Stoic Minimalism is not Enough
Why Physics and Logic are Crucial to Ethics
My friend and former student (at the Stoic School in Rome) Chuck Chakrapani has written a worthwhile article over at the Modern Stoicism site, entitled “Stoic minimalism: stripping the dead bark off orthodox Stoicism.” In it, Chuck pursues a project of updating Stoicism to the 21st century by identifying a set of core notions from ancient Stoicism that can be reformulated in modern day language. It’s the same kind of project that as occupied people like Larry Becker, Bill Irvine, and myself, among several others.
Chuck’s article is long, well written, and cogently argued, and I highly recommended. But (you knew there was a “but” coming, yes?) I think he pushes his minimalism too far. Specifically, Chuck makes two claims that I believe to be incorrect: (i) that of the three classical topoi of Stoicism, “physics,” “logic” and “ethics,” only the latter is necessary for modern Stoicism; and (ii) that Stoic ethics is self-contained and can be derived from first principles.
For instance, concerning point (i) he writes:
“While I have been familiar with Stoicism for decades, I have not read much about Stoic physics and Stoic logic until last year. After studying Stoic physics and Stoic logic more closely last year (Including a full length book on…
