In the course of our ongoing polemic with the “Stoicism and Stoics” group, a crucial question was raised about the difference between philosophical systems in their very essence. After all, from the outside it may seem that we are talking about practically the same thing, but described in different words. Russian philological scientists of the 19th century were also prone to this, and we have already given an example of them in publications of our community, and this is especially perceptible in the article of V.I. Modestov. Why does this happen, and why do people try not to notice the differences? And what are these differences, we will talk about this in the article attached below.

P.S. – Probably not the final version of it, but you have to start somewhere.

I. What is ethical philosophy

Let’s start with the most important one: with which of the sophist tricks did stoicism manage to earn most of its popularity and appeal? This trick is a kind of substitution of concepts. Stoicism’s most popular “trick” has been its system of views on ascetic “practices” of self-control. In Stoicism our attention is actually drawn to the demonstrative asceticism itself, the cultivation of qualities of moderation, restraint, equanimity, equanimity, and, shall we say, spiritual strength. The main “trick” here is that all these qualities, long before Stoicism, were inherent in every (!) philosophical system in general; and even in the non-philosophical views of various traditional societies. The image of the courageous man who overcomes difficulties and achieves his goal, trying to be “the best” in everything, and especially to fulfill his role as an exemplary father of the family – it is older than philosophy itself and is common in absolutely all continents of the planet. Even the central term in this system of views, namely “arete” (or as it is more commonly translated, virtue, valor), which is regularly used by the Stoics was used in roughly the same connotations even before the battle of Thermopylae. Take at least the ancient poet Hesiod, when he says:

“Vice is attained easily, but mastering arete is difficult.”

It is no secret that Plato and Aristotle, as well as virtually all philosophers before them, including, “even,” most of the sophists, were against vice and for virtue. Therefore, we will not argue in detail these almost self-evident things, as well as the fact that every man strives “for all that is good and against all that is bad” – we will not here. The interested reader can independently search for information on Plato’s ethical views; they are publicly available.

It is better to say that “practices of self-education” are a central part of any philosophical system, precisely because philosophy has always transcended a kind of “commonplace”. Philosophers themselves have dealt with questions that seldom occupy ordinary cultivators; and in order to deal with these questions (often of no practical-material utility), one must at least indoctrinate oneself in the importance of these abstract questions. And to do this, it is always necessary to re-evaluate values, to separate all the secondary from the self-evidently important virtues; and, most difficult of all, to relate one’s views on the “important and unimportant” to those of one’s own community. The philosopher has to overcome the resistance of the “crowd,” which will remind you time and again that you are doing things that are not so important, and that your views are bizarre and harmful, corrupting society (remember, for example, the execution of Socrates). Moreover, if a philosopher has gone down the road of studying the wisdoms of various peoples of the world, that in itself already implies the study of some materials, and even a lot of materials. And this in turn implies assiduity, patience, training of memory and, most likely, even systematization of this knowledge in the head. In order not to be “like the crowd” and to defend your right to a unique system of values, you need to show your superiority in practice, to earn the “crowd” a certain share of respect, to earn the right to your “eccentricity”.

For example, it is possible and even necessary to epathetize the public. What philosophers do for this is to prepare themselves for hardship; for the fact that sooner or later fate will take away your relatives, deprive you of your home after the war, etc. And here, when all fellow citizens show weak character under equal conditions, the “wise man” himself demonstratively maintains his composure. Or, like Democritus in his time, you can prove to the community that you really know a great deal, and that you are even capable of applying your erudition in practice; as, for example, the sages of various regions could be useful in farming, making calendars based on astronomical observations, and thus making the choice of appropriate times of crop rotation easier.

It is possible to provoke the public in various ways, even very provocatively, as the Cynics and Christian martyrs did. The main thing is to assert one’s right to a position. But here the question arises, why actually do it, what kind of childishness is it? Among other things, this is necessary in order to better convey the very essence of one’s own position! Without philosophical “practice,” it is harder to master “theory” itself. If you want to become a sage, be kind and apply (at least at first) this “childish” behavior and attitude to the world around you. It should help, and indeed does help, to grasp wisdom more effectively already afterwards. Practices differ from philosopher to philosopher, as do the theories themselves. But they are always the same, their main essence is – you have to learn to control yourself, so you don’t get carried away by the “flow” of public morality. If there is no control, and if the system of views does not differ from the views of the “crowd,” then what is the difference between a “sage” and a “philistine” at all? In that case, you just live your life as you see fit, go with the flow, and are nothing special.

Now we have to go back to the beginning, and remind us that the “philistine” theme has long since included conventional “manliness,” all those balanced and “wise” straw man decisions, playing one’s social role and overcoming hardships. There’s even room for emotional control, if only at the level of “boys don’t cry”. What, then, is the difference between the practices of philosophers? Their main difference is that these practices are more consistently linked, and that the “wise man” demands of himself a more stable fulfillment of accepted norms. The common man often falters, which is unacceptable to the sage. So it is primarily a question of the degree of control, which the sage consciously brings to greater perfection. That is, the basic “sage” may even be considered an “ideal philistine,” in the sense that he takes the generally accepted virtues to their logical limit. In this respect, the benchmark is precisely the philosophy of the Stoics; therefore, it is closer to the worldview of the rural peasant; although the peasant himself is certainly not a Stoic.

So, the philosopher and the philistine, and thus almost anyone in the world, fight for all that is good and against all that is bad, and have similar ideas about virtues and vices. The main difference is only in the degree of their consistency, in how you yourself follow these universally recognized standards of quality. And besides, as mentioned above, the philosopher differs from the philosopher in that he makes a system out of it, proving rigorously why one vice is more acceptable than another, or why one virtue is more important than another, and why a third virtue should not be considered a virtue at all anymore. And furthermore, the philosopher can apply the virtues to atypical situations, such as writing books and studying materials, for which he needs the virtues even more often than in other cases. In short, since the philosopher engages in more activities (the same intellectual work), he also has more space for the application of virtues. And since this is the case, he often has to create a large gradation of virtues, sometimes even applying one word to different situations, and with different contents (for example, one can be a virtuous poet, i.e. a good poet, or a poet who praises the “good”).

With this we have solved, but what is the “trick” of the Stoics? All philosophers, before and after the Stoics, including even the Epicureans, are engaged in self-control, and they use certain practices-meditations for this purpose. By their very nature, all these practices are similar, and the goal is the same states. This is such a general philosophical basis that most often it is left out of the equation, without constituting the specificity of the philosophical teaching, which is usually something more important. No one brags about having received a basic school education, do they? Self-control for the philosopher is that basic education. But the Stoics began to continually emphasize this basis, and due in part to the poor preservation of Hellenistic philosophy in general (which was more grounded and focused on these very practices) – the Stoic texts on meditation are the best preserved. Now the Stoics, taking advantage of this, claim that these general practices are Stoicism per se. So if you are an enemy of the Stoics, you are an enemy of self-control. And in general, if you accept this account of us, and beyond that accept this “trick” of the Stoics, it appears that there is no philosophy at all outside of Stoicism; or the pre-Stoic philosophers who practiced meditation were “Stoics before Stoics.”

Even the fact that Epicurus himself was a very virtuous man is drawn as a contradiction in the Stoics’ account! Supposedly, Epicurus himself was almost a Stoic, but out of his stupidity he left us a system that leads to evil, while he himself did not even use this system, and he disproved it not in words, but in deeds. Although if we take into account the general philosophical character of the basic practices, there is no particular mystery about Epicurus’ virtue at all, and it would be worth considering (which the Stoics cannot do) how this relates to the system of Epicureanism, because it is clearly not a coincidental “contradiction”.

And here we come to an explanation of the phenomenon which brings all philosophical schools together in the public’s perception, including the Stoics and Epicureans, and makes us ask: “What’s the difference?!” Taking as a given that “being a Stoic” = maintaining equanimity and self-control; we find quotes from Epicurus on the same subject, and realize that these are very similar things. If being a Stoic is using basic philosophical practices, then all philosophers are by definition Stoics, the differences disappear. It also adds fuel to the fire that the poorly preserved Epicurus got most of his “stoic” quotations from a source (“Vatican saying”) that was compiled by an unknown ancient Stoic. These were quotations collected at the end of a collection of works by Stoic authors, and were clearly chosen to strengthen Stoic philosophy. Not surprisingly, with their discovery, the number of people willing to equate the two historically antagonistic systems also increased.

As we have already discussed, general philosophical practices are indeed common to all philosophers; for this reason they are common. The Stoics usurped them, making them synonymous with their own philosophy. If, however, we take these practices back out of the brackets in order to better see precisely the specificity of each of the teachings, differences will obviously have to appear here. This is what we should turn to now.

II. Key Differences

In addition to the practices themselves, the Stoics and Epicureans have a certain similarity even in terminology, which is due to the context in which these philosophical schools emerged. After all, they emerged at the same time, and used approximately the same philosophical jargon, which was formed before their own emergence. At the same time, initially they even had a common enemy, the school of skeptics, from whom some of the definitions were borrowed.

Ataraxia and apathy

Behind these general definitions are the main differences; the first thing they have in common is the main goal – eudemonia, which can be translated into Russian as “well-being,” “prosperity,” “good life,” or “happiness. A goal that has really stood since at least the time of Democritus (where the term occurs); although it is clear from the etymology that this goal has existed since Paleolithic times. This notion is directly related to some permanent state of the sage, which in our schools has somewhat different names. For the Epicureans it is the state of “ataraxia,” and for the Stoics it is the state of “apathy” (though they too sometimes use the term “ataraxia,” which was first used generally by the skeptics).

Ataraxia (ἀταραξία) of the Epicureans, which from the ancient Greek translates as equanimity or serenity, implies the absence of mental and physical pain. It is a life without fears, and especially without fears of the supernatural. This is why the naturalistic physics of atomism was so important to the Epicureans, ruling out the possibility of divine Providence, life after death, ghosts and curses, and all kinds of non-contact magic and conspiracies. No witch doctor can curse you, no god can decide your fate at his whim. No mistake in choosing a religion will lead to eternal afterlife, etc. One gains responsibility for one’s life and peace of mind from knowing that only a real, physical, or social force can affect that life. No fears, there is the self-control of the philosopher = no heartache = ataraxia achieved. In the presence of fears, even self-control does not solve the main problem, for although mental pain will be suppressed, it will still be felt. Otherwise, the principle is really simple. Every time you should roughly calculate (the so-called “hedonistic calculation”) whether a pleasure you’ve had will be followed by mental or physical pain. This is already a reason to think about giving up such pleasure. But more importantly, will the pain outweigh the pleasure? If so, then giving up such pleasure is beyond question. This is how the state of ataraxia is maintained by the Epicureans. Avoid all suffering, and, if possible, find some moderate pleasure that is not fraught with serious consequences.

Stoic apathy, opposed on the opposite side, is translated from ancient Greek as “impassivity,” “equanimity,” and “indifference. The term came into Stoicism from the philosophy of the Cynics and the Megarics, where it was a much stricter requirement almost to “be as stone. But while the Megarics and probably the Skeptics interpreted apathy as almost complete “insensibility,” the Stoics already interpreted it as a positive ability to overcome affects (above all the four main “passions”: sadness, fear, lust and pleasure) arising from a mistaken assessment of “external” things. It is broadly similar to ataraxia, but with a number of differences. Both of these states are attained by ascesis, exercises in philosophy, and exercises in virtue; both allow one to “look from the outside” at various external phenomena, and at the internal phenomena of the soul.

Nevertheless, the interpretation “in the spirit of the Megarics” has always left its mark on Stoicism as well, despite the constant desire of the Stoics to emphasize their humanity. Seneca, for example, thought it correct to translate the Greek word “apathy” as “a soul inaccessible to all suffering,” and in this respect it would seem almost synonymous with ataraxia; and even more so, for Epicureanism allows suffering for future pleasures (for example, suffering from studying the sciences so as not to work as a loader afterwards). The difference is that the Epicurean considers suffering, if it is already here and now, objective and inevitable. You can work with it, you can suppress it, you can overcome it, but it already exists as a fact, and you cannot argue with it. This is why suffering should be avoided. Stoics, on the other hand, take their apathy to the point where they proudly proclaim the absence of suffering in any case; that is, there is no point in avoiding working as a loader, studying science and going to university – a true Stoic will not suffer behind a chair or at a construction site. The absence of suffering is not a motivation; a stoic supposedly never feels anything of the kind anyway. This is the difference; “apathy” is more ultimative, taking the idea of self-control to an extreme and grotesque level. And although the Stoics insist that it is more of an “even emotional background,” which is only necessary to avoid going to extremes in affect–that very even background, if you look closely, is the demand for insensibility, in the crudest sense of the word. Stoicism leaves room for two interpretations, and constantly mixes them together.

But in a moderate interpretation, the stoic sage certainly experiences emotions, he is a man after all; but he does not experience too strong emotions (i.e., affects).

If we talk about the already announced goal of “ataraxia,” that is, the absence of fear of the supernatural in the sense that we abolish the supernatural altogether; then Stoic “apathy” does not lead to such freedom for man at all. The Stoics fully recognize the Gods/God as the real creative force in the world; and all the problems and uncertainties associated with such views (something the Epicureans feared) – the Stoics neutralize by postulating their own nothingness. If God willed it, who am I to go against it? If the general commanded it, who am I to arise? Especially since in the strictly deterministic world of the Stoics, the very order of the general was predetermined by divine will, which means that any “earthly” problem was sent by God to trial, and to oppose fate is to blaspheme; one can read about this especially abundantly in Marcus Aurelius. It is “apathy” in the worst sense of the word that should have helped the Stoic to treat everything with indifference. Whole nations dying? They always have. Did your child die in the war? Everyone dies sooner or later, it’s inevitable, there’s nothing to be sad about. Have you become someone’s slave? Well, we’re all slaves to fate. What’s all our wailing worth against the backdrop of an infinite universe? We are nothing, nothing, and against the backdrop of eternal time, our life is even shorter than a moment. Life, in fact, loses all value in itself. And all this is not an epicurean fiction, but an almost literal retelling of stoic maxims. For example, the famous legend of the stoic Epictetus, who was a slave:

One day, when the master in anger began to beat the slave, Epictetus nonchalantly said: “You will break my leg,” and when he did break his leg, he added coolly: “Didn’t I say you would?” Epaphroditus was surprised at the patience of his slave and ashamed of his cruelty, and Epictetus was left lame for life. (Orig., Contra Celsum, VII, 53).

One can debate at length whether it is good to be moderate and belittle oneself by being actually better than one says one is. Whether this is also a virtue, etc., but the fact is that this approach of constant self-deprecation leads to a transition from the “good” version of stoic apathy (which exists in fact only for excuses), to the worst and most utterly insensitive of its variations. One is brought up in the framework of the stoic ethic as a nobody, and this cannot but affect him.

Virtue and Pleasure

But ataraxia and apathy are only the means to the chief key to the good life. For the Epicureans it is pleasure and prudence, but for the Stoics it is virtue (“arete”).

As Epicurus says in a letter to Menekei, “Prudence is dearer even than philosophy. From prudence came all the other virtues”. In fact, it puts pleasure in relation to virtue itself, and vice versa. But it would be better to talk about what is more in the ear, and what in fact is the “final goal,” i.e. the principle of pleasure. For the Epicureans, it has an essential systemic function; human sensations, as practice shows, except in rare pathologies, are objective, at least as far as the most basic things are concerned. For example, almost anyone can be pricked with a needle and feel the pain of the prick. The epicurean theory of cognition itself is based on sensualism (there is nothing in the mind that is not given by the senses); where by the senses is meant the study of the world by sight, hearing, taste, smell and tactility.

The funny thing is that sensualism is also a Stoic theory of knowledge, and Stoic sensationalism itself has come down to us in a much more systematic account. But while for Epicureanism it is the foundation of all philosophy, for the Stoics sensationalism played the role of a pure tool for arguing with the skeptics when it became important for the Stoics to prove the reality of the existing world.

So, it turns out that without sensations one cannot know the world, and without them the mind cannot arise. This means that at birth a human being deals only with sensations. Initially an infant cannot yet be considered reasonable, it does not possess meaningful ideas. And what do all the “five senses” bring us, again at the most fundamental level? They bring sensations of pleasure and suffering. Heat can be pleasant, or it can leave burns, etc. Therefore, from birth it is the sensual feelings that are the most fundamental things for humans; in particular, their pleasantness or unpleasantness, which make us treat different things with caution, or, on the contrary, seek them out for ourselves. This is also what sentient animals do; but the fact remains that the principle of pleasure is a fundamental principle of human nature. It makes no sense to come to an infant and read to him Letters to Lucilius in order to make him a perfect sage. Even further on, when reason already gradually emerges (as a derivative of sensual cognition), does sensual experience lose its importance among adults? Isn’t the principle for prioritizing among them still the same pleasure and suffering? Suppose not for the wise man; but is the “philistine” deprived of reason, and not a human being? This is why Epicurus says that: “pleasure is both the beginning and the end of blissful life; we have known it as the first good akin to us, with it we begin all preference and avoidance, and to it we return, using undergoing as the measure of all good.”

Ultimately epicureanism states that virtues of the highest order, whether risking one’s life or sacrificing for eternal glory, or martyrdom to spread one’s religion, or exploits in war to defend one’s homeland, are also done for pleasure, just that these pleasures are different, called different words (such as self satisfaction, happiness, etc.), but the point remains the same. If a person didn’t think of his sacrifice as an admirable act, he wouldn’t have done it. People try to be ascetic only because they take pleasure in the fact that they can do things unavailable to others. They are content to conform to their ideals; and for the sake of that contentment they do things. In other words, as Epicurus says: “The beginning of all these things and the greatest of the goods is reason; it is more precious than even philosophy itself, and from it came all the other virtues. It teaches that one cannot live sweetly without living reasonably, well and righteously, and [one cannot live reasonably, well and righteously] without living sweetly: for all virtues are akin to the sweet life, and the sweet life is inseparable from them”.

Epicureanism thus simply postulates the importance of pleasure as a statement of fact. That it is the ultimate goal means only that it is the most fundamental principle explaining all ethics; a comparison with atomistics is appropriate in this respect, where “atoms” are the smallest particles of matter, to which all the diversity of things are ultimately reduced. This does not mean that all things are equally preferable, that there is no difference between water from a spring and water from a puddle, since they are equally composed of atoms. Similarly, stating that pleasure is fundamental to living beings does not mean that the goal of an Epicurean’s life is to chase pleasure. All criticism of Epicureanism comes not only from a lack of understanding, but also from an unwillingness to understand; from a reverent fear mixed with disgust at the vicious term “pleasure”.

This is all about pleasure. As for the other key to the blessed life, i.e., “virtue,” Epicureanism considers it secondary and derived from pleasure, just as knowledge is derived from sensual experience. But the Stoics do not consider it necessary to examine where the concept of “virtue” comes from; they do not answer to the end whether it is already innate in children (although they try to prove this) or is acquired through experience. They simply state the fact that “in my community this is the way it is, and therefore virtuous”. In part they find “virtue” in the abstract analysis of morality. Having already acquired reason (unknown from where, but rather innate), the Stoic creates a strict division of all phenomena into “good” and “bad,” and demands that in all things one always act “well. Where does this moral assessment come from? According to the Stoic, from pure reason; but, in fact, from the customs of a particular community. Stoicism simply ignores the arguments of the Sophists and Epicureans that notions of morality vary from people to people; that the very categories of “good” and “evil” can change places depending on the particular situation, and that sometimes there really can be a lie for good. The Stoic will not divide the kinds of “pleasures,” for him all pleasures are pleasures in one way or another. And all bad words are in one way or another “bad. Hence, concludes the Stoic, pleasure is bad and reason is good. Nothing else interests him. The Stoic paints a caricatured black-and-white world for ease of perception.

And they are not even interested in the fact that if Fate has determined you to be an immoral “animal,” then obeying Fate and qualitatively following this role is already virtuous according to their own definition! After all, how else can stoicism justify the necessity of evil? Only by saying that from the point of view of God-Logos, evil does not exist, and that extremes are necessary for motion within the Whole-Logos, and motion is necessary for its life, just as blood circulation is necessary for preserving human life. If we disrupt the movement within the Logos, i.e. try to fix Destiny and create a utopia without bad people and without wars, the Logos will die, and with it all of us, the cells of its organism. In fact, of course, it will be possible to declare postfactum that the construction of utopia was also the Logos’ goal, otherwise it would not have materialized in a deterministic world. But the very reasoning of the Stoics to justify an evil that is already here and now sounds like this. There is no point in resenting evil because it is good for the Logos; and in resenting good for him, you are acting unkindly. So the classic Stoic argument is framed in such a way that it must recognize the necessity of the existence of a “virtuous corrupter,” which is necessary so that “virtuous sages” can arise in his background (incidentally, also a thought from Marcus Aurelius about the fundamental necessity of evil).

Here another problem is revealed. A stoic might say that one cannot consider an “animal” person virtuous because he had the inner freedom to become a better person. This is an important point for Stoicism, for if Destiny decides everything, then what is the coolness of the fact that you have become a stoic sage? Partly because of this natural vanity, and partly to spread their philosophy, the Stoics decided to grant free will to the mind, so that all your achievements on the path of virtue would not seem like nonsense. But in doing so, the Stoics completely destroy the entire logic of justifying evil in the world; they ruin the very basis for their “apathy,” which is supported precisely by the idea of the necessity of evil for the Logos, and the relativity of that evil. Why do the Stoics challenge the status quo granted them by the Logos from above? Why lead people out of their delusions and into the path of wisdom? Why do they care about it? Won’t the corrupters continue to exist from ages past? Why then write treatises against pleasure? Such contradictions in Stoicism number in the dozens.

But we have strayed too far from the subject. So how do the Stoics themselves see the situation, and why is it that “virtue” is the ultimate goal of life, and thus the thing to pursue? The most obvious one is because, by doing good deeds, we are happy (for our goal is “eudemonia,” as we remember from the beginning). Thus, Stoicism simply takes Epicurus’ position, and merges with him on this question without his noticing it. Where does virtue come from? It comes from the understanding that one must be “for all that is good, against all that is bad.” And what is good and bad, where did their understanding come from? As we’ve seen, it’s complicated there. But more simply, the Stoics simply give in to valiant images from their own culture, wherever they were born. The funny thing is that even a universal ethic of “goodness in general” can only be built on an epicurean basis, allowing for the principle of empathy, and representing the pain of others. It turns out that killing is fundamentally bad and is “evil” because all living beings fear pain and do not want to be killed. The golden rule of ethics — “Do not do to others what you would not want done to you” — is actually based on Epicurean ethics, and is built on individualism. The Stoics have a problem even here. For the Logos, everything is good, individual murders are good; the whole (society, the state) is more important than the parts (individuals), so one cannot rebel against state tyranny; but suddenly one can (!) if power is immoral, and tyranny is such by definition of types of power, and as a rule, historical tyrannies were anti-aristocratic regimes.

Determinism and Freedom

The problem and conflict between the two schools, which we have already partly discussed earlier, lies in the relationship to freedom and determinism. Stoicism tries in a specific way to defend free will (to become Stoic), while generally recognizing the world as strictly deterministic. This stems in part from the quite theological division of the essence of man, and indeed of the whole world, into the soul and the body. Although in strictly canonical Stoic dogma, as in Epicurean dogma, everything in the world is corporeal, including souls and Gods, the Stoics regularly incorporated the typical notion of the immaterial soul. And over time, especially during the so-called “Middle Stoic” era and among the Roman Stoics, the materialistic version of Stoicism weakened and weakened with each generation until Stoicism finally merged with the Neoplatonists. There was no other way out of the situation, for in the name of classical “materialism” as understood by the New Age, one would have had to sacrifice free will. And this would have led, but from a very different entrance, into the same building of individualist nihilism. For, immediately, we would have to state that since everything is determinedly deterministic, we should not consider criminals as criminals, and we should give man the freedom of his “natural” impulses, of his “natural” qualities. And there it is very close to hedonistic motives, which cannot be condemned a priori if they do no harm to society as a whole. This option was by no means allowed by the Stoics, so the contradiction could only be resolved by recognizing classical “dualism” and eliminating the Stoic version of materialism. It was necessary to drag into the theory a special soul, free from the mortal shell of the body.

But at the same time Stoicism itself would be eliminated (which happened in practice), since strict determinism was one of the school’s most “trademarks. With the recognition of dualism in the name of justification of free will, thanks to mystical notions about the properties of the soul, Stoicism dissolved into Platonic-Christian doctrines. But in Stoicism itself, the sequence of finding happiness through the notion of determinism looks something like this: (1) gaining reason, (2) recognizing patterns in the world and determinism, (3) finding one’s place in the world, virtue, (4) happiness.

Epicureanism, where the postulation of the free will of man, while simultaneously denying strict determinism, is a very different matter. And, most importantly, this free will was not based on “dualism,” this theory did not require any metaphysical entities at all (unless we count atoms themselves as such).

But it is better to give the floor to Epicurus at this point, for he says:
“Who do you think is higher than a man […] who laughs at fate, which is called by someone the ruler of everything, [and instead claims that other things happen by inevitability,] other things by chance, and other things depend on us – for it is clear that inevitability is irresponsible, chance is wrong, and that which depends on us is not subject to anything else and is therefore subject to both censure and praise. Indeed, it is better to believe in fables about the gods than to submit to a fate invented by physicists; fables give hope to propitiate the gods by reverence, while fate contains inexorable inevitability. In the same way, chance is to him neither a god nor a crowd, because the actions of a god are not disorderly; nor an unreasonable cause, because he does not think that chance gives man the good and evil that determine his blissful life, but that chance only brings forth the beginnings of greater goods or evils. That is why the wise man thinks that it is better to be unhappy with reason than to be happy without reason: it is always better that a well conceived thing should not owe its success to chance”.

In his exposition, “inevitability” is allowed, just as causality is allowed (the Stoics often claim it is not), but it is not fundamental. At the most basic level, Epicurus endowed his atoms with the property of deviating from a straight line, which does not at all invalidate causality, if only at the level of macroobjects. But not everything in the world is strictly inevitable, and this causality cannot be taken down to the very first principles, because at this level we find just randomness. But then we see that the sage of Epicurus must not rely on chance, which does not suit him just as well as determinism. Everything must rely on reason, which is what gives people true freedom of choice. And even “it is better to be miserable with reason than to be happy without reason,” he says. So Epicurus correlates free will with cause and effect, defending it without the assumption of supernatural entities. This is how he differs from the Christians, and from the Stoics. The scheme goes like this: (1) acquiring reason, (2) freedom (both from fears and freedom of choice), (3) right choice, virtue, (4) pleasure.

It looks extremely similar; it all begins with reason and ends with happiness. The only difference is the attitude to freedom, but even here we can say that the Stoics (like the Marxists, they are eerily similar in everything) postulate “freedom as a deliberate necessity. The Epicureans, on the other hand, postulate simply “conscious freedom. Both schools believe that reason liberates them, but only one of them does not limit action to a contrived scheme. He who believes that he knows his Destiny in advance restricts himself a priori to following the “right role,” and in this case there is little freedom to speak of.

The difference in approach

All this mess in Stoic philosophy is created only because the Stoics took a complex concept (“virtue“) as the foundation of their doctrine; they took a product of the long development of human culture, which itself often changes in the course of the development of societies. In their system of views, “virtue” and “reason” are magic words and wands. But the concrete application of virtue depends on a mass of factors. As for the Epicureans, their ethics are built on a more fundamental basis, given to us by nature, and very simple and self-evident in its essence (“pleasure“); which does not even need to be conceptualized, and which is directly felt by almost everyone. Is there room in the Epicurean system for all the stoic virtues? Yes, there is, but the Epicurean simply does not delude himself about the nature of these virtues. Here is the key difference! Yes, a “cynical” attitude toward what society considers to be good deeds does make it less likely that those deeds are actually done, makes it less likely that one wants to do all those things gratuitously, etc. But for Epicureanism, the most important thing has always been that very “prudence“; or, to put it another way, “sanity,” which in the words of Epicurus is “dearer even than philosophy.” It can also be called “free-thinking,” as the Early Modern Epicureans did, implying the same struggle with various “chimeras,” along the lines of the afterlife and divine providence, coupled with a belief in fortune-tellers, which the Stoics of all generations loved so much. The Epicureans always preferred freedom in all its manifestations, and always put it in direct connection with the acquisition of reason. So even Stoics’ favorite “reason” also finds a place in Epicureanism, and what a place! “It is better to be miserable with reason than to be happy without reason” – this is Epicurus’ view.

Someone deceives himself (a Stoic) and creates “chimeras” out of those words that are considered “good,” he tries in awe to banish from decent society all “bad” words. And while composing a system of views out of “all that is good” and against “all that is bad,” in reality he creates not the ideal system he is looking for, but a poorly working eclecticism, the whole essence of which consists in the words: “try, endure and achieve the best you can”. It is no coincidence that Stoicism in the twenty-first century has entered into a strong alliance with literature for motivation and success in business. In our age, and in our society, the image of the rich man in a suit with “principles and strong character” is considered the best. Therefore, in our age, and in our society – stoicism creates literature to deify this image. Well, someone (the Epicurean) does not base his views on chimeras, does not treat words with such strict seriousness, is not afraid of “bad” words, and does not fall on his knees before “good” words, but treats it with genuine sublimity, as if from the outside. And in analyzing different societies in different eras, such a person will not be able to praise the ideals of his society as the best for all time.

Being Epicurean implies a certain measure of intelligence; whereas being Stoic implies only praising the good word “reason” (which the Stoic himself barely possesses) by drawing a black and white world time and again. In such a person’s mind, if the Epicurean does not praise reason, but extols sensationalism as a basic principle, then the Epicurean has no reason. After all, it is important to keep saying the magic spell so that it begins to work on you. In other words, Stoicism, like all other kinds of moralizing saintly philosophy, is a specific “kargo-cult”.

III. Secondary differences

After dealing with the similarities in all the philosophical schools and the basic differences in their ethics, which concern mainly the critical (Epicureans) and uncritical (Stoics) attitude to the place in which you live; to the belief in everything supernatural that the Stoics have and the Epicureans do not, and to the critical (Epicureans) and uncritical (Stoics) attitude to mere words (although, ridiculous even, the Stoics were famous philologists, and invented from scratch many new philosophical terms) – let us move on to the secondary but more striking differences in ethical systems.

Since the Stoic worldview, by its very nature, is extremely conservative and quite primitive, it is clear from this that the external behavior of a Stoic will in fact be very vulnerable to “sarcastic” words; very deliberately noble in behavior (well, in ideas about the “nobility” of the aristocracy of past centuries); and emphatically reserved and contemptuous toward “bad” interlocutors, or business-like neutral toward “good”. At least, philosophy itself will incline him to this, while human nature (which no Stoic can defeat) will still make Stoics more human than they themselves would like. This is the first, still “intelligent” version of the Stoic. The second version, rarer but a little closer to the original doctrine, is the rough warrior who is ready to smash the enemies of the state and hone his character on the battlefield, or as a prominent politician. Such a man will extol the lives of his ancestors, who lived under harsher conditions, tell stories of Spartan boys, praise hard work on the land, which ennobles, etc., he will teach respect for elders, and demand of the younger generation good physical fitness and the other outward attributes of a “real man“. Previously, this second version was more characteristic of Stoicism, but thanks to the epochal changes of the 20th and 21st centuries, we now live in a time of peace, with a great number of technical innovations greatly changing all walks of life; so we can see only the “intellectual” version of Stoics (ordinary men, though they look like Stoics, are not aware of themselves as such, and therefore are not systematic philosophers, and thus are not Stoic philosophers).

On the contrary, the Epicurean worldview borders on nihilism in its denial of the foundations of society. Although this is not entirely true, and it is unlikely that the Epicurean can be considered even slightly dangerous to the state, but, as in the case of sophists or skeptics, a certain correlation is nevertheless to be found here. People with this attitude are usually more protestant, they do not like pretentious intellectualism, and so can afford vulgar speech (see the whining about this from Cicero, on Titus Albutius). They are disgusted by the decrepit values and coarseness of the “real man,” so Epicureanism can be called even more “pampered” and “squishy,” at least such very people are more likely to embrace Epicurean philosophy. Epicureanism is therefore almost by definition “intelligent“; only in this milieu can it be taken seriously. The “plebeian version” of Epicureanism is hedonistic; one might even say that intelligent Epicureans are always “nihilists in theory,” but in practice are ordinary neutral philosophers; whereas hedonistic Epicureans are more often “nihilists in practice,” and the philosophical part interests them only as a screen, a beautiful justification for their “practice,” and in everything else that does not concern justification of their hedonism, their theoretical outlook may be quite ordinary.

But usually a hedonist does not look for philosophical grounds for his behavior, just as a “real man” from the village, who went through the army and became the head of a family, will intuitively resemble a Stoic, but will not look for any grounds in Stoicism, because for this you still need to be interested in reading ancient literature, which is not particularly common in a non-intellectual environment. There are rare exceptions to this; for example, the situation was quite different during the mass popularity of philosophy, as it was in ancient Rome. At that time, “bourgeois stoics” and “bourgeois Epicureans” could appear, with their inherent radical militarism and hedonism. Even now, they appear, but already within the narrower limits of “popular philosophy”. But if we limit ourselves to the “elitist versions” in both currents, the Epicurean and the Stoic would both be philosophers from an intellectual milieu. Only the Epicurean is a learned merrymaker and trickster; whereas the Stoic is a learned snob-elitist, who, purely for the sake of form, will make himself look good by pretending to deny his exclusivity. He will even humiliate himself before True Wisdom, who is supposedly beyond his reach, in order to show his meekness, and thereby try, on the contrary, to exalt himself as much as possible.

In addition to all this, to better understand the differences, we can also keep in mind the generational conflict of fathers and children, where obviously the “fathers” are the Stoics, who have realized with age that their grandfathers did everything right; and the Epicureans are “children” who disagree with their fathers. While this analogy is unprofitable, it is obviously only an analogy, and Stoics and Epicureans are people of the same age category; but an Epicurean will never mutter in the kitchen that “it used to be better,” and therein lies their considerable difference.

Whereas the Stoics will try their best to squeeze out all the masculinity of which they are capable; the Epicureans, on the other hand, let their feelings and everything “human” run wild, accepting it all as their nature. In this perspective, we can identify another unprofitable, and already gendered, analogy in which the Stoics are “manly,” while the Epicureans are “feminine”.

This is why the very conflict of schools is inexhaustible; this is why Hellenistic philosophy is eternally relevant. These philosophical schools first set forth “eternal” human types at the level of a systematized philosophical ethic. So as long as types exist, they will find “their” philosophy in one of these ancient archetypes. And as long as these worldview archetypes exist, there will be a conflict of philosophical schools of Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, Cynics, and Platonists. Even if Stoicism gets rid of its internal contradictions, it will still struggle with Epicurus, because no “real man” would want the society in which he lives to suddenly become “feminine. Without sugarcoating it, this is the most fundamental difference between the schools.

But like everything in the world, aesthetics and ethics have an objective (“true”) gradation of quality. We still do not have an objective theory of aesthetics, we still do not have an objective theory of ethics. But in a perfect world, only one of all types will get the full victory (of course, layering on the best of the losers, but we are interested in the basis). Why do Epicureans consciously choose philosophy for nihilists, hiljals, children, and women? In the black-and-white world of philistines (and elite philistines, i.e., Stoics) it seems kind of crazy to choose the “bad” from the two extremes in every case, and even consciously. But it is the study of the history of philosophy, and of history in general, that, other things being equal, at all times the philosophy of Epicurus created the conditions for the progress of human society by advocating freedom of thought. And this cannot fail to appeal to all truly intelligent philosophers. Of all the ancients, only Epicurus looks like a man of the present day who happened to be in the past. Only he, and his followers, today can genuinely empathize if your primary value is not “courage” but indeed “reason. This is why Epicureans have always been, are and will always emerge, and they will always rebel against “all that is good” as it is understood by primitive lovers of brute force or corporate conformist bureaucrats.

Results

In this essay we have shown that Stoicism has brazenly usurped what does not belong exclusively to it; namely, general philosophical practices for self-control and “self-education”. We have shown that Stoicism is a refinement of commonplace conceptions of “virtue” to its ultimate perfection. That Stoicism as a whole does not at all understand the principles of Epicureanism, and is even quite within Epicurean discourse itself, both in theory and in practice. Discovered that Epicureanism itself is no stranger to the “virtues,” it simply does not engage in further additional idealization of them; Epicurus cynically declares that the source of virtues and vices is one and the same. It is genuine reasonableness that enables us to become virtuous, whereas in the Stoics’ reverential reverence and fear of terminology and higher powers, reasonableness is not to be found. It is genuine freedom that allows us to make the right choice, not the complex system of “awareness” determinism, which leaves the chance to realize our depraved fate and should, in a good way, make Stoicism an openly elitist philosophy for a select few.

We should not think that only stupidity and the inability to read are the main distinctive qualities of Stoicism. As we have already pointed out, the most fundamental reason for the conflict of schools is the very human “types” who find for themselves the corresponding ideology and philosophy. In this respect, if we take the two schools and draw character dualities here, Stoicism wins on the outside, for Stoics did nothing but cultivate generally accepted-good qualities. The Stoics turn out to be honest citizens, strong and courageous fathers of the family; while the Epicureans turn out to be nihilistic tricksters, bodily very weak, and still “children” and “women” by nature. But the next time you complain about the negative aspects of patriarchal society, the next time you resent street “cattle,” the next time you regret another war that has broken out; talk to the Stoics about real male values! And you will immediately become convinced that stoicism, for all its external “beauty,” often leads to incredibly harmful consequences that epicureism, even in its caricatured “theoretical” version from the Stoics, has yet to reach.

Author of the article: Friedrich Hohenstaufen

2021.