women generally do not have as developed faculties of reason as men do. This isn't an insult, it's just a fact. If you want more details, just read the two texts I suggested. — Agustino

I know both essays, it was jamalrob here who a year or two ago encouraged me to read Schopenhauer because of Sch's great feeling for music, and I'm glad I followed his advice. It seems to me that for its time 'Metaphysics of love' is trail-blazing and interesting. I'm amazed you think you can endorse 'On women', though, which I find extremely misogynistic. it argues, for example, that married women should be entirely deprived of property, as well as its various ill-founded remarks about people's 'nature'. If you think the present-day evidence supports as a 'fact' the notion that 'women generally do not have as developed faculties of reason as men do' then you are looking at different evidence from what I see.

Actually, just "putting up with it" doesn't do justice to the position that I've been arguing in favour of. We can reduce it to make life better, and reduce it to such an extent that life is worth living.

Interesting points about suicide, by the way.

I know both essays, it was jamalrob here who a year or two ago encouraged me to read Schopenhauer because of Sch's great feeling for music, and I'm glad I followed his advice. It seems to me that for its time 'Metaphysics of love' is trail-blazing and interesting. I'm amazed you think you can endorse 'On women', though, which I find extremely misogynistic. it argues, for example, that married women should be entirely deprived of property, as well as its various ill-founded remarks about people's 'nature'. If you think the present-day evidence supports as a 'fact' the notion that 'women generally do not have as developed faculties of reason as men do' then you are looking at different evidence from what I see. — mcdoodle

I don't agree with everything in "On women". For example I disagree about property ownership. But I do agree with Schopenhauer regarding the faculty of reason. And again, I think both Schopenhauer and I mean to speak more about genius in that phrase then the common folk. The difference is small in the common folk, it only becomes visible in people of genius. That's why you can easily have women who are scientists, engineers, philosophers, etc, but you find it really really difficult to have women who are geniuses in these fields.

Actually, just "putting up with it" doesn't do justice to the position that I've been arguing in favour of. We can reduce it to make life better, and reduce it to such an extent that life is worth living.

Interesting points about suicide, by the way. — Sapientia

Fundamentally, Schopenhauer would disagree with this because, by necessity, if Will is ever-present and really is the noumenal flip side to phenomenal existence, there is no program that will actually distinguish Will- the cause of much suffering, except moments of aesthetic contemplation (especially on tragedy), cultivating compassion for fellow-sufferers, and outright renunciation of the phenomenal cycle of desire/goals. I am not sure how far I would go along with Schop's preference for asceticism as an answer because it is similar to Stoicism in certain ways, but goes much further in its lifestyle. Again, you might have to ask someone like Thorongil how Schop doesn't get himself twisted in his own paradox, because if every act is an act of willing, then even renounciation would be will..but perhaps Will can be employed in its own demise, just for the amount of time it takes to be "free" from its cravings..But again, @Thorongil seems to have a more developed idea about how this can be the case.

Just in my own view, it is not that I think that certain practices FOR SOME PEOPLE, can possibly help them out (even if it is just by self-delusion), it is that, even under the best of material circumstances (i.e. First World Problems), there is an exhausting nature to existence itself- to just being. And as @The Great Whatever indicated, it's hard to gauge what people really think when they evaluate life on a philosophy forum. In the moment of living, it can be very exhausting, one thing after another, and at the end of it emptiness, but in rhetorical forums as this, or in hindsight questionnaires, people tend to Pollyannize the situation when trying to evaluate the world. I can't prove it. No doubt, people's anecdotes can be taken as the truth with no reason to give pause or one can be more suspect of it.

Also, I contend that you need emotions to motivate to do anything, and this is roughly equivalent to a "striving" force. Stoicism might try to deal with the outcomes of excessive anguish over expectations regarding what one cannot control, but one MUST desire/want to live and survive- it is a necessity. And desires and wants in themselves, mean there is something we are lacking. This very lack is more or less the idea of Will's insatiable "becoming-that-is-never-satisfied". We are uncomfortable with our bodies, our environments, our social situations, so we move about doing this or that. There is no alternative. When we move about in this fashion, it is not with robotic programming (at least internally), but with intention, desire/want/need and this is something Stoicism does not touch, and thus in the Schop conception, does not get to the root of anything. There is an exhaustion that cannot be glazed over by saying "BUT THE FEELING OF ACCOMPLISHMENT--YIPPIEE!!!"

This is patently false. Schopenhauer is in fact stating that the Platonic idea of women is as he describes it. It doesn't follow that every women is, by logical necessity, like that. However, it does follow, that there will be a tendency for women to be like that. But this does not enable one to "know" a priori what a particular representation of the Platonic idea of women (a particular woman) is like. Why? Because representations fail to match the Platonic idea - they are merely distorted shadows of it. — Agustino

Indeed. And that's what constitutes the naturalistic fallacy. People are never Platonic idea(l)s. No human ever is. A Platonic idea(l) of a person has nothing to with any existing person at all. It is nothing more than a value, an expectation, an idea of what someone (in this case do), do "by their nature," while completely ignoring their nature (as states of existence are never the Platonic idea(l)).

The Platonic idea(l) of women is no description of women. No woman is like it because any woman, by definition, is an existing state rather than a Platonic idea(l). But that's the problem. It means that Platonic idea(l)s are useless with respect to describing people who exist. In terms of understanding the nature of people, the Platonic idea(l) gives nothing.

So... to apply the Platonic idea(l) to the question of understanding any existing person (in this case women) is incoherent. It is a contradiction. It attempts to say that a Platonic idea(l) tells us something about someone even though that's exactly what it can never do, as an existing thing never amounts to the Platonic idea(l). People aren't even distorted shadows of Platonic idea(l)s.

Thus, this Platonic idea(l) of women is, rather than any sort of description of living women, nothing more than as excuse to reveal in the idea men a geniuses over women. It is concerned not with talking about living women, but rather enshrining a sense of what women are, what they can do, what they are meant to be. It is deep-rooted sexism rather than honest description of the world. It is the practice of setting an assumption about the nature of women in discourse, which automatically applied without any consideration of an existing woman (whether they be a genius or not). It is actually an understanding of what women are and are meant to do masquerading, simultaneously, as non-description (Platonic idea(l)) and description ("but I'm just describing how women geniuses are rare" ).

By "real deal" I assume you are referring to pain caused by nociceptors. Presumably this could be solved by technology. — darthbarracuda

It could be mitigated, but new pains would arise. Those who medically cannot feel pain do not by that token have 'good' lives in any sense.

It could be mitigated, but new pains would arise. Those who medically cannot feel pain do not by that token have 'good' lives in any sense. — The Great Whatever

How so?

TGW, you say the stoic response is to do nothing, but this is just false. Say a tornado comes and kills your family. The stoic response is to avoid becoming obsessed about the tragedy, and instead attempt to move on with your life and make the best of what is left behind (and this is not doing nothing). Of course you'll still be hurt by the tragedy itself, but at least you won't continue being hurt years and years afterwards by your obsession about it (replaying the events in your mind, etc.). If you disagree with this response, then I am asking you: what should your response be? What is the response that minimises suffering if not this stoic one?

(and this is not doing nothing) — Agustino

How is that not doing nothing? The response is 'not to...'

If you disagree with this response, then I am asking you: what should your response be? What is the response that minimises suffering if not this stoic one? — Agustino

I disagree with the framing of the question. It should be, how should we prevent getting hit by tornadoes? What really minimizes suffering is of course anti-natalism. Barring that, I think a reasonable Cyrenacism is the way to go, though that doesn't entail any specific life advice (that I don't think philosophy should endeavor to give).

The stoic response is to avoid[...] — Agustino

How is that not doing nothing? The response is 'not to...' — The Great Whatever

To avoid is to do something, like when the driver of a car swerves to avoid a pothole.

How is that not doing nothing? The response is 'not to...' — The Great Whatever

Yes, not obsessing is doing something when you take into account that most people would obssess in that situation.

I disagree with the framing of the question. It should be, how should we prevent getting hit by tornadoes? What really minimizes suffering is of course anti-natalism. Barring that, I think a reasonable Cyrenacism is the way to go, though that doesn't entail any specific life advice (that I don't think philosophy should endeavor to give). — The Great Whatever

But we can't prevent getting hit by tornados or any other potential tragedy. At least we can't prevent it in many circumstances. So what are we supposed to do in those cases? Despair?

And how is "reasonable Cyrenacism" helpful in any way? If there is no specific life advice, then how does it improve any situation?

Yes, not obsessing is doing something when you take into account that most people would obssess in that situation. — Agustino

So not doing something is doing something? Wild...

But we can't prevent getting hit by tornados or any other potential tragedy. — Agustino

Not with that attitude!

Ok TGW, so you think we can ALWAYS prevent getting hit by tornadoes and all tragedies in our life? If not, then what are we to do when we can't prevent it?

So not doing something is doing something? Wild... — The Great Whatever

Yes, because in many cases not doing something is harder than doing something. Hence it also counts as a doing merely because it takes active effort.

Yes, because in many cases not doing something is harder than doing something. Hence it also counts as a doing merely because it takes active effort. — Agustino

Nevertheless, the Stoic solution is, as I said, not to do anything.

Ok TGW, so you think we can ALWAYS prevent getting hit by tornadoes and all tragedies in our life? If not, then what are we to do when we can't prevent it? — Agustino

No, but you are asking the wrong questions. I think the question of what to do with pain is misguided – there isn't a way to put band-aids on it, but it can to a limited extent be prevented. Stoicism often bleeds into vulgar 'self help' philosophy: don't eat too much! and so on. It's also in a sense reactionary, in that it takes the universe to just naturally be what it is, with it (sometimes literally) being impossible to change, and hence one has to buckle down and accept one's lot (which includes its suffering) rather than take seriously the possibility it might change.

Nevertheless, the Stoic solution is, as I said, not to do anything. — The Great Whatever

Depends how you define "not doing anything". If whatever you're doing takes effort, then it's not "not doing anything" in my books. Simple as that.

No, but you are asking the wrong questions. I think the question of what to do with pain is misguided – there isn't a way to put band-aids on it, but it can to a limited extent be prevented. — The Great Whatever

*facepalm* What does the prevention of pain have to do with what attitude we should adopt when we can't or fail to prevent it? Don't you see the blindingly obvious: that the stoic attitude doesn't tell you not to do anything in your power to prevent pain, BUT RATHER provides you with an attitude to have against the pain that you can't - or fail to - prevent? Sorry to be so upfront, but what you're saying is so asinine and puerile that it's almost not even worth addressing. You leave questions that I asked before unanswered, and you don't seem to be looking for a discussion. If you are right, then please show us where we're going wrong, because I'm sure all of us want to learn and make our lives better. But right now, you're pissing me off because you don't address things completely, and it seems I have to work to get any information out of you. It seems you feign your lack of understanding about what I or Sapientia mean.

one has to buckle down and accept one's lot (which includes its suffering) rather than take seriously the possibility it might change. — The Great Whatever

Well, sometimes one really has to buckle down... I fail to see how this wouldn't be the case, unless we became Gods.

Depends how you define "not doing anything". If whatever you're doing takes effort, then it's not "not doing anything" in my books. Simple as that. — Agustino

"O Stoic, misfortune has befallen me. What shall I do?" "Not this, not that." "What then?" "..."

Don't you see the blindingly obvious: that the stoic attitude doesn't tell you not to do anything in your power to prevent pain, BUT RATHER provides you with an attitude to have against the pain that you can't - or fail to - prevent? — Agustino

But it doesn't provide you with an attitude in the first place, it just pettily moralizes about how grieving is stupid. "Suck it up" literally means nothing -- search it round and round, and you will find there is literally nothing you can actually do that corresponds to what the Stoic tells you to do. The Stoic essentially says, just be such that whatever bothers you, doesn't, or doesn't as much. There's no advice.

And again the idea that the universe is fixed and unalterable and that your suffering is beyond your control does stop you, if you take it seriously, from preventing further suffering. And after all, you have a solution for alleviating it, just do nothing and it will somehow not be bad anymore.

I'm sure all of us want to learn and make our lives better. — Agustino

I doubt it.

"O Stoic, misfortune has befallen me. What shall I do?" "Not this, not that." "What then?" "..." — The Great Whatever

Well I think it's not so... rather the stoic would advise one to stop focusing on the misfortune, and instead switch one's focus to something more productive.

But it doesn't provide you with an attitude in the first place, it just pettily moralizes about how grieving is stupid. "Suck it up" literally means nothing -- search it round and round, and you will find there is literally nothing you can actually do that corresponds to what the Stoic tells you to do. The Stoic essentially says, just be such that whatever bothers you, doesn't, or doesn't as much. There's no advice. — The Great Whatever

Well suck it up can be an advice. What if someone sits in their room and laments the death of their sister day after day? You go to them, you tell them to suck it up, and go outside to do something else. Focus on something they can do something about, which, for example, may be helping their younger sibling who is still alive. If they don't suck it up, they'll remain stuck doing nothing as you say, and it will exacerbate their suffering even more.

I doubt it. — The Great Whatever

Well I am telling you, I am interested if you do have something valuable. But so far it seems to be you are merely saying the stoic solution is untenable, you don't explain in any clear detail why this is so, and you fail to provide an alternative which deals with the same problem that the stoic fails to deal with in a better manner.

Well I think it's not so... rather the stoic would advise one to stop focusing on the misfortune, and instead switch one's focus to something more productive. — Agustino

Stop doing this, stop doing that. Ultimately it just amounts to 'that problem you have? Just don't have it anymore.'

Well suck it up can be an advice. What if someone sits in their room and laments the death of their sister day after day? — Agustino

I think that would be an entirely understandable reaction, and it's not necessarily my place to tell them how they should react to the death of a loved one.

I think that would be an entirely understandable reaction, and it's not necessarily my place to tell them how they should react to the death of a loved one. — The Great Whatever

Well it certainly doesn't make them feel good to act that way. Neither does it help them in anyway. So how does it follow that it's not your place, as an ethicist, to tell them how to manage the situation better so that they can move on with their lives and start feeling better?

Again, you are refusing to tell me what that person should do to feel better (assuming the stoic answer isn't the right one)... You are refusing to tell me how he can make his life better.

Again, you are refusing to tell me what that person should do to feel better (assuming the stoic answer isn't the right one)... You are refusing to tell me how he can make his life better. — Agustino

I don't think philosophy should be in the business of giving self-help advice and maxims about how to live. It should be in the business of scrutinizing ideas and exposing errors. Bad 'ethical' positions are, if you like, errors.

Ok, but you seem to think that the person in the example above is not committing an error. If they are, how would you go about criticising their error?

That depends on what claims they make. I can't know that from the fact that they're grieving over the death of a loved one.

This is nonsense, I don't follow. The fact that they are unnecessarily grieving does not depend on what claims they make.

I may be wrong, but in fact, I think no one else reading this thread follows. If anyone does, please clarify for me, or for anyone else who doesn't understand, what TGW means.

I got lost about two-thirds of the way down the previous page in the sparring ring between you and TGW. Something about tornadoes and a weird desire to evangelize disillusionment with the world.

And as The Great Whatever indicated, it's hard to gauge what people really think when they evaluate life on a philosophy forum. In the moment of living, it can be very exhausting, one thing after another, and at the end of it emptiness, but in rhetorical forums as this, or in hindsight questionnaires, people tend to Pollyannize the situation when trying to evaluate the world. I can't prove it. No doubt, people's anecdotes can be taken as the truth with no reason to give pause or one can be more suspect of it. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, but I've been asking myself that question the last couple weeks as I live my life, and it very much depends on how I feel. Sometimes I feel the emptiness and the meaninglessness of one desire after another, and sometimes I feel the fullness of life, and I look forward to the one thing after another.

This leads me to believe that all this talk really depends on how one feels about their own life, setting aside tragedy. Of course all those terrible things happen in the world, but the pessimist is arguing something more. They are saying that even if everyone were fortunate and escaped any sort of tragedy, they would still suffer from the ceaseless desiring. And yet I can't verify that for myself. It only seems to be true when I'm depressed, or highly stressed, or grumpy and irritated. It doesn't seem to be the case when I'm feeling good.

So which is it? What makes the empty feeling more real than the full feeling? What makes it wrong when I think to myself that life is worth living, for me anyway, at least for this part of it? It makes me wonder if the pessimist isn't just chronically depressed. Now that doesn't mitigate all the terrible things that do happen in the world, but just living doesn't seem to so terrible all the time. Not to me.

I can understand both points of view, but I can't understand what makes one more true than the other, except for how one feels about it. I harken back to my experience of competitive running. It was hard and painful, but whether it was worth it and enjoyable depended entirely on how I felt about it.

And again, I think both Schopenhauer and I mean to speak more about genius in that phrase then the common folk. That's why you can easily have women who are scientists, engineers, philosophers, etc, but you find it really really difficult to have women who are geniuses in these fields. — Agustino

Well, Dickinson's three little stanzas get a better reaction out of me than Heidegger's endless rambling about Being-Toward-Death, despite being about very similar subjects. Of course, poetry isn't philosophy (or is it?).

I may be wrong, but in fact, I think no one else reading this thread follows. If anyone does, please clarify for me, or for anyone else who doesn't understand, what TGW means. — Agustino

Pain cannot be fought. At least that is my reading. The dishonesty of the stoic is in presenting a solution to pain. Nothing helps with pain. If there is pain, there is no means by which to endure it or mitigate it. It must be cut-off entirely. It must not exist.

Since people can't do anything about pain, any suggestion of a "solution" to pain is merely platitude which is ignoring how much pain hurts. So the grieving man is, indeed, making no error. His life hurts exactly as he feels. He is in pain and so nothing he does can solve the problem. A maxim he shouldn't be in pain because it is a waste of his time won't help with his pain at all. If his pain is to be solved, it must cease to exist.

The problem is in trying to distinguish between "pain" and an "attitude to pain." Pain is a feeling and so is someone attitude in a moment. One cannot take the attitude pain is not really painful. The tornado is a tragedy and no amount of insisting it is best to move on with life will change that. The "attitude to pain" is retroactive dishonesty about what happened. It lies about how bad the moment of pain was /is.

People can get to a point where a pain is no longer there or is replaced by a different one (e.g. obsession and despair over a dead loved one replaced by occasional events of sadness). This, however, is a matter of an absence of pain or a different one. No "dulling" of a pain occurred. No instance of pain has become "lesser."

Ok TGW, so you think we can ALWAYS prevent getting hit by tornadoes and all tragedies in our life? If not, then what are we to do when we can't prevent it? — Agustino

Nothing. The question doesn't make sense. Sometimes there is pain we can do nothing about and tragedies we cannot prevent. There is no answer. Not even anti-natalism can help here because the people affected by the tragedy are already born. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to stop getting hurt.

Pain cannot be fought. At least that is my reading. The dishonesty of the stoic is in presenting a solution to pain. Nothing helps with pain. If there is pain, there is no means by which to endure it or mitigate it. It must be cut-off entirely. It must not exist. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Depends on the pain. Is it the pain of running an ultra-marathon, or is it the pain of losing a child? Is it the pain of trying to meet a deadline for a project you've poured your heart into, or the pain of not being able to follow your dreams?

Seems to me suffering is not the result of pain necessarily, but what accompanies the pain. Is it accompanied by purpose? Is the pain under your control? Do you retain a positive attitude after breaking your leg, knowing that you'll be able to walk again in a few weeks? Of course it depends on how great the pain is. Probably a lot harder to be positive under torture, or seeing people die. It's also harder to remain positive if you don't expect to walk again, or don't expect the pain to go away.

If someone tells me that life isn't worth living because we experience pain, then my response is how much? A headache doesn't make me wish I never lived. Being stretched on the rack probably would. Being disappointed at not getting something I want doesn't make life seem pointless to me, but being stuck in deep depression does.

I think the Stoic is right up to a point, but I'd change it from being indifferent to being in the right mood, or having the right attitude toward normal life, which may not be under the individual's control. Just pointing out that how a person feels about things can greatly effect how much they think life sucks. Or at least it does me. Waiting in traffic is only mildly annoying when I'm doing fine, it becomes near unbearable when I'm very tired and highly irritated.

Since people can't do anything about pain, any suggestion of a "solution" to pain is merely platitude which is ignoring how much pain hurts. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This raises the question as to whether pain is as bad for animals as for humans. I think that for a self-reflective (linguistic) entity being-in-pain (in its worst dimension) does not consist merely in feeling an unpleasant physical sensation (however intense), but suffering the fear of what it might signify, for example of its potential for the negation of our possibilities and our life's meanings, and particularly in view of its possible permanence as a state, of its becoming our ultimate (at least potentially unto death) imprisoner and hence dis-empowerer.

These kinds of reflective dispositions associated with pain may be amenable to stoic ameliorations; and I cannot see that there would be anything "platitudinous" or even inauthentic about availing oneself of such philosophical aids. If thinking a certain way can help to change my attitude towards inevitable pain, which in turn makes it far more bearable, even though it may be to no degree merely sensationally lessened, what could be wrong with that?