Enfants t1_izaahd0 wrote
Reply to comment by _far-seeker_ in Philosopher José Antonio Marina: 'The fact that happiness has become fashionable is catastrophic' by FDuquesne
Yes, however what I am saying is that constantly persuing to put "reason over emotion" leads to a dulled sense of yourself and emotions to the point that you may not even realize/understand what youre feeling.
Imagine for example that you did have many friends. But over time one by one, you lost those friendships. And at every time, you said "This is ok, it happens." And when you had no friends and had trouble making them you said "this is ok, It happens. I can do everything alone!" And so on. You wouldnt immediately feel this deep sense of loneliness, youd have adapted at each point to be reasonable about the outcomes. See the reasonable thing is to always be ok with something. So imagine you were a perfect Stoic from birth, would you be any different from a robot?
You have to be in tune with your emotions to recognize and change them, but I find that hard to do if I always put reason first.
_far-seeker_ t1_izaazxd wrote
>Imagine for example that you did have many friends. But over time one by one, you lost those friendships. And at every time, you said "This is ok, it happens." And when you had no friends and had trouble making them you said "this is ok, I can do everything alone!" And so on.
I would think the rational response eventually would be to question "why do I keep losing friends?" regardless of if there is acceptance of each individual loss of a friend. If anything, stoicism should promotes Intellectual examination of one's life instead of such apathy.
Edit: >And when you had no friends and had trouble making them you said "this is ok, I can do everything alone!" And so on.
I already explained why this conclusion doesn't really fit well with the foundations of stoicism, to them humans are social animals.
Enfants t1_izaga15 wrote
>I already explained why this conclusion doesn't really fit well with the foundations of stoicism, to them humans are social animals.
So is the principle to put "reason over emotion" or to follow the original stoics?
Regardless, substitute lonlineness for another situation outside of humans being social animals and we arrive at the same thing
_far-seeker_ t1_izai317 wrote
>So is the principle to put "reason over emotion" or to follow the original stoics?
Why in this case would there be tension between the two? The original stoic philosophers came to the conclusion about humans being social animals through a rational argument.
>Regardless, substitute lonlineness for another situation outside of humans being social animals and we arrive at the same thing
You are missing what I stated about emotion being a valid impetus for rational analysis. So the eventual questioning and self-examination should happen for any such hypothetical, regardless of the specific situation one has to repeatedly experience. In stoicism acceptance and reason over emotion are just tools; means to an end, not the end itself. The end is "living the good life".
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