The unfortunate devolution of four crucial words
The terms identifying four of the major Greco-Roman schools now mean something not quite as lofty, and that's not good
Way before I got interested in Greco-Roman practical philosophy I considered myself a skeptic, meaning someone who studies claims at the fringes of science, such as paranormal phenomena, UFOs, ghosts, astrology, and the like.
In that capacity I wrote (and still write) for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, I published a book on the evolution-creation controversy, one on pseudoscience for the general public, and one on the same topic for a technical audience of philosophers and scientists. For several years I even co-hosted Rationally Speaking, which used to be the official podcast of New York City Skeptics (and appears now to be defunct).
Indeed, it was my friend and producer of Rationally Speaking, Benny Pollak, who first made it clear to me that there was a problem with the very word “skeptic.” He told me that he was very excited to start the then new podcast, but then he mentioned it to a neighbor and the guy lost interest as soon as the word skeptic was mentioned. Skeptics, according to the neighbor, are naysayers and joy killers. Not interested, thank you very much.
I was surprised and taken aback, but nevertheless proceeded to ignore Benny’s warning. Skeptic is a great word, it has an ancient origin and an illustrious pedigree. Why on earth should we abandon it? And in favor of what, anyway?
Skip forward a number of years. I am now interested in Stoicism and the same problem comes up: oh, you mean stiff upper lip and the suppression of emotions? No, I don’t! Shortly thereafter my interest expanded to other Greco-Roman philosophies, including Cynicism and Epicureanism. Oh, so it’s about adopting a pessimist view of life, is it? Or: it’s about sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll, yeah? No, no, it isn’t. Sigh.
It gradually dawned on me that the modern words cynic, epicurean, skeptic, and stoic have become distorted reflections of the corresponding philosophies, and that in all cases the change was for the worse, though I think it’s understandable why this happened.
Consider this comparative table where the philosophies are directly paired with the modern meanings of the corresponding terms. Capitalized words indicate the philosophy, small caps indicate contemporary usage:
You can clearly see the differences! The modern sense is always pejorative compared to the original one. And notice that moderns don’t seem to make a distinction between skeptics and cynics, which would have surprised the hell out of the ancients! Also notice that there were two major skeptic schools in antiquity: Pyrrhonism, referred to as (1) above, and Academic Skepticism, referred to as (2). That distinction is entirely lost in current common parlance.
Why did those terms consistently evolve into disparaging ones? Historically, all ancient Greco-Roman schools eventually became rivals of the new kid on the block: Christianity. When Christianity got control of Roman roads and the Roman Army, thanks to the emperor Constantine (272-337 CE), it expanded dramatically and its rivals shrank correspondingly. While the decline of the “pagan” schools was not a straightforward function of just the rise of Christianity, the two are clearly causally connected. And it was a Christian emperor, Justinian, who closed down the last remaining Greco-Roman school, the Platonic Academy, in 529 CE.
As it is natural when there is competition, the two sides get in the business of degrading and vilifying each other, and Christians have a long established tradition of this sort of practice. They did, however, treat the various schools differently, more or less in proportion to how compatible their precepts were with the new religion.
Arguably the lowest degree of compatibility was offered by Epicureanism. Epicurean metaphysics, based on the notion of atomism going back to Democritus (460-370 BCE), seemed to conjure a chaotic universe in which chance played a major role. Nothing at all like the orderly and rational universe created by the Christian God. Also, Epicureanism’s typical classification as a type of hedonism was not something that the strongly pleasure-averse Christians could process favorably.
Stoicism, by contrast, fared much better. Its conception of a providential cosmos run by the Logos, or universal reason, was easy to re-interpret for Christians. After all, the Gospel of John starts out with: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The word “Word” in Greek is, you guessed it!, logos. The Stoic emphasis on virtue and duty also easily dovetailed with Christian ideals.
Even the Cynics were not too bad, from a Christian perspective, as they could be re-conceived—with a lot of sanitizing—as antecedents to Christian monks and hermits. Indeed, at least two famous early Christian figures, Symeon the Holy Fool (I swear, I did not make that name up!; 522-588 CE) and Symeon Stylites (“the Columnist,” because he lived on top of a column; 390-459 CE), lived lives characterized by ascetic practices strongly reminiscent of those of the Cynics.
What about the Skeptics? Well, the Pyrrhonists were largely forgotten by the time Christianity took over, so they were understandably ignored. Academic Skepticism, by contrast, belonged to the long tradition of Platonism, which itself provided some of the strongest philosophical bases for Christianity, so it wasn’t nearly as threatening as Epicureanism.
It’s interesting to ponder not only why the words identifying ancient Greco-Roman schools got warped into denigratory ones, but also to ask why they took on those specific meanings. Well, when you wish to vilify, or at least criticize, a position one of the most effective ways of doing it is through a caricature loosely based on truth, so that people are confused and it becomes difficult for those you criticize or vilify to effectively defend themselves.
In the case of Epicureanism, we went from a quasi-ascetic emphasis on a simple life aimed at minimizing pain to images of endless banquets and orgies. “Pleasure,” which for Epicurus consisted in lack of pain, became gluttony and perversion.
Stoicism is not about stiff upper lips and suppression of emotion, but it is about endurance and a modulation of emotions rooted in reason (which much later on inspired modern cognitive behavioral therapy). You can see the connection.
The case of Cynicism and Skepticism is interesting. Basically, modern parlance completely confuses the two, with contemporary dictionary using the same words to describe the two terms. But when it comes to their origins we can distinguish two different lineages: the Cynics were indeed scoffers of standard social mores, while the (Academic) Skeptics were doubters, in the sense that they doubted of the possibility of human knowledge, and so were open to changing their mind about things, should new evidence or better arguments become available. It is difficult to see where the notions of pessimism and foretelling doom came from, though my guess is that these are more likely to be associated with Cynicism, since the ancient Cynics did go around talking about how bad society had gotten.
All of the above said, one of the most interesting discoveries I made while researching this article is that despite the fact that the rivalry between the Greco-Roman schools and Christianity goes back to shortly after the historical beginnings of the new religion, the modern meanings of the four terms actually appeared on the scene pretty recently, according to the online etymological dictionary.
Specifically, “cynic” as indicating a sarcastic person dates back to the 1590s, used as an adjective from the 1630s. “Epicurean” as a pleasure-lover begins in the 1570s and as an adjective in the 1640s. “Skeptic” as a doubter of the Christian religion gets started in the 1640s. And “stoic” as somebody who suppresses feelings dates from 1570s, with the adjectival form developed in the 1590s.
Did you notice the pattern? What was happening in that period? The Reformation and Counter-Reformation, of course! The Protestant Reformation got started when Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses in 1517 and culminated with the Edict of Nantes of 1598, which granted substantial rights to the Calvinist minority in France (the Huguenots). The Counter-Reformation by the Catholic Church began with the Council of Trent in the period from 1545 to 1563 and ended with the European religious wars of 1648 (Peace of Westphalia).
In the midst of all this, Justus Lipsius, Michel de Montaigne, and other European humanists tried the unthinkable: an open reconciliation between Christianity and Stoicism! The movement, known as Neo-Stoicism, was short-lived but appealed to both Protestant and Catholic thinkers.
So no wonder religious authorities during that 16th and 17th centuries saw Stoicism, Epicureanism (Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura had been rediscovered by the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini only in the 15th century), and then more generally Greco-Roman philosophy as a renewed threat, and acted accordingly.
And there you have it. The reasons modern understanding of four of the most important schools of thought in ancient Greece and Rome is so warped are complex and span the better part of the past two millennia. That said, and pace the advice of my friend Benny, I will stick with Skepticism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and even Epicureanism. Instead of sweeping those terms under the rag because they may be unpopular nowadays I prefer to try to educate people on what they really mean and why they represent some of the most important and lasting contributions to world civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfp8xrNAS6I
What a good description of the main streams of ancient philosophy and how the distortions of Christian polemics impacted our common modern understanding of these terms. Thanks for your ongoing efforts to reclaim these helpful, therapeutic approaches to life.