics gave, but the advice can have other reasons. My reason is that I want to get home without a headache.

    Helpful · 1
  3. Pieter de Jong

    Fellow

    As a determinist I'd push back on both of you. Chrysippus's answer to fate was the cylinder: push it and it rolls, but it rolls because of its own shape. The outcome is fated, but your character is part of how it comes about. Without that, "my temper is up to me" is less clear than Serkan suggests. Your temper also has causes. The Stoic dichotomy isn't between determined and free; it's between what flows through your judgement and what doesn't.

    Helpful · 2
  4. Liu Jianguo

    Contributor

    Zhuangzi offers a third way, without providence or fate. In his story, Cook Ding carves an ox so skilfully that his knife never dulls, because he follows the natural structure instead of hacking against it. That's acceptance as skill, not as resignation to a cosmic plan. Rohan, maybe your burnout came from hacking against the joints. You don't need to believe the universe is rational to learn where the joints are.

    Helpful · 3
    1. Rohan Desai

      Fellow

      These are all helpful in different ways. Marcus's dilemma tells me the advice might survive the physics. Pieter's cylinder tells me "up to me" is subtler than I thought. And the cook is the image I'll keep: I don't have to believe the market is providential to stop cutting against the bone. Thank you, Liu.