Put another way, most modern philosophers would identify the idea that virtue must be “all or nothing” as a false dichotomy, which is a logical fallacy. Similarly, a modern philosopher would not expect anyone to be perfectly virtuous; they would look for an overall excellence of character instead.
In this regard, the later Roman Stoics, like Seneca, strike me as far more realistic than the original Greeks. While the Greek Stoics had described the sage as an aloof and emotionally detached type of being, Seneca made the sage seem more human. He also stressed how the Stoic sage is, like everyone else, subject to normal human feelings. Most importantly, the Roman Stoics placed their emphasis on people who were trying to make progress toward virtue or toward improving their characters. This meant there are three groups of people in relation to Stoic philosophy: sages; “progressors,” or people making progress toward becoming sages; and a third group of people who don’t make progress. While we could call this third group non-progressors, the Roman Stoics didn’t give this group a name or even define them.14 Despite that, as we can clearly see from the writings of Seneca, this group is made up of people who are unconsciously tied to, or enslaved by, false and unexamined beliefs. For our purposes, we’ll call this group the unenquiring (see figure 1), echoing Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I’ll now try to map out this model more fully, to help explain why the Roman Stoics saw Stoicism as a kind of path and how they thought it was possible to make a bit of progress each day through self-reflection, practice, and training. While it’s unlikely for anyone to reach the level of a Stoic sage, it’s still possible, they maintained, to make progress in that direction.
Fig 1: Three broad types of people on the philosophical path, according to the Roman Stoics.
At the apex of figure 1, we find the figure of the Stoic sage, a perfectly wise person. A Stoic sage in normal circumstances is happy, joyous, and tranquil, and displays psychological equanimity. In addition, a sage doesn’t experience any passions (pathē in Greek) or violent emotions, like extreme anger, because those kinds of intense emotions arise from faulty inner judgments. What keeps the Stoic sage free from negative emotions is that he or she only makes sound judgments, so violent emotions never even have a chance to arise. (That said, a Stoic sage will experience normal human feelings, a topic discussed in chapters 4 and 12.)
As we can see, the Stoic sage is an extremely rare kind of philosophical creature. Seneca said it’s so rare that a sage only appears like the Egyptian phoenix, once every five hundred years. (That’s why I’ve included a little phoenix on top of the diagram, as a reminder of its rarity.) And while almost every Stoic philosopher spoke about the sage or wise person, not a single one of them claimed to be a Stoic sage. Within the Stoic school, stretching over centuries, the person most commonly identified as being a true sage was Socrates.15
So if the sage is not impossible, but incredibly rare, what practical value does the idea have? In the end, the sage is a kind of role modeclass="underline" a compass or north star, to give students something to aim for, and to keep them moving in the right direction. In the words of Emily Wilson, Seneca’s biographer, “The figure of the perfect Stoic sage is of interest to Seneca not as an abstraction but as a tool to enable his readers to behave better toward one another.”16
Seneca himself didn’t claim to be a sage. As he admitted, “I am far from being a tolerable human, much less a perfect one.”17 But Seneca referred to the sage or the wise person often, because it was a useful tool. In fact, Seneca defines the nature of the sage so well in his writings that a student of Stoicism could find himself in almost any situation and ask, “How would a Stoic sage respond to this situation?” Even though it might not be perfect, it’s a tool that works.
At the opposite and least philosophically inclined level of my pyramid, the unenquiring corresponds to the group of people that Socrates described as unaware: because they don’t realize they lack wisdom, they will never desire to seek it out. (Even worse, some in this group might believe they are already wise, which is just as limiting.)
In modern terms, we’d say the lives of the unenquiring are deeply shaped by beliefs absorbed through socialization and social conditioning, which they haven’t yet begun to actively question. Because of this, they tend to take things at face value, maybe things like the implied messages of advertisers, “Buying this product will increase your status and self-worth.” From the ancient Stoic perspective, deeply entrenched false beliefs like this inspire people to seek out luxurious pleasure, wealth, possessions, fame, and social approval. But in the Stoic view, all of these things are “false goods,” instead of the real good of having an excellent inner character, which would also allow us to use external things in a wise and beneficial way. In addition, the false opinions held by the unenquiring frequently cause them to experience extreme negative emotions like worry, fear, anxiety, and anger.
Given the fact that you’re now reading this book, it’s almost certain that you’re a curious person, interested in learning new things, and that you’re not totally unaware (or totally wise, either) but fall into the middle group of people, we call progressors. A progressor is someone who realizes that he or she is not already wise, and is thereby capable of improving and becoming a better person. This is the audience that Seneca wrote for, and he placed himself and Lucilius into this category too.
Progressor is a translation of the ancient Greek term for a student of Stoicism, a prokoptōn, or “one who makes progress.” Since none of the Stoic philosophers claimed to be perfect sages but tried to make progress each and every day through the use of self-reflection and various exercises, all of the Stoic philosophers were progressors.
In the end, to make progress as a human being, you must first realize that you are imperfect (or have reason to improve) and, second, have a desire to improve. It’s no coincidence that one of Seneca’s most frequently used words in his letters is “progress,” or making progress toward wisdom. And as he concluded, “most of progress consists in the desire to make progress.”18 For without that desire, progress itself is impossible.
Strangely, one question the Stoics, as a school, never explored in depth is, What causes someone to become a progressor in the first place? While the precise answer to this would vary from person to person, obviously some kind of “wake-up call,” as we say today, is generally needed. It could be a personal crisis, a personal loss, repeated failures, or just a slowly growing realization that life is too precious to waste on the false goods that the world is constantly trying to sell to us. Alternately, the wake-up call could be a persistent feeling of unhappiness or depression—because a person’s real, inner needs are not being met by his or her current beliefs or lifestyle.