240225 What I learned in my studies this morning 4

Today's Meditation(s):

Yesterday, I was bemoaning the determinism Hadot describes in Stoic physics. Looking at his source, it comes from the Stoicorum Veterum Fragments (or SVA for us kids in the know), §§ 625, 596-632.

Ok. So I find that. 

Turns out, this is by Chrysippus. Well, my Greek is a bit rusty. Ok, let's go find an English explanation . . . .

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (or IEP for us kids in the know), got here ahead of me. (Gee . . .  who knew this had been considered before?)

Looking through the search results, it seems that the Stoics think of it this way:

Determinist — I was fated to do bad thing X. I could not have chosen any other way.

Compatibilists / Stoics — But you did choose.

Is that really what it comes down to?

Sorta.

The non-destruction of one's coat, [Chrysippus] says, is not fated simply, but co-fated with its being taken care of, and someone's being saved from his enemies is co-fated with his fleeing those enemies; and having children is co-fated with being willing to lie with a woman. ... For many things cannot occur without our being willing and indeed contributing a most strenuous eagerness and zeal for these things, since, he says, it was fated for these things to occur in conjunction with this personal effort. ... But it will be in our power, he says, with what is in our power being included in fate.

I chose.  I couldn't have chosen differently if I wanted X to occur, but, since I DID want X to occur, I chose according to my preference. Therefore I did, in fact, choose, and thus am responsible (even though Universal Reason fated it to be from the beginning of time).

Moral responsibility depends only on freedom of the will, and what emanates from our will is our own, no matter whether it is possible for us to act differently or not. (Wikipedia --> Chrysippus --> Eduard Zeller (1880), The Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, p. 180)

The logic is there. So is the Buuuuuut.

I teach my kids that, if you feel that something is 'off' about an argument, even if you can't express it clearly, listen to that feeling. Just because I can't immediately deconstruct an argument, my intuition may have noticed something my conscious mind has yet to cotton to.*

Then, go research the argument. Has anyone else already identified the issues with it and explained them? Great. Go learn from them. No? Ok. Think it through more rigorously.

This is the stage I'm in. I need to read and think.

So, yeah, I can't see a flaw in the logic on first contact — probably because I'm not as smart as Chrysippus and the millions of others who have considered these problems before me — but I'm still thinking.

And not to overturn it, to be the first person in history to have figured it out and defeated the nasty hobbi . . . er . . . determinists, but to understand it.

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* My apologies to any ESL readers out there for this phrase. Even though I used it on purpose, I could not have done otherwise.