I finally found time to read your text, Massimo. I agree with you. I had the opportunity to listen to the podcast with Stankiewicz in Polish, and even in Polish it was incomprehensible and quite chaotic for me. thanks for your great text and organizing all this disharmonious vision of Stankiewicz.
Thanks very much for this article. In the past I have listened to presentations by Staniewicz and found them incomprehensible, so I looked forward to your article with particular interest. In short, I think you have saved me a lot of time and effort that I can more usefully direct elsewhere in my Stoic development.
There are three things in your account of Reformed Stoicism that give me a bit of a negative knee jerk reaction - sort of alarm bells ringing - is this sensible / does this make sense?. First Staniewiez rejects the notion of being able to access truth at all. I am reminded of the pyrrhonists, who seem to me to extend their basic idea into a tangled web that does not repay the effort to understand it. Second, as a fan of Cicero and his arguments for the honourable and the expedient, I find it hard to swallow the idea of usefulnes as a core principle of what is a virtuous action.
Third, the list of 13 principles: is this yours Massimo, or is it from Staniewicz's book? I am struck by how negative most of the principles are; they are largely stated as what RS is not!
Perhaps to help me finally decide whether or not RS is worth more of my time and effort, it would be helpful to have a worked example of a problem that shows an analysis and conclusion according to the principles of usefulness. Is there one you could pull from the book? Then I might be able to better understand the rationale of RS. Thanks.
Patricia, glad to be helpful! Regarding your three observations:
Right, Staniewiez's pragmatism suffers from problems similar to the Pyrrhonist approach, though to be fair he is open to accepting or even promoting social change, which the Pyrrhonists can't do. The issue with pure pragmatism, with an ethics ungrounded in anything, is that it becomes arbitrary. And arbitrary ethics are dangerous.
Yup, Cicero would definitely reject Staniewiez's approach on the ground that it is not principled and hence open to abuse.
The list of 13 principles is Staniewiez's, not mine. And yes, most of them define Reformed Stoicism in the negative.
Here is an example, from Stankiewicz's chapter 16 (picked pretty much at random). The topic is "There is no point in flouting the rules of a game."
The chapter, like every other chapter in the book, begins with a fragment from one of the ancient Stoics, in this case Epictetus's Discourses II.5.15, where he talks about Socrates playing ball.
Then we are given a commentary by Stankiewicz. In this commentary he explains what Epictetus means and expands on it. The fragment is about role ethics, the notion that we play different roles in life and that we ought to play them at our best, like a skilled ball player. Stankiewicz calls this "playing a game." He then tells us that in order to play we need to know the rules.
So far so good. But then he adds that we need to understand that the rules are entirely arbitrary, they have no justification. It follows that there is no point in "flouting, contesting or undermining the rules."
He then picks up a second fragment, follows by a commentary, and so on until the end of the chapter. The emerging picture is disturbing: if social interactions are arbitrary games then there is no point in arguing that some ways to interact are better than others. Therefore there is no point in trying to improve things, other than our skills at playing given certain rules. I wonder what Cato the Younger would have thought about that.
Thanks, Massimo, for another great article in this series! I hadn't heard about Stankiewicz's version of Stoicism before.
One thing that puzzles me in his 13 principles is the point about the “vanity argument”. Is that basically saying “we believe that human activities matter”? If so, it seems a bit odd to me that it is phrased as “R.S. withdraws from the vanity arguments” as if classical Stoicism were endorsing them.
Daniel, Piotr thinks the Stoics make a couple of vanity arguments. First, since all things are fleeting and impermanent, then nothing matters (much). Buddhists make a similar argument. Second, things are essentially worthless because, after all, they are made of other things that are not really worthwhile. Think of Marcus's reminder to himself that Falernian wine is "just" fermented grape juice.
I think Piotr is wrong on both counts. It is certainly the case, in my opinion, that the long view of things helps us put everything in perspective. And it is also the case that decomposing what we value helps us not to over-value it.
The Buddha's teaching on impermanence is definitely different. It means a change of perspective on what matters, and when something matters, and how much it matters. It says that we don't have to grasp and hold to things. Something that matters matters for its sake. I can observe the thing. That is quite different from the nihilist approach of nothing matters. Thanks for the great article. Your observations are satisfying.
I finally found time to read your text, Massimo. I agree with you. I had the opportunity to listen to the podcast with Stankiewicz in Polish, and even in Polish it was incomprehensible and quite chaotic for me. thanks for your great text and organizing all this disharmonious vision of Stankiewicz.
Eliza, thanks for sharing your experience about listening to Piotr in Polish. Glad my writing is being helpful!
Thanks very much for this article. In the past I have listened to presentations by Staniewicz and found them incomprehensible, so I looked forward to your article with particular interest. In short, I think you have saved me a lot of time and effort that I can more usefully direct elsewhere in my Stoic development.
There are three things in your account of Reformed Stoicism that give me a bit of a negative knee jerk reaction - sort of alarm bells ringing - is this sensible / does this make sense?. First Staniewiez rejects the notion of being able to access truth at all. I am reminded of the pyrrhonists, who seem to me to extend their basic idea into a tangled web that does not repay the effort to understand it. Second, as a fan of Cicero and his arguments for the honourable and the expedient, I find it hard to swallow the idea of usefulnes as a core principle of what is a virtuous action.
Third, the list of 13 principles: is this yours Massimo, or is it from Staniewicz's book? I am struck by how negative most of the principles are; they are largely stated as what RS is not!
Perhaps to help me finally decide whether or not RS is worth more of my time and effort, it would be helpful to have a worked example of a problem that shows an analysis and conclusion according to the principles of usefulness. Is there one you could pull from the book? Then I might be able to better understand the rationale of RS. Thanks.
Patricia, glad to be helpful! Regarding your three observations:
Right, Staniewiez's pragmatism suffers from problems similar to the Pyrrhonist approach, though to be fair he is open to accepting or even promoting social change, which the Pyrrhonists can't do. The issue with pure pragmatism, with an ethics ungrounded in anything, is that it becomes arbitrary. And arbitrary ethics are dangerous.
Yup, Cicero would definitely reject Staniewiez's approach on the ground that it is not principled and hence open to abuse.
The list of 13 principles is Staniewiez's, not mine. And yes, most of them define Reformed Stoicism in the negative.
As for an example, see my next comment.
Here is an example, from Stankiewicz's chapter 16 (picked pretty much at random). The topic is "There is no point in flouting the rules of a game."
The chapter, like every other chapter in the book, begins with a fragment from one of the ancient Stoics, in this case Epictetus's Discourses II.5.15, where he talks about Socrates playing ball.
Then we are given a commentary by Stankiewicz. In this commentary he explains what Epictetus means and expands on it. The fragment is about role ethics, the notion that we play different roles in life and that we ought to play them at our best, like a skilled ball player. Stankiewicz calls this "playing a game." He then tells us that in order to play we need to know the rules.
So far so good. But then he adds that we need to understand that the rules are entirely arbitrary, they have no justification. It follows that there is no point in "flouting, contesting or undermining the rules."
He then picks up a second fragment, follows by a commentary, and so on until the end of the chapter. The emerging picture is disturbing: if social interactions are arbitrary games then there is no point in arguing that some ways to interact are better than others. Therefore there is no point in trying to improve things, other than our skills at playing given certain rules. I wonder what Cato the Younger would have thought about that.
I hope this helps!
Thanks, Massimo, for another great article in this series! I hadn't heard about Stankiewicz's version of Stoicism before.
One thing that puzzles me in his 13 principles is the point about the “vanity argument”. Is that basically saying “we believe that human activities matter”? If so, it seems a bit odd to me that it is phrased as “R.S. withdraws from the vanity arguments” as if classical Stoicism were endorsing them.
Daniel, Piotr thinks the Stoics make a couple of vanity arguments. First, since all things are fleeting and impermanent, then nothing matters (much). Buddhists make a similar argument. Second, things are essentially worthless because, after all, they are made of other things that are not really worthwhile. Think of Marcus's reminder to himself that Falernian wine is "just" fermented grape juice.
I think Piotr is wrong on both counts. It is certainly the case, in my opinion, that the long view of things helps us put everything in perspective. And it is also the case that decomposing what we value helps us not to over-value it.
The Buddha's teaching on impermanence is definitely different. It means a change of perspective on what matters, and when something matters, and how much it matters. It says that we don't have to grasp and hold to things. Something that matters matters for its sake. I can observe the thing. That is quite different from the nihilist approach of nothing matters. Thanks for the great article. Your observations are satisfying.
Ron, happy to contribute to the conversation!
Thanks for the elaboration! Agreed, it does seem like a bit of a strawman then.