Well Keith, you said what I had in mind much better than I did.

I do believe in living my life in dedication to the improvement of my thinking.
I trust reason implicitly. But I am aware of the fact that my own thinking often
falls short of the ideal that I aspire to. The way I see it, the pursuit of that
ideal is not just a quest for certainty. It is a quest for true autonomy. But it
has to be tempered by the understanding that there are always things that are
beyond my control. One has to take things in stride. True autonomny cannot mean:
without limitation.

What strikes me, is how prevalent the Stoic demeanor is among philosophers.
Philosophers may put forth very different and often incompatible doctrines. But
they still seem to have this Stoic mindset in common. I see it in Aristotle,
Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and others, and that is what attracts me to these
thinkers and to philosophy in general. Philosophers stand resolute in their
trust in the ideal of reason. Even when their thinking hits the brick wall of
intellectual impasse.

It is tempting to fall into the habit of being doctrinaire. Just look at all the
"-isms" and the "-ists" that have come up in the history of philosophy,
including Stoicism. But it isn't about doctrine. Is it? It is about
self-discipline in the profoundest sense of the term.

Philosophy, it seems to me, ought to be a spiritual discipline of the highest
order. To me, historical philosophy, with its many apparently conflicting
schools and its profound intellectual impasses, amounts to nothing less than the
Zen of the West.

Why not? These impasses, after all, are intellectual koans. Are they not? I
think that the impasses that one inevitably encounters in the pursuit of
philosophy are meant to provoke our self-liberation from linear one-sided
thinking, and, hopefully, our discovery of a higher and more integrative form of
rationality, a "transcendental rationality" if I may be so bold as to use such a
loaded term.

You know, some people look at the proverbial conflict of philosophical systems
and they say: They can't all be right!

I look at the very same thing and I say: They can't all be wrong!

Hb3g

--- In stoics@yahoogroups.com, Keith Seddon <k.h.seddon@...> wrote:
>
> Malcolm Schosha wrote:
> > Keith, does the mean you no longer support the Stoic view on human
rationality?
> >
> > Malcolm
> >
> What is the Stoic view on human rationality?
>
> However reason is best characterised, clearly it does not arise in
> anyone (at the age of fourteen, or whenever) in a fully perfect working
> state. If it did, then there would be no need of Stoic philosophy, for
> everyone (with a perfect rationality) would know that the end for
> everyone is virtue and living in accordance with nature. Yet, the vast
> majority of mankind never come to learn what that expression means, let
> alone make any progress towards fulfilling the Stoic ideal.
>
> When the Stoics claim that human rationality is a fragment of divine
> reason, clearly that is not meant to suggest that all people at all
> times have a fully functioning, perfected rationality. As my earlier
> comment was meant to suggest, the meanest glimpse at today's headlines
> proves that this is not so. The Stoic's task is to use their faculty of
> reason to strengthen itself -- thus the frequent use of athletic
> training as a metaphor for philosophical training. So when Kevin remarks
> that "Human beings are fundamentally logical beings", this makes sense
> only as a potential, not something already realised.
>
> Human beings have a capacity for reason, and some will use their innate
> capacity for good or ill, and yet others will seek to understand its
> nature and hope to make it function better. And within that tiny group,
> may be some who chance upon Stoic ethics, or realise the truth of its
> content independently, and pursue the perfection of reason as, at least
> in part, a practical undertaking of living in a new way, with new
> beliefs, and a new attitude of what is right when relating to other
> people and (for some) when relating to God.
>
> Regards,
>
> Keith
>