Question: If one chooses a stoicism as personal philosophy, or if one is pedagogically indoctrinated into stoic behaviors, why does it matter? If what remains of stoic thought is largely personal, ethical, and tangentially political, versus metaphysical, pseudoscientific, or particularly rational, then why does it matter if it is the deliberate choice of a minority, or a formal institution imposed upon the majority? Is it not the behaviors that produce beneficial ends? Is not much of any philosophical framework, mere justification for choosing it? Whereas the product of practicing the necessary disciplines, and adopting the suggested frames of reference, is that we produce beneficial ends whether we make a deliberate choice, or whether we are simply trained like we are trained in all systems of pedagogy: myth, tradition, norm, habit, and justification for them. All cultures train in one civic and personal philosophy or another - because all humans need a framework for decision making given their fragmentary knowledge and diverse abilities. Why should a stoic philosophy be imposed versus a secular humanist, or a buddhists, or a jewish, or a muslim, or even one of scientism? Isnt it a refutation of the value of any framework to claim that it must be chosen deliberately? In other words, are advocates lacking confidence or evidence that that practice of stoic behaviors will in fact produce a good life, a good society, and a good mankind? (I have touched on this before but I am trying to ask the question a bit better this time.)
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 07:15:16 +0000
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