Chapter One
The Self as a Mediator Space is not something that faces man. It is neither an external object nor an inner experience.... When I go toward the door of the lecture hall, I am already there, and I could not go to it at all if I were not such that I am there.... Even when mortals turn "inward," taking stock of themselves, they do not leave behind their belonging to the fourfold [earth, sky, divinities, and mortals]. Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking
Which current English term would best capture the Roman Stoic "core" of a human being? Both the terms "self" and "individual" have connotations in contemporary parlance that are anachronistic and misleading if applied to Roman Stoic ideas. But in spite of this obvious problem, the advantage of using one term for the notion of a "core" is that it allows us to bring together scattered components of Stoic doctrine and writings that reinforce one another and that together present a highly innovative approach. Thus we do need a clearly circumscribed and pragmatic working concept of the "self" for the purpose of this study. On the level of language, the "self" is evident in the Roman Stoics' extensive use of reflexive pronouns. But this linguistic feature would hardly be sufficient for a robust and philosophically interesting notion of "self." So, we have to ask ourselves, of what is this reflexive language a sign, and why do the Roman Stoics like to use it so frequently? Both the Stoics' theory and their mode of writing provide answers to these questions.
The Self: A Working Definition
On the level of Stoic theory, the "self" is the ruling principle in a human soul, the so-called hegemonikon, or the mind, which represents a rational and unified consciousness. Whereas it is true that the Stoic self is not consciousness in the strong, and debated, (post-)Cartesian sense, it is the most unified soul model in ancient thought. For this reason, I will talk, not about a series of distinct but related selves, but about the Roman Stoic notion of the self. The apparent duality implied in self-reflexive language does not fundamentally undermine the unity of this self. Though moot points and controversies certainly remain, for my purpose the technical aspects of Stoic psychology are clear enough. The issue here is not exactly how all the aspects of the soul's ruling principle work together but what they tell us about a Stoic's involvement in the world around her. The generation of a full-fledged Stoic notion of selfhood proves more than a matter of shifting doctrine or of adopting new terminology to describe the workings of the inner self. This is why one needs to pay at least as much attention to the mode of Roman Stoic discourse as to its technical content.
Stoic doctrine, both early and later, claims that all human beings are endowed with a hegemonikon capable of reason which one can analyze from a third-person and objective normative perspective. This normative perspective posits that virtue determines how any human being's hegemonikon ought to function and that, vice versa, the proper functioning of hegemonikon is virtue. Such a perspective appears to leave little room for individuality among people. But this hegemonikon is also a "self" in the sense that we can claim it as our own, from a first-person perspective. In concrete situations and choices we are the ones who have to decide what the right course of action would be, in the light of how virtue would require us to act. Granted, according to the Stoics virtue is unified and does not admit of gradations, which is in line with the objective perspective. But virtue's unity does not prevent Seneca from stating that "there are many kinds of virtue. These unfold according to different life situations and actions" (Ep. 66.7). By Seneca's reasoning, then, individual differences do matter. So the question that arises is how the Roman Stoics succeeded in endowing a universal notion of the "core" of a human being such as the hegemonikon with traits that would be entirely specific to an individual.
Given that Stoic theory does appear to leave room for individuality, one could make a case that "the/an individual" would do as a working concept. But at this point, at least two reasons emerge why "individual" would be less suitable for this inquiry. First, individuality is but one aspect of the Roman Stoic notion of a human being's core. It is highly significant that the Roman Stoics make as much room for this aspect as they do, but it still remains the case that the term "individual" will yield only a partial perspective. More importantly, the contemporary concept of the individual as holding on to his uniqueness against all odds, who instead of conforming to norms holds himself to be the norm, a "rebel without a cause," is truly alien to the Stoic concept, which presupposes a normative framework with doctrines, teachers, and moral exempla.
This latter realization brings out another crucial dimension of the Roman Stoic self, namely, that it is fundamentally embedded. On the ontological level, this embeddedness indicates that the self is anchored both in a body and in a rational order that, Stoics would claim, structures all of reality as ultimately proceeding from an immanent divine principle. The social counterpart to this ontological aspect indicates that the self is intrinsically connected to others in a network of relationships that each has its specific claims and standards of behavior. The ontological and social aspects of embeddedness are meant to reinforce each other.
Last but not least, the Roman Stoics pay so much attention to the self because its very embeddedness presents it with the formidable challenge of having to mediate constantly between different and often conflicting normative structures and value systems. What a Stoic is supposed to consider good and right is fundamentally at odds with expectations that ordinarily tend to dominate social life, not unlike the ethical ideals of other ancient schools of thought, but a Stoic cannot simply exempt herself from social obligations and discard such challenges.
So, which working definition of the Roman Stoic self emerges from the above considerations? The reflexive language is a signifier for a unified and rational consciousness that can be considered both a general principle common to all adult human beings and something specific to each individual, in concrete life situations. This self is fundamentally embedded in physical reality and social relationships, and it mediates between ideal and ordinary, unreflective practices. Taken together, these components of the working definition not only indicate that the Stoics have a robust notion of self but also, I would argue, justify the claim that of all ancient models, Stoic theory has the strongest sense of selfhood.
In trying to establish a working definition of the self, so far I have focused on Stoic theory. The reflexive language that the Roman Stoics like to use, however, is not merely a signifier for a philosophical concept. In Roman Stoic texts, it also reveals a very distinctive mode of philosophical discourse and a meditative practice. In this respect the Roman Stoics took many cues from Socrates. But Socrates was also a foil and counterpoint for the Roman Stoics. Plato's Socrates would claim that most of us cannot arrive at understanding without sustained shared inquiry-that is, without skillfully directed dialogue. For the Stoics, by contrast, the conversation with oneself, which the exceptional Socrates could manage, increasingly becomes the model. It is to this mode and practice of self-mentoring that I will now turn before examining more closely the Stoic concept of self.
In spite of their emphasis on self-examination and internal dialogue, Stoics do not do away with teachers. They freely admit that both initially and at recurring moments of weakness, one needs teachers to provide assistance, to pull one out of the bog mire of mistaken priorities, and to undermine one's deceptive self-complacency. If would-be Stoics needed no guidance from others, whether in lecture or in dialogue, then Epictetus's and Musonius Rufus's impressive reputations as teachers would have been irrelevant to their philosophical status. But while it is true that Stoic philosophers teach, they primarily teach us how to stand on our own feet by examining ourselves and monitoring our own progress when no one is physically around to guide us. As much as Epictetus may complain about the emotional hold mothers have on their sons (Diss. 3.24.22; see also 78-79), in the long run most of his pupils must and will return to their mothers and families. They also return to politics and public life, contexts in which their teacher will no longer be around to advise, exhort, scold, or shame them. But by then, the former pupil should have interiorized the teacher's voice, so that the teacher's image is always present in his mind and memory.
If a Stoic is expected to hone the skill of talking to herself, it is not then surprising that Seneca's letters to Lucilius are addressed as much to himself (Ep. 87.5) as they are to Lucilius, serving to encourage Seneca too even as they provide guidance to Lucilius. Seneca emphasizes that the letters are a substitute for a dialogue in conversation, and this emphasis has ramifications: even if one has received a letter to which to respond and the other person is present to the mind's eye, a letter is initially a conversation with oneself, especially when it is being dictated. This observation would hold all the more strongly to the extent that the correspondence is fictitious, and Lucilius is as much a literary character engaged in an ideal process of philosophical growth as a real person. In their shared quest for moral excellence, the character Lucilius becomes a reflection of Seneca's conversation with and assessment of himself. Self-reliance is essential to Stoic therapy because even if other people can help us along, our progress is ultimately a matter that cannot be entrusted to someone else (27.4-5).
Because of this focus on moral progress, Seneca's letters to Lucilius are strikingly different from Cicero's correspondence, as Seneca himself points out (Ep. 118.2). The letters are not meant to convey gossip about who did what and where, nor are they discussions about plans or ambitions. If they do focus on how the writer and recipient are doing, in the ordinary sense of the expression, it is because this information is relevant for the assessment of moral and philosophical proficiency. The loss of a dear friend, ill health, political temptations, or the burning down of one's hometown can all be occasions for examining how well one is handling life's challenges.
In order to maintain the right hierarchy of values, Seneca and other Roman Stoics recommend withdrawing into and examining oneself in daily exercises, preferably at night before falling asleep or in the morning before starting one's activities. Sometimes others even stay respectfully out of the way altogether when such an assessment is going on. As Seneca tells us, his wife knows to be silent so as not to interrupt his daily examinations of conscience: "I use this prerogative and daily plead my own cause to myself. When the light has been removed from sight and my spouse has fallen silent, because she is long since familiar with my habit, I examine my entire day, and review my deeds and words. I hide nothing from myself, I omit nothing. For why should I recoil from any of my mistakes ...?" (De Ira 3.36.3).
Marcus Aurelius prefers fortifying morning exercises to help us face challenges: "Say to yourself at break of day, I shall meet with meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and asocial men" (2.1; see also Sen. De Ira 2.10.7). If we experience difficulties getting up and leaving the comfort of our beds, such exercises can also cure morning temper: "Early in the morning, when you find it so hard to get up, have these thoughts ready at hand: 'I am rising to do the work of a human being. Why, then, am I so irritable if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into this world for?'" (5.1, trans. Hard; see also 8.12, 10.13).
In sum, we are never less alone than when we are by ourselves. This condition is a matter, not of suffering from a split personality, but of living with the constant presence of community, both human and divine, and having continuously to balance between different sets of values that carry with them the potential for considerable conflicts.
The Roman Stoic Self in Context
In his Tusculanae Disputationes Cicero provides an ideal glimpse of the context in which the Roman Stoic notion of the self arose. The work is full of illustrations taken from Greek culture, from the tragedians, from other poets, philosophers, and historians. Cicero's mode of writing justifies taking a look at well-known examples of Greek literature that testify to unstable situations in which the "self" starts to assert itself: Achilles' dilemma in the Iliad, Medea's predicament as rendered in tragedy, and Alcibiades' concerns in the Alcibiades I, attributed to Plato. Because such examples were part of the Roman cultural background and because they are directly relevant for the Roman Stoic viewpoint, they are a rich source for a better understanding of the "mediating" self.
In the cases that illuminate this study, we are dealing with normative frameworks that regulate the lives of members of a community in terms of group identity. Tensions occur when the normative frame of reference that is supposed to guarantee the well-being of the individual within a given group for some reason turns itself against him or her-that is, when the previous ideal, or illusion, of a harmonized world and common standard shatters, leaving one torn between competing claims. In such situations the individual begins to question the framework's validity and, with the "self " as ally, opposes it. This metaphor of a strategic alliance refers to the very basic, gut level on which this opposition occurs.
The notion of a strategic alliance points to war, and to Homer. In moments of extreme crisis and danger we find Homeric heroes deciding whether to remain faithful to the warrior code or to run so that they might save themselves. On a grander scale, Homer's Iliad opens with the conflict that drives the entire narrative: the wrath of Achilles. The clash of power between Agamemnon and Achilles unhinges the code that regulates the distribution of spoils and leads Achilles to withdraw. Achilles chooses solitude and detachment over company and involvement (1.348-49) and thus is literally absent from the action. In addition to literal distance, Achilles' course of action also involves psychological detachment: Achilles turns to "himself," however the epic defines that "self" (1.428-29).
In the embassy scene of book 9 (308-429), Achilles weighs two different frameworks one against the other: the glory of war, with the premature death it entails, and the secure prestige of a long life lived in peace. Achilles does not merely rebel against the warrior code because he has not done well by it (316-22); he does not limit himself to a negative transgression but provides a positive alternative: the advantages a life at home could offer him. One could argue that in reality Achilles has little say in this matter because the course of his actions is already included in the plans of the gods. But the fact that the two alternatives and the final outcome are inscribed in his fate gives him (if not in reality then at least in appearance) a measure of freedom to choose. Hence the tension Achilles experiences leads him to weigh two sociopolitical alternatives: there is a trade-off between the world of war and the world of peace in which war does not necessarily come out on top.
As Euripides rendered it, Medea's complex and far-reaching psychological conflict was a favorite case study of the Stoics and served to build up the case against the passions. Medea rebels against the "fate" of women (to which, ironically, Medea had seemed an exception) when the norms that regulate a woman's status turn against her. The code of conduct for marriage alliances allows Jason to abandon her because she is a foreigner and no longer fits into his plans and his newly found society. At this point of crisis Medea turns toward herself and, with lengthy, drawn-out psychological oscillations, agonizes over which course of action to take. In the end, she opts for the most radical transgression possible and kills the children born out of her union with Jason.
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Excerpted from THE ROMAN STOICSby Gretchen Reydams-Schils Copyright © 2005 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission.
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