Relation to oneself· Adversitycoredifficulty
Scope of action
Facing the world, should we focus on what is up to us or strive to extend our mastery?
Is the only seat of our power within, in our judgements and desires, the course of the world wholly beyond us, or can we lay hold of that order and reshape it to our hand? To take a position is to say how far our real grip on things extends, and whether freedom is won within us or out in the world.
What is up to us
11Some things are up to us, our judgments and our will; others are not, such as health, reputation, or external events. Wisdom consists in focusing our efforts on the former and accepting the latter with equanimity.
Explore this position →Diogenes of Sinopeexplicit
One is free only in proportion to what one can do without: every need is a hold that the world, fortune or the powerful have on us. Hence (self-sufficiency) as the goal, living so that nothing external is necessary and no one therefore holds anything we depend on. When Alexander, master of the known world, offered to grant him any wish, Diogenes asked only that he stand out of his sunlight: the most destitute of men, if he desires nothing, is more invulnerable than the mightiest of kings, who remains at the mercy of what he owns. The Stoics would later take up this operation as the of control, but Diogenes carries it out through deeds and destitution rather than inner judgment, without turning it into a settled thesis.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 38
Epictetusexplicit
The root of all unhappiness, Epictetus argues, is to expect one's happiness from things that are not in our power. Hence the opening move of the : sorting our concerns into two classes by the single criterion of mastery, what is wholly up to us (judgments, desires, aversions) and what is not (body, goods, reputation). The is not one thesis among others but the operation that conditions everything that follows: all disturbance arises from having claimed a hold on what eludes us. Where the older Stoics dwelt on cosmic fate, Epictetus brings the division down to the concrete use, here and now, of what is properly mine.
Enchiridion, §1 · Discourses, I.1
Marcus Aureliusexplicit
Taking up the of , Marcus continually brings his mind back to the one masterable domain: external things do not touch the soul, which is disturbed only by the judgment it adds to them; remove that judgment, drop the « I am harmed », and the harm itself is gone.
Meditations, V, 19 · Meditations, VI, 52 · Meditations, VIII, 47
Senecaexplicit
Misfortune comes not from things but from our grip on them: only what we wrongly count as ours can be torn away. From this Seneca draws the : to count as one's own only one's judgements and desires, surrendering fortune to the chance that gives and reclaims it. Less a speculative thesis than a practical directive, it makes invulnerable by shrinking the surface he offers to blows: what he carries within, no fortune can reach.
Letters to Lucilius, IX (the wise man is self-sufficient) · On the Constancy of the Wise Man, V-VI
Cynicismexplicit
One is free only in proportion to what one can do without: every need is a hold that the world, fortune or the powerful have on us. From this the Cynic draws (self-sufficiency) as the goal, living so that nothing external is necessary and no one therefore holds anything we depend on. When Alexander, master of the known world, offered to grant him any wish, Diogenes asked only that he stand out of his sunlight: this shows that the most destitute of men, if he desires nothing, is more invulnerable than the mightiest of kings, who remains at the mercy of what he owns.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 38
Stoicismexplicit
The is the founding act: only our judgments, desires and impulses are truly up to us, not the body, reputation or fortune. The argument is practical: tying one's good to what is not up to us dooms one to disturbance, whereas concentrating effort on the one masterable domain makes serenity invulnerable to circumstance, even in exile or prison.
Epictetus, Enchiridion, §1 · Epictetus, Discourses
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Taoismexplicit
The world already follows its own : to set it right by will, by law or by calculated effort is to break that order and produce the opposite of what one intends, as one kills a plant by pulling at its shoots. From this observation Taoism draws : not inertia, but an efficacy through espousal rather than constraint, like water that, being the most yielding, wears down the hard by giving way to it. Where would reform man through moral effort and ritual, the Taoist holds that all willful action deepens the very disorder it means to mend: it is the exact reverse of a drive to mastery.
Laozi, Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), ch. 43, 78 · Zhuangzi, ch. 6 (The Great and Venerable Teacher)
Laoziexplicit
Against the voluntarism that would bend the course of things to a design, Laozi observes that forced intervention turns against itself: the more one grasps, the more one loses; the more laws are made, the more thieves arise. is not passivity but the art of espousing the of things, like water that flows around the obstacle without fighting it: act without forcing, and everything is accomplished. It is the exact reverse of the Prometheanism that measures the human by their grip on the world.
Dao De Jing, ch. 37 and 48 · Dao De Jing, ch. 57 and 64
Zhuangziexplicit
Cook Ding carves an ox without ever dulling his blade: he does not cut, he follows the openings the carcass offers, and the knife moves through the void. The parable gives its most concrete sense: not inaction, but action so wedded to the real that it ceases to be effort. Against the voluntarism that bends things to a design, efficacy comes to one who imposes nothing and slips where the situation yields, like the swimmer of the falls who "goes in with the swirl and comes out with the eddy." Where draws non-action toward the art of governing, Zhuangzi unfolds it as a lived, almost bodily mastery of the right gesture.
Zhuangzi, ch. 3 (Cook Ding) · Zhuangzi, ch. 19 (the swimmer of the falls)
The Buddhainferable
A decisive part of suffering springs from our claim to master what eludes us: one cannot command the aggregates "let them be thus and not otherwise", and trying to hold the impermanent only feeds . Wisdom consists in loosening that grip and working the one domain genuinely open to effort, one's own mind, which brings Gautama close to an economy of control centered on inwardness.
Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.59 (one cannot command the aggregates) · Dhammapada, ch. III (The Mind)
Socratesinferable
Before his judges, Socrates declares himself serene: they may kill or banish him, they cannot harm him, for the only real evil is to make one's soul bad, and no one can do that in one's stead. External goods, the body, reputation, life itself, are not in our power and are not the true good; the soul's virtue, by contrast, depends on us. The Stoics would build their on this intuition.
Plato, Apology, 30c-d (they can kill me but not harm me) · Plato, Apology, 41c-d
Arguments and objections (3)
Knowing the difference
named middle1Between accepting what lies beyond us and trying to transform everything, the task is to discern, case by case, what we can change and what we must accept. Neither resignation nor omnipotence: act where we have a grip, let go of the rest.
Explore this position →Show implicit positions (1)
Odysseusinferable
Facing adversity, Odysseus neither resigns himself nor claims to bend everything: he distinguishes the two. He acts tirelessly where he has a grip, building his raft, forcing his ruses, but endures what is beyond him, the wrath of , the lost years, the waiting. At the height of his fury he addresses his own heart and orders it to hold. This self-mastery, which distinguishes the changeable from the inevitable, later made him the enduring sage of the .
Odyssey, XX, 18-21 ("Endure, my heart") · Odyssey, V (the raft and endurance at sea) · Odyssey, I, V (the wrath of Poseidon)
Arguments and objections (3)
Prometheanism
1The limits of our power are not fixed once and for all: through knowledge, technology, and collective action, humanity can transform the world and push back what seemed out of reach. Rather than accepting the order of things, we should work to change it.
Explore this position →Machiavelliexplicit
Against the fatalism that leaves everything to chance or to God, Machiavelli reserves half the game for man: rules one part of our actions but leaves us to govern the other. is that active part: to raise, while the weather is calm, dikes against the river that will overflow, to seize the occasion, to fit one's manner to the quality of the times. He leans toward boldness, for fortune yields to the daring.
The Prince, ch. XXV · The Prince, ch. VI (the occasion)
Arguments and objections (3)
See the problem map in the Atlas →
- PrescriptiveMoral SituationAccept, or resign oneself?
Where is the line between serenity before the inevitable and passivity, even a convenient excuse, before a wrong that effort could put right?
a wrong suffered
Sub-problems to deepen this axis's discussion
- DescriptiveTruly masters of our own judgments?
Stoicism places our judgments on the side of what is up to us, but do we truly choose them, or are our opinions, emotions and desires dictated to us by the body, our history and the causes that make us? If even the inner world escapes us, does the dichotomy still hold?
our judgments - DescriptiveMy power, or our power?
What is not up to me alone, illness, injustice, the course of the world, may be up to us together: by seeking power in the inner self alone, does the dichotomy ignore the collective action that shifts the limits of the possible?
collective power
Related problems to broaden toward other axes
- PrescriptiveExistentialSerenity, or achievement?
Is the good of a life the peace of an untroubled soul, or the active achievement of one who transforms the world and leaves a mark on it?
a good life - PrescriptiveExistentialIs hoping wise?
Is hope, which binds us to things beyond our power, a weakness that disturbs the soul, or the very spring that drives us to transform what can be transformed?
hope - PrescriptiveExistentialMaking peace with what was
The past is what is no longer up to us par excellence: should we accept it fully, even to the point of willing that it was, or stay its prisoner through regret?
the past - PrescriptiveMoral Thought experimentVirtue in the face of misfortune
Was his life, in spite of everything, a good one? In other words: is happiness safe from misfortune, or can it be torn away from us?
a lifeThe highest good
"Ask of me any boon you like." "Stand out of my sunlight."Diogenes of Sinope · Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 38
Endure, my heart; you have borne worse before this.Homer · Odyssey, XX, 18
I judge it may be true that fortune is the arbiter of half our actions, but that she still leaves the other half, or nearly so, for us to govern.Machiavelli · The Prince, ch. XXV
I no longer look with my eyes but with my spirit, and the blade follows of itself the natural openings.Zhuangzi · ch. 3 (The Secret of Caring for Life)
The Dao does nothing, and yet nothing is left undone.Laozi · Dao De Jing, ch. 37
They may kill me, banish me, strip me of my rights: Anytus and Meletus can do that, but harm me they cannot.Socrates · Plato, Apology, 30c-d
Of things, some are in our power, and others are not.Epictetus · Enchiridion, §1
Nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water; yet for attacking what is hard and strong nothing surpasses it.Laozi · Dao De Jing, ch. 78
The wise man loses nothing through any loss, for he carries all his goods within himself.Seneca · On the Constancy of the Wise Man, V