Posts by Cassius

Very good video! And while we're still searching for ways to say it precisely, I'd have to say that Yes "prolepsis is involved with numbers - and it seems to involve something "inmate" as in the example of the babies used in the video.

Before they have seen the first example of a difference in quantity, they have some kind of "etching" that tells them that difference in quantity is significant to them.

And I think that "before they have seen the first example" is where we need to focus as we try to describe a faculty of prolepsis. Not on how it gets more accurate with practice, but how and why it is there in the first place, just like pleasure and pain and the other faculties are also there at birth. Focusing on adults forming conceptions of oxes after seeing more and more of them is not the place to look.

I think this video illustrates the best way forward is to look again at babies, just like with pleasure and pain, at a time period when Nature is fully in control and there is no possiblity of corruption through mistaken opinion.

So just for clarification, I have set up a "conversation" with those who volunteer to help with Quiz creation, and we'll use that conversation thread to tell each other about updates and discuss the details of the quiz questions. It would probably undercut the "fun" if we posted each comment and thereby gave away all the questions and answers before they were used more publicly.

So we'll continue to take in this thread discussion of those who wish to volunteer in the project, but the thread won't expand on a day to day basis as we will move that part to a private discussion. If you wish to add yourself to the conversation list and participate in updating the list, just post here and we'll add you to the conversation.

1 - Great research work Bryan - thank you!

2 - (This is a poorly-thought-out comment but I will make it anyway) Consistent with that research and other things that we've discussed, it seems to me that LR's suggestion here:

Quote from Little Rocker

Would that mean something like, the gods' properties of being 'immortal and indestructible' are definitional, but that the gods having the property of 'living being' is one of τὰ Συμβεβηκότα?

... might be plausible as I can see "being a living being" as being more important than "deathlessness." We could not conceive of a god not being a "living being," but we could conceive of particular a god voluntarily giving up its immortality, because a particular god might choose for some reason to stop acting to maintain its deathlessness. Is it not possible to imagine that a god too might choose to leave the theatre when for some reason (hard to describe) the play ceased to please it? At the very least, it would not make sense to deprive a god of the free will to make such a decision.

Edit - My eyes have trouble following the Greek so I'll just refer to separable and inseparable. So to restate what I wrote, I can see "being a living being" as being inseparable from godhood. If you aren't living you can't be a god. But I can see "incorruptibility' as being separable from godhood, because I can imagine a god choosing to exit the theatre, and actually I can't imagine depriving a god of such a power. I find it conceivable to say that a god who chose to exit the theatre was still, while he existed, a god, and I can't imagine "trapping" a god into a situation where he could not choose to stop existing.

Oh that's great and we will very much appreciate your help! Let me set up a shared document that we can all work on together, and I will send a link by "conversation" to you and anyone else who is willing to help.

This episode is now on Youtube:

As another relevant analogy, we see Torquatus in On Ends arguing that Epicurus establishes the foundations of friendship, and implicitly justice, far more soundly by basing it on pleasure than do those who invoke fictional views of justice as established by gods or "Natural Law." Diogenes of Oinoanda makes much the same argument.

Torquatus:

[70] Men are found to say that there is a certain treaty of alliance which binds wise men not to esteem their friends less than they do themselves. Such alliance we not only understand to be possible, but often see it realized, and it is plain that nothing can be found more conducive to pleasantness of life than union of this kind. From all these different views we may conclude that not only are the principles of friendship left unconstrained, if the supreme good be made to reside in pleasure, but that without this view it is entirely impossible to discover a basis for friendship.

I think Epicurus blows to pieces any concept of "universal" rights that is alleged go be based on or protected by a god of Nature in a Stoic kind of way

But replacing it is the acknowledgement that humans by nature experience pleasure and pain as motivations, and where pain is inflicted one can expect pushback. Sometimes we will choose pain and deal with the pushback, but Epicurus leads to acknowledgment that the results are up to us. If we want certain rights (and we do) then it is up to us to act to obtain and keep them.

That's a much more realistic way of looking at things, and since it more consistent with reality it's very arguably more effective.

In regard to Don's notable beard, this is why I prefer how the 1743 edition translates Lucretius' "eventum" as "event" rather than accident.

Yes the philosophers seem to prefer to use the word, "accident," but in English parlance "accident" implies "fortuitousness" or "chance" in a way that should not be presumed.

It would probably raise the eyebrows of the normal person to think that it is an "accident" that Don has a beard worthy of Epicurus. It's much more appropriate to say that Don's beard is an "event" of Don's life, which conveys that it is an event that has occurred after much deliberate thought, rather than as an "accident" that Don lost his access to his razors through no input of his own.

Yes it is true that Don's beard could be removed from him without Don losing his identity, and that's what makes his beard an "event." But Don's beard surely should not be thought of to arise "by accident" any more than other emergent properties of bodies arise by "accident." Indeed, it's exactly the point of Epicurean physics - that emergent properties do not arise by the intention of gods, but neither do they arise "randomly" or by "chance" or "accident." Most things in the universe arise from the "laws of nature" that arise repeatedly, reliably, and predictably from the movement of the atoms through the void.

For those who find this topic interesting, we explored it further with the Latin from Lucretius in this thread:

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RE: Time in Epicurus, Lucretius, and Aristotle

[…]

Yes that is exactly the point.

In the mechanical aspects of the universe, things are not "accidental/fortuitous" in the sense that the exact same combinations of the same atoms in the same way at the same places will accidentally/fortuitously produce different results - they produce repeatable and reliable results, and that is why we see the regularity in the universe. The word "accident" can imply that the result could be otherwise for unknowable factors, and I would say that that is why…

Cassius

September 6, 2023 at 9:42 AM

Strangely to me, I don't recall that DeWitt makes much reference to comparing "we cannot be born twice" to the "born again" statements of Christianity.

Is being "born again" an obvious question that arises to everyone everywhere? I wonder what the probabilities are that the Epicureans were known for this "can't be born twice" and that that infuenced the use of the analogy.

As for me, if I were an early Christian talking about miraculous salvation, my wishful thinking would focus on "never dying" or "staying young" but remaining at least a young adult. Even if I were a miracle worker I don't think I'd consider being literally "born again" to be particularly appealing, so I doubt I would have normally thought to talk in those terms.

Maybe Dewitt or others argue this somewhere and I am not aware of it.

John 3:1-21

3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus^[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again^[b] ” he cannot see the kingdom of God. ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.^{[c] 7} Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You^[d] must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind^[e] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The long discussion of images begins in section 26 of Book 4. I would say that Epicurus seems to be making a distinction about about our ability to perceive the retained "shapes" of the groups of atoms that stream off the surface of things, and that this retained shape would not necessarily be the same as seeing, hearing tasting etc. For example the reference below to perceiving them in sleep are presumably not involving the eyes because our eyes are closed when asleep?

But the references do seem to be dealt with as a group so it's going to be difficult to pull it apart. Some of this might apply to mirages and some might not, and then there's the separate discussion (somewhere else) about how images are involved before we walk or take other actions.

[26] But since I have taught of what manner are the beginnings of all things, and how, differing in their diverse forms, of their own accord they fly on, spurred by everlasting motion; and in what way each several thing can be created from them; and since I have taught what was the nature of the mind, and whereof composed it grew in due order with the body, and in what way rent asunder it passed back into its first-beginnings: now I will begin to tell you what exceeding nearly concerns this theme, that there are what we call idols of things; which, like films stripped from the outermost body of things, fly forward and backward through the air; and they too when they meet us in waking hours affright our minds, yea, and in sleep too, when we often gaze on wondrous shapes, and the idols of those who have lost the light of day, which in awful wise have often roused us, as we lay languid, from our sleep; lest by chance we should think that souls escape from Acheron, or that shades fly abroad among the living, or that something of us can be left after death, when body alike and the nature of mind have perished and parted asunder into their several first-beginnings. I say then that likenesses of things and their shapes are given off by things from the outermost body of things, which may be called, as it were, films or even rind, because the image bears an appearance and form like to that, whatever it be, from whose body it appears to be shed, ere it wanders abroad. That we may learn from this, however dull be our wits.

Quote from Don

My understanding is that *all* our sensations are based on "images"/fields/eidola. The mental faculty simply picks up the finest, most subtle images. But all sensations are based on touch, from the sense of touch itself to vision touching the images emitted by objects, to the mental faculty touching the finest most subtle fields.

As to "all sensations are based on touch," I would agree, that contact between atoms is the way all of them work - no "action at a distance" without touch.

But I think we ought to dig further, presumably into book 4 of Lucretius, to clarify whether smell or touch or taste, for example, are based on "images."

Quote from Bryan

We smell and see the film that comes from our meal, for example.

Ok now *there* is another potential issue. I thought that "images" are received directly by the mind, without going through the eyes, and that the "images" technically speaking are not visible or otherwise detectable by the five senses. Is that not the implication of the discussion in Book 4 of Lucretius, and the implication of what Cicero says to Cassius about the mind selecting images as involved in thinking of someone who is not present?

Bryan would you agree or disagree with saying that the difficulty of prolepsis operates on "images?"

And do you see any connection between the Centaur / image example in Lucretius and prolepsis?

I think we are at least 99% together, maybe more, except possibly for this:

Quote from Bryan

In some circumstances you may sense many trees around you, at other times you may sense guilt from the circumstances, at other times you may sense the gods.

It sounds like you're talking about some kind of "intuition" or "intuitive sense," and I am open to that wording at least in part because I think that's the direction DeWitt goes.

But I am having a hard time getting a grip on how to explain "intuition" in clear terms. Is it the difference between Windows95 and Windows 11 in terms of much more advanced processing power, or is it the difference between a computer with a keyboard vs a computer with lots of additional peripheral input devices, or what kind of analogy or explanation can be given to "intuition?"

Quote from Joshua

I'm reminded of a guy several years ago on the Stoicism subreddit. He got--or thought he got--a tattoo of Epictetus, but the bust he chose was actually one of Epicurus 😁

And that is why we have on our "research list" further investigation into those statues from Herculaneum, right Joshua? On deck right after the Dunster thread-starter?

You're making a distinction there Bryan that I want to be sure I understand. To be clear about my own view:

1 - I think that Epicurus thought that a solid case exists that the type of gods he is talking about not only serve a very useful purpose to reverence, but also that such beings do exist somewhere in the universe. So I think he would say that his evidence and argument mean that the statement "gods exist somewhere in the universe and are blessed and imperishable" is a true opinion. (I know some disagree with that, but that's my personal view.)

2 - I think however that I would not describe "gods exist somewhere in the universe and are blessed and imperishable" as a "sense." I would describe "gods exist somewhere in the universe and are blessed and imperishable" as statement or proposition or an opinion that I have adopted based significantly in part on the operation of a "sense" that assists me in the process of organizing the evidence and that "tells" me, in reaction to the opinion, that the opinion seems valid. Maybe here I might describe that at least in part as a "sense of confidence" that I sometimes have about opinions that are surely true, vs. a much less confident feeling I have when an opinion is on shaky ground. Talking about this reminds me that somewhere in the distant past of the forum there were comments made by some to the effect that a "sense of confidence" might be a part of the prolepsis picture.

3 - I think most of us agree that pleasure and pain are highly analogous to a "sense," in that we say we "feel good" or "feel bad" and the "feel" in that sentence seems naturally to associate with feeling smooth or rough or seeing color or hearing sound. But I still think to bring any clarity to this we would have to be more specific about "what" a faculty of prolepsis "processes" as its function. And the closer we get to saying that prolepses processes "ideas" such as "guilt" - such as to say that "feeling guilty comes only after a real and automatic sense of guilt" - then the further that intrudes into the conceptual reasoning process where true and false apply. In the case of justice or guilt, I'd be more apt to say that the prolepses is processing the "relationships" (possibly the relationships of the atoms in the images that we are processing), and that it is then the feeling of pleasure and pain that comes into play to assess whether we find the particular relationship agreeable or not.

So what I am looking for a position on is whether "gods exist and are blessed and imperishable" *IS ITSELF* a prolepsis, or - from the point of view of Epicurus - whether it is a "true opinion that has been formed taking into account the operation of the proleptic faculty and other things as well."

I'm trying to focus on that because I can't see it proper to say that the eyes "flat out tell me" that "I see a bird" or that the ears "flat out tell me" that "I hear music" or that pleasure tells me that "I am eating honey." In turn I cannot see it proper to say that a prolepsis "flat out tells me" that "a god is imperishable" or any other statement that amounts to a "proposition." Each of those underlined statements seem to me to be "propositions" that are formed in the mind after the use of inputs from all three of the categories of faculties, including prolepsis, rather than conclusions of those faculties themselves.

Can you clarify further?

If post #7 is largely or partly correct, one more focused way to state the takeaway might be:

One additional thing I'd like to memorialize from the Wednesday Zoom: Bryan pointed out something that I think boils down to close to this (Bryan can correct me if better way to say it):

All of us are constantly being bombarded from all directions at all times with all sorts of sensations, with all sorts of feelings, and also with all sorts of "images."

For the moment we may (or may not) want to consider the essence of all of these bombardments as movements of atoms that touch us / impact us in different ways. The three canonical faculties are our inborn ability to perceive movement or presence of atoms which constitute light (sight), sound (hearing), odors (smell), touch, or in the case of images - arrangements of atoms in films which are essentially filmy "shapes" which retain to greater or lesser degree the shapes of their source.

We can take or leave that last paragraph, because the essential point being made right now is that we're constantly being bombarded from the outside with all sorts of atomic impacts.

I take Bryan's point to be that "something' within us must constitute a faculty of selectively focusing our attention and pointing us towards identifying what is significant to us and what is not. Whatever that mechanism is, whether that's a description of a "faculty of prolepsis" or a description of something else, such a process *is* going on within us, and such a faculty is born with us at birth, and such ability does in fact get sharper over time as we process multiple experiences over time.

Perhaps an analogy is that pleasure and pain are essentially our *reactions* to events as they occur. Our genetics are etched to operate in a way that predisposes us to particularize what happens to us and to find some events more pleasurable (and painful) than others.

Similarly each of our five senses are etched to operate in a way that disposes us to distinguish between the things that impact our senses and to relay that reaction to the brain for further processing. it should not be a stretch to think that there would be a faculty that disposes our mind to distinguish between the images that impact our senses and to find some more significant than others, and to relay that to the brain for further processing. Only after the brain receives these inputs and starts processing them into "opinions" is "truth" or "error" a relevant consideration. An exercise of the operation of the eyes and ears and nose is never "right" or "wrong;" the a feeling of pleasure and pain is never "right" or "wrong," and likewise on that analogy an exercise of of the faculty of prolepsis is never "right" or "wrong." (I take it that Tau Phi is emphatically in agreement with the importance of emphasizing that truth or error does not exist in the faculties, but in the conclusions/opinions of the mind.)

Perhaps describing the action of the faculty we are talking about as one of selective focusing of attention is a little more neutral than the "pattern-recognition" term that we also discussed. "Recognizing a pattern" maybe rings a little to close to "recognizing an idea." I think most of us are disposed to reject "innate ideas" for maybe the same reason that Lucretius thought it was a good argument to say that the gods could not have created the universe because even the gods would have had no pattern by which to go.

On the other hand, it seems most of accept without hesitation that we are programmed at birth to find some things pleasurable and some things painful in varying degrees, so certain forms of "programming" as related to the operation of a faculty of prolepsis in selectively focusing images doesn't seem to be out of line with Epicurus' approach.

One of the Nietzsche quotes from Beyond Good and Evil that we included in the last episode (Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern ) Chapter 1, section 9 -

Quote

... Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? ..... while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism!

Surely the faculty of pleasure and pain is an example of programming that disposes us to value or prefer some things over others. It might not be too much of a stretch to analogize prolepsis very broadly as involving a disposition of the mind to value or prefer or focus on some images other than others, without which faculty we would never be able to focus on or distinguish any images in particular as different from any of the other myriads of images that constantly bombard us.

We had a very good discussion of prolepsis in our Wednesday Zoom tonight and one thing (of several) that come from it is that I definitely think part of the ground work we want to lay is to refer to the case of Centaurs, discussed in Lucretius, and observe that Lucretius said both (1) that the images of the centaur do strike our minds, but also (2) centaurs do not and cannot exist.

I think that gives us some important leads to follow as to what is involved in the faculty of prolepsis, and how we have to distinguish the fact that prolepses are true in the sense of "honestly reported" but not true to the facts in the sense of the conclusion "centaurs exist."

Book 4:732 (Bailey)

[722] Come now, let me tell you what things stir the mind, and learn in a few words whence come the things which come into the understanding.

[724] First of all I say this, that many idols of things wander about in many ways in all directions on every side, fine idols, which easily become linked with one another in the air, when they come across one another’s path, like spider’s web and gold leaf. For indeed these idols are far finer in their texture than those which fill the eyes and arouse sight, since these pierce through the pores of the body and awake the fine nature of the mind within, and arouse its sensation.

[732] And so we see Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, and the dog-faces of Cerberus and idols of those who have met death, and whose bones are held in the embrace of earth; since idols of every kind are borne everywhere, some which are created of their own accord even in the air, some which depart in each case from diverse things, and those again which are made and put together from the shapes of these. For in truth the image of the Centaur comes not from a living thing, since there never was the nature of such a living creature, but when by chance the images of man and horse have met, they cling together readily at once, as we have said ere now, because of their subtle nature and fine fabric. All other things of this kind are fashioned in the same way. And when they move nimbly with exceeding lightness, as I have shown ere now, any one such subtle image stirs their mind; for the mind is fine and of itself wondrous nimble.

[749] That these things come to pass as I tell, you may easily learn from this. Inasmuch as the one is like the other, what we see with the mind, and what we see with the eyes, they must needs be created in like manner.

[752] Now, therefore, since I have shown that I see a lion maybe, by means of idols, which severally stir the eyes, we may know that the mind is moved in like manner, in that it sees a lion and all else neither more nor less than the eyes, except that it sees finer idols.

[757] And when sleep has relaxed the limbs, the understanding of the mind is for no other cause awake, but that these same idols stir our minds then, as when we are awake, insomuch that we seem surely to behold even one who has quitted life, and is holden by death and the earth. This nature constrains to come to pass just because all the senses of the body are checked and at rest throughout the limbs, nor can they refute the falsehood by true facts. Moreover, the memory lies at rest, and is torpid in slumber, nor does it argue against us that he, whom the understanding believes that it beholds alive, has long ago won to death and doom.

[768] For the rest, it is not wonderful that the idols should move and toss their arms and their other limbs in rhythmic time. For it comes to pass that the image in sleep seems to do this; inasmuch as when the first image passes away and then another comes to birth in a different posture, the former seems then to have changed its gesture. And indeed we must suppose that this comes to pass in quick process: so great is the speed, so great the store of things, so great, in any one instant that we can perceive, the abundance of the little parts of images, whereby the supply may be continued.

[777] And in these matters many questions are asked, and there are many things we must make clear, if we wish to set forth the truth plainly.

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So the image of a Centaur is real, and reported honestly to us through the faculty that receives images, and yet we do not conclude simply from perceiving an image of a Centaur that Centaurs are real, because we have all sorts of other observations that through deductive reasoning establish to us, and lead us to conclude, that Centaurs cannot exist, and thus that the images of Centaurs we received were not generated by real Centaurs.

An obvious question arises: If we are to conclude that the gods exist and are blessed and imperishable, it would seem that those conclusions must be based on more observations, and more deductive reasoning, and not simply on the receipt of images. Images constitute real evidence, since they are canonical, and yet we override that evidence by comparing it to other evidence and deem the image evidence insufficient to conclude "centaurs exist in reality."

In the case of gods, what additional observations and reasoning provide the impetus to conclude that gods are blessed and imperishable? We'll no doubt want to look at what else Velleius says for that evidence, including isonomia and infinity and the examples of deductive reasoning that Velleius gives.

As to Marcus Aurelius, this post by the traditionalist Stoic Chris Fisher summarizes some key points:

As Mark Forstater wrote in his insightful book The Spiritual Teachings of Marcus Aurelius:

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Until the time of Neoplatonism, Stoicism was the most highly spiritualised form of philosophy in ancient Greece and Rome. It was so spiritualised that it is as accurate to call it a religion as a philosophy.^[5]

As Henry Sedgewick points out in his biography of Marcus Aurelius, the traditional religions did not provide what he was looking for,

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Marcus was seeking a religion, as I have said, but there was none at hand that he could accept. The old Roman religion was a mere series of ceremonies, with nothing sacred except lingering patriotic sentiment, and withal marred by superstitions, such as those at Lanuvium. Foreign religions were no better. Syrian priests, like mountebanks, trundled images of the Magna Mater about the countryside, hoping to wheedle peasants out of their pennies; the worshippers of the Egyptian gods offered sensuous exaltation, and mysteries that disregarded reason. Christianity, as we understand it, was utterly unknown to him. He was compelled to look for religion in philosophy; for there only, as he thought, and perhaps thought truly, could a man, without doing wrong to his reason, find spiritual help to enable him to do his duty and keep his soul pure.^[6]

Marcus did not find consolation in the rituals of traditional religions or the mediation of priests. He was looking for psychological strength and consolation which could allow him to keep his mind pure in trying times and under troublesome circumstances. Marcus discovered the personal religious practice he was looking for within the deeply spiritual philosophy of Stoicism.^[7] As a result, his life became an example of the power of Stoicism in a person’s inner life. Sedgewick argues,

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Marcus Aurelius is not a prodigy among men, unheralded by what has come before; on the contrary he is the ripe product of the spiritual movement that expressed itself in the Stoic philosophy, or rather, as it had then become, the Stoic religion.^[8]

As can be seen in his Meditations, Marcus followed the Stoic path and became his own priest, in service to the gods,

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For such a man, who no longer postpones his endeavour to take his place among the best, is indeed a priest and servant of the gods, behaving rightly towards the deity stationed within him, so ensuring that the mortal being remains unpolluted by pleasures, invulnerable to every pain, untouched by any wrong, unconscious of any evil, a wrestler in the greatest contest of all… (Meditations 3.4.3)

In Meditations 3.16, Marcus draws upon the importance of the divine while discussing four models of human behavior.

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Body, soul, intellect: for the body, sense-impressions; for the soul, impulses; for the intellect, judgements. To receive impressions by means of images is something that we share even with cattle; and to be drawn this way and that by the puppet-strings of impulse, we share with wild beasts, with catamites, and with a Phalaris or a Nero; and to have the intellect as a guide towards what appear to be duties is something that we share with those who do not believe in the gods, with those who betray their country, with those who will do anything whatever behind locked doors. If you share everything else with those whom I have just mentioned, there remains the special characteristic of a good person, namely, to love and welcome all that happens to him and is spun for him as his fate, and not to defile the guardian-spirit seated within his breast, nor to trouble it with a host of fancies, but to preserve it in cheerful serenity, following God in an orderly fashion, never uttering a word that is contrary to the truth nor performing an action that is contrary to justice.

...

[i]n Meditations 2.12-13, Marcus juxtaposes the persons who “hold fast to the guardian-spirit within” with those whose sole focus is on intellectual pursuits:

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Consider too how a human being makes contact with God, and through what part of himself, and how that part of him must be disposed if he is to do so. There is nothing more pitiable than the person who makes the circuit of everything and, as the poet says, ‘searches into the depths of the earth’, and tries to read the secrets of his neighbour’s soul, yet fails to perceive that it is enough to hold fast to the guardian-spirit within him and serve it single-mindedly; and this service is to keep it pure from passion and irresponsibility and dissatisfaction with anything that comes from gods or human beings. For what comes from the gods is worthy of reverence because of their goodness, and what comes from human beings should be dear to us because we share a common nature…

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Providence or Atoms

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But perhaps you are discontented with what is allotted to you from the whole? Then call to mind the alternative, ‘either providence or atoms’ and all the proofs that the universe should be regarded as a kind of constitutional state. (Meditations 4.3.5)

Marcus Aurelius understood and accepted the Stoic worldview, which includes a rationally ordered and providential cosmos. Additionally, Marcus relied on the Stoic theory of psychology, which asserts that our emotions are connected to our value judgments. Therefore, he understood how one’s accepted worldview could affect their judgments of events in the world. In his Meditations, Marcus links acceptance of a providential worldview to a ‘cheerful mind’ (2.3) and sees a call to action within it (2.4). Again, in Meditations 4.3.5, he suggests our resentment of the circumstance of our lives is the result of denying providence.^[11] As Dragona-Monachou makes clear,

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Divine providence is a firm belief of Marcus Aurelius’s. He declares: “The gods exist and have concern for human affairs” (2, 11, 3). The “whole divine economy is pervaded by providence” (2, 3, 1). He considers “life not worth living unless there exist providential gods” (2, 11, 2), and believes that the existence of providential gods is a by far more plausible and acceptable alternative to atoms, chance or confusion (4, 3, 3; 4, 27; 9, 9; 7, 19, etc.).^[12]

...

Even though the meaning of some of Marcus’ “providence or atoms” passages appear unclear when considered individually, few scholars doubt Marcus’ commitment to providence. As Pierre Hadot writes,

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Whatever modern historians may claim, the dilemma “either providence or chance,” when used by Seneca or by Marcus Aurelius, does not signify either the renunciation of Stoic physical theories or an eclectic attitude which refuses to decide between Epicureanism and Stoicism. In fact, we can see that Marcus has already made his choice between Epicureanism and Stoicism, by the very way in which he describes the Epicurean model with a variety of pejorative terms…^[14]

While addressing a common question, “How much of a Stoic is Marcus Aurelius in the Meditations?” Christopher Gill writes,

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On the one hand, apart from his explicit allegiance to Stoicism (e.g., I 7– 8), the dominating themes are strongly Stoic and there are clear signs of the influence of Epictetus’ ethical programme. On the other hand, the style is idiosyncratic, with strong Heraclitean, Cynic, and Platonic colouring… Most puzzling of all, despite his frequent adoption of a cosmic perspective on ethical life, he sometimes expresses indifference about which worldview is correct: the Stoic providential one or the Epicurean view that the universe is a fortuitous collection of atoms…The ‘providence or atoms’ theme is more puzzling, though in some passages the question seems more open than in others. But it may be important that Marcus acknowledges, in Meditations I 17, that he has not himself actuallycompleted the three-part Stoic curriculum (including logic and physics) that would yield the cosmic understanding he seeks to apply to his own life. Hence, the Stoic worldview has to be, in this respect, taken on trust (though Marcus overwhelmingly does take it on trust) – a fact perhaps acknowledged in his use of the ‘providence or atoms’ theme.^[15]

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After pointing out that Marcus leaves the competing hypotheses of several “unresolved issues in Stoic physics” open, David Sedley writes:

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His unexpected openness to Epicurean physics as an alternative to the Stoic model reads as if it were an extension of this same policy, despite the obvious difference that he is palpably committed to the truth of Stoicism and hence the falsity of Epicureanism.^[20]

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As David Sedley notes in his chapter titled Marcus Aurelius on Physics, in A Companion to Marcus Aurelius:

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In reminding himself to apply physical thinking to every idea he entertains, Marcus captures a vital aspect of his meditations. The question what part physics plays in Stoic ethics has been a frequent subject of modern debate. In Marcus we may find no theoretical answer to that question, but we get to see, worked out in practice, his recognition that reflection on how the cosmos functions is an absolutely integral part of the Stoic moral life. Throughout his reflections on human values, he can be seen constantly turning to the cosmos as a concept to think with.

Marcus’ cosmos or world is recognizably and indeed technically Stoic. It is a single, finite, cohesive organism, surrounded by void. Partly as a consequence, it is entirely self-contained and cohesive in its functioning, internally governed by the inexorable sequence of causes known as ‘fate’. So far as its underlying constitution is concerned, it is composed out of two ultimate items, of which one is a pliable material substrate, and the other, acting upon this, a single intelligent divine causal power, sometimes identified with its ‘seminal reason’ (spermatikos logos).^[22]

Many moderns question the necessity of providence for the practice of Stoicism. To do so, they must modify Stoicism in ways that remove one of its most potent psychological tools—a trust that all events in nature, even those we would typically judge as bad, have a purpose and serve the good of the whole. This trust and the attitude of gratitude that springs from it are expressed beautifully by Marcus in one of my favorite passages.

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Everything suits me that suits your designs, O my universe. Nothing is too early or too late for me that is in your own good time. All is fruit for me that your seasons bring, O nature. All proceeds from you, all subsists in you, and to you all things return. (Meditations 4.23)

It is simply not possible to make sense of passages like this apart from Marcus’ absolute and unequivocal trust in the providential nature of the cosmos. These are not the words of a begrudging acceptance of life’s events. Marcus exhibits something far more perceptive than a bear and forbear attitude toward events that were not up to him. No, he is expressing a profound trust that every event in Nature has a purpose. Marcus didn’t need to remind himself about the detailed, technical, philosophical arguments for providence in his journal; he lived it every day of his life, and that was proof enough for him.