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by Corry Shores
[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]
[Victor Goldschmidt, entry directory]
[Goldschmidt, Le système stoïcien, entry directory]
[The following is summary. Bracketed commentary is my own, as is any boldface. Proofreading is incomplete, which means typos are present, especially in the quotations. So consult the original text. Also, I welcome corrections to my interpretations, because I am not good enough with French or Greek to make accurate translations of the texts.]
Summary of
Victor Goldschmidt
Le système stoïcien et l'idée de temps
Deuxième partie
(2)
Aspects temporels de la morale stoïcienne
A
(2.1)
La Connaissance
Chapitre IV
(2.1.4)
L’interprétation des événements
III
(2.1.4.3)
L’usage des représentations
50.
(2.1.4.3.50)
L’accord rétabli ; usage des représentations et causes antécédentes
Brief summary:
(2.1.4.3.50.1) God as the world soul is the source of all causality. Our souls are a part of God’s soul, so whatever our souls cause, God is thereby causing. (2.1.4.3.50.2) Destiny dictates that we undergo certain events, meaning that we are determinately caused to have certain impressions. Impressions will be the antecedent causes of our reactions. But our reactions are not determined by a necessity of the impressional antecedent cause, which is really only an auxiliary and proximate cause. Our rational faculty thinks independently of the sensory impressions, and it is free to generate its own rational impressions. It can therefore generate impressions to counteract the causal power of the sensory impressions so to bring about a more rationally-guided, chosen reaction. Here we can observe the following picture. Something acted on us. The way it affected us, and thus the impressions we receive, are caused by a necessary (primary and perfect) causation. This is fate in the sense that whatever happens (to us) does so by necessity. But these causes in us, from our internal perspective, are received not with their perfect and primary causality pointing toward us, but rather we from our internal perspective get the “flip side” of the causal “coin”, and we experience the impressions as auxiliary and proximate causes. In a sense, causality like this is like the perfect cause ending where auxiliary cause picks up, and the perfect cause we then create likewise ends where the next auxiliary cause picks up. In that way, we have a siblinghood of freedom and fate.
[God as Cause of Causes]
[The Usage of Impressions, Given Fatefully, Used/Resisted Freely]
Summary
2.1.4.3.50
L’accord rétabli ; usage des représentations et causes antécédentes
[God as Cause of Causes]
(p.108: “50. C’est donc le même mouvement d’expansion …”)
[In sum: God as the world soul is the source of all causality. Our souls are a part of God’s soul, so whatever our souls cause, God is thereby causing.]
[I am not entirely sure, but the idea here might be the following. We saw in section 2.1.4.3.49.2 that the leading part of the soul receives impressions and sends back impulses through the pneumatic tentacles to the other parts of the body. We also said that our pneuma (psyche) is a part of the divine pneuma. So God animates corporeal bodies by moving their pneumata, and in this way God has universal causal power over everything. I wonder if the idea here is the following, but this is a wild guess. The fact that we decide how to respond would seem to contradict the notion that God decides everything. But since the leading part of our soul is a part of the leading part of God’s (the world’s) soul/pneuma, that means it is still God who is behind all causation. Please read the quotation to see what is really meant:]
50. C’est donc le même mouvement d’expansion qui, du principe hégémonique, va dans les sept « organes » corporels et dans chacun des « comportements » (τὰ πὼς ἔχοντα) ; c’est par un même mouvement que le pneuma divin anime les agents corporels, et suscite et soutient l’enchaînement des événements, la « série des causes solidaires entre elles »4. La « cause des causes » est cause de tous les effets.
(108)
4. Sén., cons. ad Helu., VIII, 3 : « Causarum inter se cohaerentium (cf. de benef., IV, VII, 2 : « Series implexa causarum ») – Dans ces expressions, ainsi que dans la formule de Servius : « Connexio rerum per aeternitatem se inuicem tenens » (adu. Virgil., Aen., III. 376, S.V.F., II, 919), les deux « series » sont visiblement identifiées ou, plutôt, le problème de leur distinction n’est même pas posé. Il ne l’est, par Chrysippe, que du point de vue, tout relatif, de telle causa perflecta donnée, ce qui n’empêche que cette même cause, à l'égard d’une autre, peut remplir l’office de simple antécédent.
(108)
[The Usage of Impressions, Given Fatefully, Used/Resisted Freely]
(p.108-110: “Conjointement et identiquement, les causes particulières …”)
[In sum: Destiny dictates that we undergo certain events, meaning that we are determinately caused to have certain impressions. Impressions will be the antecedent causes of our reactions. But our reactions are not determined by a necessity of the impressional antecedent cause, which is really only an auxiliary and proximate cause. Our rational faculty thinks independently of the sensory impressions, and it is free to generate its own rational impressions. It can therefore generate impressions to counteract the causal power of the sensory impressions so to bring about a more rationally-guided, chosen reaction. Here we can observe the following picture. Something acted on us. The way it affected us, and thus the impressions we receive, are caused by a necessary (primary and perfect) causation. This is fate in the sense that whatever happens (to us) does so by necessity. But these causes in us, from our internal perspective, are received not with their perfect and primary causality pointing toward us, but rather we from our internal perspective get the “flip side” of the causal “coin”, and we experience the impressions as auxiliary and proximate causes. In a sense, causality like this is like the perfect cause ending where auxiliary cause picks up, and the perfect cause we then create likewise ends where the next auxiliary cause picks up. In that way, we have a siblinghood of freedom and fate.]
Particular causes are the perfect causes of every act that depends on them. But this power to be a perfect cause depends also on an event that happens to them; this event is a foreign action which makes the causes [or the acts?, the cause and effect?] come into contact at the same time with the law of destiny and with the liberty of another cause, which is antecedent and proximate. [Maybe the idea here is simply the following. Every perfect cause has a lot of determining power, but each perfect cause only came to be on account of destiny having given the prior antecedent cause the “choice” or occasion to allow for the perfect cause to be in the first place.] We saw that in fact the subsequent intention is rendered contemporaneous with the act to which it consents and thus brings under its dependence what only depends on other things. [We are referred to section 2.1.4.3.45. The idea here might be that we undergo something. But regardless of what it is, we affirm it as what we intend to be happening. By doing so, we said, this is affirming the chain of efficient causality. We say that whatever is happening could not have been otherwise, and it is ultimately good anyway. Whatever we do in response we also affirm as being necessary. So whatever depends on our actions we are saying depends really on everything that happened before us. Under this picture we might not be saying that we have no choice as to how we respond. We might rather be saying that whatever we choose to do, we simply affirm as not being otherwise. I am not sure.] [The syntax in the next sentence is a bit complex, and I cannot follow the idea. The best I can do for now is look at the cited passages, and use them as a basis to try to summarize the text.
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book I, Ch.1, lines 7-8:
As then it was fit to be so, that which is best of all and supreme over all is the only thing which the gods have placed in our power, the right use of appearances; but all other things they have not placed in our power. Was it because they did not choose? I indeed think that, if they had been able, they would have put these other things also in our power, but they certainly could not. For as we exist on the earth, and are bound to such a body and to such companions, how was it possible for us not to be hindered as to these things by externals?
(Epictetus, The Discourses, copied from Perseus)
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book I, Ch.6, lines 37-43:
Come then do you also having observed these things look to the faculties which you have, and when you have looked at them, say: Bring now, 0 Zeus, any difficulty that thou pleasest, for I have means given to me by thee and powers for honouring myself through the things which happen. You do not so: but you sit still, trembling for fear that some things will happen, and weeping, and lamenting, and groaning for what does happen: and then you blame the gods. For what is the consequence of such meanness of spirit but impiety? And yet God has not only given us these faculties; by which we shall be able to bear everything thing happens without being depressed or broken by it; but, like a good king and a true father, He has given us these faculties free from hindrance, subject to no compulsion, unimpeded, and has put them entirely in our own power, without even having reserved to Himself any power of hindering or impeding. You, who have received these powers free and as your own, use them not: you do not even see what you have received, and from whom; some of you being blinded to the giver, and not even acknowledging your benefactor, and others, through meanness of spirit, betaking yourselves to fault-finding and making charges against God. Yet I will show to you that you have powers and means for greatness of soul and manliness: but what powers you have for finding fault and making accusations, do you show me.
(Epictetus, The Discourses, copied from Perseus)
My current guess of the point that is made on the basis of these passages is the following. The cosmic movement of pneumatic tension whose unfolding through our experiences throughout our lifetime brings us into causal contact with effects that do not depend on us (to decide them, as the movement happened long before us and the decision was given by God at the beginning). But, this also means that what we do is not dependent on what happened before us. (It depended on the intentions of God at the beginning, but not on what happened right before us). So the same movement of tension whose movements we affirm and thereby we come into contact with the first cause on which we depend is the same movement of tension that brings us into contact with our antecedent causes, on which did not themselves decide our present experiences; likewise, it is the same movement of tension by which we come into contact with the things we efficiently cause, but which were not decided by us. That is surely wrong, so consult the quotation below. Maybe an idea here is that freedom is found on a local, partial level, because no antecedent cause by itself decides what the effect will be, even though it determines it. For, deciding is different than determining. We can choose an action that will determine the outcome, but we do not get to decide which decision we will make. The best we can do is make our choices affirming their necessity in terms of the conditions giving occasion to them be causally determined and their effects being causally determined, and our choice not being causally determined by what comes right before. Let us continue to see if we get more clues.] To put it another way, when the moral agent undergoes some event, they encounter destiny’s activity joined to the freedom of others, and they are pushed to the extreme limits of their zone of influence. [Let us look at the cited text, which comes from Marcus Aurelius, Book VIII, Ch.56 (It does not come from Book VII, as cited in the footnotes. See for example the Couat translation; Marcus Aurelius 1904: 181.):
56. To my elective power, the elective power of another is indifferent, as his animal life, or his flesh is. And how much soever we were formed for the sake of each other, yet the governing part of each one has its own proper power: otherways, the vice of another might become my proper evil or misery: God thought fit, this should not be; lest it should be in the power of another to make me unhappy.
(Marcus Aurelius 2014: 105, copied from Online Library of Liberty)
So the idea might simply be again that our own causality that is a perfect causality for whatever we affect, which for example can be the impressions we give another person, is for them an auxiliary and proximate cause that they are free to respond to however they wish, even though fate is somehow involved. I am not sure if the fate is simply that they are fated to receive that impression, or what else instead.] The event, which proves its providential goodness merely in its taking place, will be rejoined by the will of the agent, and thereby, the event will be submitted to the agent’s causal power. Freedom here [is born before that which threatens to constrain it. I did not read the French here well: “La liberté, ici, se porte au-devant de ce qui menaçait de la contraindre.” Maybe the idea is that we in one sense are constrained by the impressions we have, but our freedom holds fast in the face of those constraints, and we are thereby free to use the impressions within a certain range of liberty.] and this is what it means to cooperate with destiny. But this cooperation goes no further than that, because destiny wants only the event itself, but nothing beyond that. The will thus conforms, and must conform, only to the event in its brute materiality, in its literal content. Beyond that, the interpretation blocks any type of contents of the event, stops short its claim to becoming significant for us, and affirms that it cannot constrain us and that it is nothing for us. Freedom here is detached from the event and is restored to itself. Now, this movement of expansion and of concentration where freedom seems at the same time to both consent and to resist, is expressed in the notion of “antecedent cause”. The event precedes our freedom, but it does not penetrate our freedom. Our freedom immediately replaces the event, and as perfect cause, takes the immediate result of the antecedent cause. We can say that the freedom “kisses” the event to better stifle it. Without this double movement, the perfect cause would never find its implementation, and the proximate cause, instead of remaining antecedent, would continue little by little its action in the interiority of the agent, until completely invading it, to possess it and drive it wherever it pleases. [The next points I do not grasp, but I will guess it is the following. There is a chain of causes. Destiny places our present moment of experiencing and reacting to the event at the end of that chain, in the sense that the following cause tends to be linked to a new causal series that no longer derives its legitimacy from the law of destiny; rather, the next cause assumes its legitimacy by virtue of its own claim to it, aided no longer by our free cooperation, but with our abandonment of our freedom. To better understand the idea here, we should examine the cited passages, Epictetus, Discourses, Book II, Ch.18, lines 23.ff:
By placing these objects on the other side you will conquer the appearance: you will not be drawn away by it. But in the first place be not hurried away by the rapidity of the appearance, but say, Appearances, wait for me a little: let me see who you are, and what you are about: let me put you to the test. And then do not allow the appearance to lead you on and draw lively pictures of the things which will follow; for if you do, it will carry you off wherever it pleases. But rather bring in to oppose it some other beautiful and noble appearance and cast out this base appearance. And if you are accustomed to be exercised in this way, you will see what shoulders, what sinews, what strength you have. But now it is only trifling words, and nothing more.
This is the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried way. Great is the combat, divine is the work; it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness, for freedom from perturbation. Remember God: call on him as a helper and protector, as men at sea call on the Dioscur in a storm. For what is a greater storm than that which comes from appearances which are violent and drive away the reason? For the storm itself, what else is it but an appearance? For take away the fear of death, and suppose as many thunders and lightnings as you please, and you will know what calm and serenity there is in the ruling faculty.
(Epictetus 1890, copied from Perseus)
23. If you set these thoughts against your impression, you will overpower it, and not be swept away by it. 24. But, in the first place, do not allow yourself to be carried away by its intensity: but say, ‘Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me test you.’ 25. Then, afterwards, do not allow it to draw you on by picturing what may come next, for if you do, it will lead you wherever it pleases. But rather, you should introduce some fair and noble impression to replace it, and banish this base and sordid one. 26. If you become habituated to this kind of exercise, you will see what shoulders, what sinews and what vigour you will come to have. But now you have mere trifling talk, and nothing more.
27. The man who is truly in training is the one who exercises himself to confront such impressions. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. 28. The struggle is great, the task divine, to win a kingdom, to win freedom, to win happiness, to win serenity of mind. 29. Remember god. Call on him to aid and protect you, as sailors do the Dioscuri in a storm. For what storm is greater than that which arises from powerful impressions, that drive out | reason? Indeed, what is the storm itself, but an impression? 30. For, do but take away the fear of death, and let there be as much thunder and lightning as you please, you will find that, in the ruling faculty, all is serenity and calm.
(Epictetus 1995: 121-122)
So the idea might be the following, but I am guessing. We are free to choose a different impression, perhaps from our imagination but more likely from our reasoning. It would be perhaps a rational impression (see section 2.1 of Bréhier’s La théorie des incorporels dans l'ancien stoïcisme). But, maybe once we do that, we give up our freedom, because we let this other impression determine our reaction. That is my guess.] The next idea is that this is a “parasitic” causality that is over and above destiny. [I am again guessing, but the idea might be that we freely choose some alternative rational impression, and it is a parasitic causality in the sense of it causes our more rational response, but it is parasitic on the causal powers of impressions, be they rational or not.] [For the next idea, let us look at the cited Epictetus passages (with context), Discourses, Book 1, Ch.1, lines 1-12:
OF all the faculties (except that which I shall soon mention), you will find not one which is capable of contemplating itself, and, consequently, not capable either of approving or disapproving. How far does the grammatic art possess the contemplating power? As far as forming a judgment about what is written and spoken. And how far music? As far as judging about melody. Does either of them then contemplate itself? By no means. But when you must write something to your friend, grammar will tell you what words you should write; but whether you should write or not, grammar will not tell you. And so it is with music as to musical sounds; but whether you should sing at the present time and play on the lute, or do neither, music will not tell you. What faculty then will tell you? That which contemplates both itself and all other things. And what is this faculty? The rational faculty; for this is the only faculty that we have received which examines itself, what it is, and what power it has, and what is the value of this gift, and examines all other faculties: for what else is there which tells us that golden things are beautiful, for they do not say so themselves? Evidently it is the faculty which is capable of judging of appearances. What else judges of music, grammar, and the other faculties, proves their uses, and points out the occasions for using them? Nothing else.
As then it was fit to be so, that which is best of all and supreme over all is the only thing which the gods have placed in our power, the right use of appearances; but all other things they have not placed in our power. Was it because they did not choose? I indeed think that, if they had been able, they would have put these other things also in our power, but they certainly could not. For as we exist on the earth, and are bound to such a body and to such companions, how was it possible for us not to be hindered as to these things by externals?
But what says Zeus? Epictetus, if it were possible, I would have made both your little body and your little property free and not exposed to hindrance. But now be not ignorant of this: this body is not yours, but it is clay finely tempered. And since I was not able to do for you what I have mentioned, I have given you a small portion of us, this faculty of pursuing an object and avoiding it, and the faculty of desire and aversion, and, in a word, the faculty of using the appearances of things; and if you will take care of this faculty and consider it your only possession, you will never be hindered, never meet with impediments; you will not lament, you will not blame, you will not flatter any person.
(Epictetus 1890, copied from Perseus)
] So if providence wants proximate causes to present themselves while at the same time perfect causes to be autonomous, it is because the antecedent causes approach the freedom of principle causes, but they do not invade them. [I do not follow the idea, but maybe for now we can repeat that that perfect causes are free in the sense that they themselves were chosen independently of their own antecedent auxiliary cause, but they are not free in that they then present the occasion, that is to say, they create the auxiliary cause, for the next decision (the next primary cause) to be made.] The “usage of impressions”, which are the impressions that give us the following cause, is a matter of keeping this cause in its place as a simple antecedent (and, in this role, it is always accepted (affirmed)); but this involves resisting it when it claims to go further and try to determine our reaction rather than we determine it, which involves “fighting the impressions”. Hence the title of Epictetus’ Discourses, Book II, Ch.18, cited above, “How Must We Struggle Against Impressions?”]
Conjointement et identiquement, les causes particulières [108|109] sont causes parfaites de tout acte qui dépend d’elles. Mais ce pouvoir dépend d’elles également à l’égard d’un événement qui leur advient, d’un acte étranger où elles rencontrent, à la fois, la loi du destin et la liberté d’une autre cause1, « antécédente et prochaine ». On a vu, en effet, que l’intention subséquente se rend contemporaine de l’acte auquel elle consent et ramène ainsi sous sa dépendance ce qui ne dépend que d’autrui (§ 45). Il faut ajouter maintenant que c’est le même mouvement de tension qui, à partir de la Cause des causes, se déploie de proche en proche, jusqu’au dernier antécédent et à l’acte qui nous frappe, puis, au rebours, se concentre dans l’intention consentante de la cause parfaite et se reprend dans la Cause première qui veut et cet acte et cette intention, les choses qui ne dépendent pas de nous et la liberté, pour nous, de n’en pas dépendre2. Ou encore : dans l’événement qui lui échoit, l’agent moral se heurte à l’action du destin jointe à la liberté d’autrui ; il est frappé aux extrêmes limites de sa zone d’influence3. L’événement, qui prouve sa bonté providentielle en ceci même qu’il advient, sera rejoint par la volonté de l’agent et, par là, soumis à son pouvoir causal. La liberté, ici, se porte au-devant de ce qui menaçait de la contraindre, et c’est en cela que consiste la coopération avec le destin. Mais la coopération ne va pas plus loin, parce que le destin n’a voulu que l’événement même, mais rien au delà. La volonté ne confirme donc, et n’a à confirmer, que l’événement en sa matérialité brute, en sa teneur littérale. Au delà, l’interprétation lui refuse toute espèce de contenu, arrête net sa prétention à devenir signifiant pour nous, affirme qu’il ne saurait nous contraindre [109|110] et qu’il n’est « rien pour nous ». La liberté, ici, se détache de l’événement et se reprend en elle-même. Or ce mouvement d’expansion et de concentration où la liberté semble à la fois consentir et résister1, est indiqué dans l’idée même de « cause antécédente ». L’événement précède notre liberté, mais ne la pénètre pas. Celle-ci se substitue aussitôt à celui-là, et, cause parfaite, prend la suite immédiate de la cause antécédente ; on pourrait dire qu’elle l’embrasse pour mieux l’étouffer. Sans ce double mouvement, la cause parfaite ne trouverait jamais à s’employer, et la cause prochaine, au lieu de demeurer « antécédente », poursuivrait, de proche en proche, son action dans l’intériorité même de l’agent moral, jusqu’à l’envahir complètement, « le posséder et le conduire où elle veut ». A l’enchaînement des causes où, à notre égard, le destin l’a placée en dernier lieu, la cause prochaine tend à lier une nouvelle série causale qui, elle, ne tire plus sa légitimité de la loi du destin, mais se l’arroge en vertu de sa propre prétention, aidée, non plus de notre libre coopération, mais de notre abandon. Cette causalité parasitaire, étudiée par Epictète2, est proprement «en sus du destin », ὑπὲρ μόρον, selon la formule homérique. – Si donc la providence veut, tout ensemble, l’avènement des causes prochaines et l’autonomie des causes parfaites, c’est parce que, autant qu’il ne dépend que d’elle3, les causes antécédentes s’approchent de la liberté des causes principales, mais ne l’envahissent pas. « L’usage des représentations », c’est-à-dire des représentations qui nous donnent la cause prochaine, se résume à maintenir cette cause à sa place de simple antécédent (et, dans ce rôle, elle est toujours acceptée), mais à lui résister, si elle prétend aller plus loin (et alors, il s’agira de « combattre ses représentations »)4.
(108-110)
1. Il importe d’insister (cf. note précédente et p. 107) sur le caractère tout relatif de la distinction entre causes parfaites et causes adjuvantes. Parfois, on rend absolue cette distinction, en opposant l’autonomie du sage, à la fois à ce qui l’entoure e t au destin. On méconnaît ainsi le caractère cosmique et « politique » du stoïcisme, où la loi du destin a pour équivalent identique le concert des agents parfaits. L’autonomie de l’individu exprime cette totalité, mais, à elle seule, ne la contient ni ne la supporte ; à l ‘instar de la liberté divine, elle passe tout entière dans l’acte moral, mais sans, pour autant, exclure ni renfermer celle des autres agents libres : « Pour toi, ton rôle est de venir et de parler comme tu dois, de disposer ces matières comme il convient. Puis le juge prononce : ‘Je déclare que tu as agi injustement’. ‘Grand bien te fasse ! Quant à moi, j’ai rempli mon rôle. A toi de voir si toi aussi tu as rempli le tien.’ Car lui également court un risque, ne l’oublie pas » (Epict., Diss., II, v, 29).
2. Cf. Epict., Diss., I, I, 7-8 ; I, VI, 40-41.
3. Cf. M.-Aur., VII, 56 : « A mon libre arbitre, le libre arbitre du voisin est aussi indifférent que me sont indifférents son souffle et sa chair, etc… »
(109. Note, for footnote 3, I found the text not in book VII, but in book VIII. See for example the Couat translation; Marcus Aurelius 1904: 181)
1. Cf. Platon, Rép., IV, 437 b.
2. Epict., Diss., II, XVIII, 24-25 : « Ne te laisse pas saisir par la soudaineté du choc, dis : ‘Attends un peu, ô ma représentation ; laisse que je voie ce que tu es et quel est ton objet, laisse-moi t’éprouver.’ Puis, ne lui permets pas de se développer et de déployer la série de ses tableaux (καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν μὴ ἐφῇς αὐτῇ προάγειν ἀναζωγραφούσῃ τὰ ἑξῆς, cf § 16), sinon elle te possède et te conduit où elle veut » ; réussir cette méthode, c’est résoudre un sophisme « bien plus savant que celui du Dominateur », § 17). – Comp. aussi la théorie des passions de Chrysippe.
3· Epict., Diss., I, I, 8-12.
4. C’est le titre même du traité cité : Πῶς ἀγωνιστέον πρὸς τὰς φαντασίας (II, XVIII).
(110)
From:
Goldschmidt, Victor. 1953. Le système stoïcien et l'idée de temps. Paris: Vrin.
Otherwise:
Epictetus. 1890. The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheridion and Fragments. English translation by George Long. London: George Bell and Sons.
Copied from Perseus:
http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0557.tlg001.perseus-eng1
Epictetus. 1995. The Discourses of Epictetus [with the Handbook and the Fragments of Epictetus], edited by Christopher Gill. Revised English translation of Elizabeth Carter’s English translation (1957, Everyman) by Robin Hard. [Everyman edition;] London: Dent. North Clarendon, Vermont: Tuttle.
Online text at:
Marcus Aurelius. 1904. Pensées de Marc-Auréle. Edited by Pau Fournier. French translation by d’Auguste Couat. Bordeaux: Feret & Fils.
PDF available at:
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