10  The human condition

Published

October 10, 2025

What are we? What is the human condition? What are our orientations, our worldviews?

This outline discusses human (pre)history, anthropology, religion, comparitive studies, biology, psychology, and practical philosophy.

Here, I am interested in collecting what various traditions say we are as humans.

10.1 Human history

10.1.1 Early hunter gatherers

Figure 10.1: Map of migrations of early homo sapiens (ancient.eu, 2017).

The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. The controlled use of fire first occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens (modern humans) emerged in Africa. 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia. 50,000 years ago, modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East. Europe was first reached by modern humans 40,000 years ago. Humans migrated to the Americas about 15,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic. 1

Unlike our species, Neanderthals probably did not need to be good long-distance runners. Homo sapiens lived on hot, dry African grasslands, where they hunted by pursuing large animals over long distances until they collapsed from heat exhaustion. In the cooler regions occupied by Neanderthals, heat exhaustion would not be a problem, so running long distances would not have helped them hunt. Instead, they took advantage of their landscape and ambushed prey. 2

2 Marshal (2011).

Hunter-gatherers:

10.1.2 First civilizations

Figure 10.2: Map showing the approximate centers of the six independent origins of agriculture and its spread in prehistory. 3

3 Diamond & Bellwood (2003).

The Neolithic Revolution marks the start of agriculture, animal husbandry, and the first civilizations.

10.1.2.1 Fertile Crescent

Figure 10.3: States of the Fertile Crescent, c. 1450 BCE (ancient.eu, 2016).

10.1.2.2 Ancient India

10.1.2.3 Ancient China

10.1.2.4 Mesoamerica

See also:

10.1.3 Industrial Revolution

4 Sivin (1995).

5 Lin (1995).

Feynman:

We are all sad when we think of the wondrous potentialities that human beings seem to have and when we contrast these potentialities with the small accomplishments that we have. Again and again people have thought that we could do much better. People in the past had, in the nightmare of their times, dreams for the future, and we of their future have, although many of those dreams have been surpassed, to a large extent the same dreams. The hopes for the future today are in a great measure the same as they were in the past. At some time people thought that the potential that people had was not developed because everyone was ignorant and that education was the solution to the problem, that if all people were educated, we could perhaps all be Voltaire’s. But it turns out that falsehood and evil can be taught as easily as good. Education is a great power, but it can work either way. I have heard it said that the communication between nations should lead to an understanding and thus a solution to the problem of developing the potentialities of man. But the means of communication can be channeled and choked. What is communicated can be lies as well as truth, propaganda as well as real and valuable information. Communication is a strong force, also, but either for good or evil. 6

6 Feynman (1998), p. 31.

See also:

10.2 Proto-Indo-European mythology

10.2.1 Zoroastrianism

  • Zoroastrianism
  • Zoroaster (lived between c. 1500 and 1000 BCE)
  • first monotheism
  • official religion of Ancient Persia from the 6th century BCE to the 7th century CE

10.3 Abrahamism

10.3.1 Judaism

10.3.1.1 Criticism

McNutt:

The Abraham story cannot be definitively related to any specific time, and it is widely agreed that the patriarchal age, along with the Exodus and the period of the Judges, is a late literary construct that does not relate to any period in actual history. 7

7 McNutt (1999), p. 41–42.

Sperling, S.D. Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?:

In short, the biblical writers invented the idea that the Israelites lived in Egypt in order to impel them to maintain their distinctiveness in Canaan. And the story of servitude in Egypt is an allegory of servitude to Egypt. Our ancestors, among others, did perform forced labor for Egyptian taskmasters, but they were never slaves in Egypt.

Moore & Kelle:

The majority of current scholars believe that the historicity of the Egyptian sojourn, exodus, and wilderness wandering that the Bible remembers cannot be demonstrated by historical methods. 8

8 M. B. Moore & Kelle (2011), p. 91.

10.3.2 Christianity

Figure 10.4: Detail of the “religions tree”, zoomed around some Protestant branches (also discussed here).

10.3.2.1 Criticism

9 Kaufmann (2015).

10 Wells (2013).

10.3.3 Islam

10.4 Hinduism

10.4.1 Introduction

10.4.1.1 History

11 McEvilley (2002), p. 327.

10.4.1.2 Primary texts

  • Vedas
    • Rigveda (written c. 1,700-1,100 BCE)
      • Oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text.
      • Orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE.
      • divides into
        1. the Samhita (hymns to the deities, the oldest part of the Rigveda)
        2. the Brahmanas, commentaries on the hymns
        3. the Aranyakas or “forest books”
        4. the Upanishads
    • Samaveda - Veda of melodies and chants
    • Yajurveda - Veda of prose and mantras used in worship rituals
    • Atharvaveda - Veda of the procedures for everyday life
    • Upanishads - most recent parts, last chapters of the Vedas
      • earliest probably from 6th century BCE
      • Katz & Egenes translation 12
      • Vedanta - Hindu school of philosophy that studies the Upanishads
      • Schopenhauer: “the most profitable and elevating reading which… is possible in the world”.
  • Mahabharata - sometimes called the “Fifth Veda” (c. 300 BCE - 300 CE)
  • Ramayana (c. 700-400 BCE)
  • Vaisesika Sutra AKA Kanada Sutra (c. 600-100 BCE)
    • authored by Kanada (c. 600-100 BCE)
    • particularity vs universality
    • atomism
  • Nyāya Sūtras (c. 600-100 BCE)
    • discusses epistemology (pramana) that is empiricist, involving perception, inference, and knowledge
    • names fives steps in logical inference
  • Brahma Sutras AKA Vedanta Sutra (c. 400-450 CE)
  • Puranas - vast genre of traditional myths

12 Katz & Egenes (2015).

10.4.1.3 Secondary texts

13 McEvilley (2002), p. TODO.

10.4.1.4 Some people

10.4.2 Common doctrines

10.4.2.1 Purusārtha

Purusārtha - the four proper aims of human life:

  • Dharma - ethics/duties/righteousness
  • Artha - purpose/prosperity/work
  • Kama - desires/passions
  • Moksha - liberation/salvation

10.4.2.2 Gods

The Trimurti:

  • Brahma - the creator of the universe
    • He created himself in a golden egg known as Hiranyagarbha.
    • In contemporary Hinduism, he has lesser importance than the other members of the Trimurti.
  • Vishnu - the preserver
    • Restores cosmic order from chaos and protects the Dharma.
    • Rama - the seventh avatar of Vishnu
    • Krishna - the eighth avatar of Vishnu
    • Vishvarupa - “universal form”
  • Shiva - the destroyer
Figure 10.5: Shiva statue at CERN, near Building 40, a gift from India.

Others:

  • Parvati AKA Mahadevi AKA Shakti AKA Kali
    • Goddess of power, nourishment, harmony, devotion, and motherhood. Wife of Shiva.
  • Ganesha
    • God of new beginnings, wisdom, luck, and remover of obstacles.
    • Son of Shiva and Parvati.
  • Indra
    • God of sky, weather, lightening, and war.
  • Surya
    • God of the sun.

10.4.2.3 Pramana

  • Pramana - “proof” or “means of knowledge”
  • Indian empistemology

10.4.2.4 Indian empiricism

  • Chārvāka
    • materialist, atheist, skeptic
    • like Hume, points out that induction is fallible
    • similar to Epicureanism in hedonic ethics
    • worldhistory.org: Charvaka
  • Ājīvika
    • first Hindu atomists
    • niyati (fate) - doctrine of absolute determinism; no free will
  • Nyāya
    • formalizes logic of inference
  • Vaisheshika
    • Kanada (c. 600-100 BCE)
    • adopted the atomism of Ājīvika

10.4.2.5 Others

Figure 10.6: The Wheel of Dharma (Dharmachakra) is an imporant symbol in many dharmic religions, in particular Buddhism where it represents the Noble Eightfold Path.

10.5 Buddhism

10.5.1 Introduction

10.5.1.1 Sects

10.5.1.2 Primary texts

Buddhist texts:

10.5.1.3 Secondary texts

14 Kalupahana (1992).

15 Sadakata (1997).

16 Harvey (2013).

10.5.2 Common doctrines

Note: Occasionally we will show the Sanskrit/Pali translations of words, in that order, otherwise usually showing Sanskrit if only one translation is given.

10.5.2.1 Important initial concepts

  • Pratītyasamutāda/pratītyasamutpāda - dependent origination: all phenomena (dharmas/dhammas) arise in dependence upon other phenomena.
  • Samsāra - cycle of reincarnation
  • Samvega - sense of shock, dismay, and spiritual urgency to reach liberation and escape the suffering of samsara
  • Middle Way (Madhyamāpratipada)
  • Sangha - (monastic) “community”; called parisa if including lay followers.

10.5.2.2 Three marks of existence

Three marks of existence:

  1. duhkha/dukkha - suffering
  2. anitya/aniccā - impermanence
  3. anātman/anattā - non-self

Emptiness (śūnyatā/suññatā) and non-self (anātman/anatta):

  • In Theravāda, focus non-self nature or anatta.
  • In Mahāyāna, śūnyatā refers the emptiness doctrine that all things are empty of intrinsic existence, refuting essentialism.

10.5.2.3 Four Noble Truths

Four Noble Truths (satya/saccā = truth):

  1. Suffering (duhkha/dukkha) is part of existence.
  2. The origins or causes (samudaya/samudaya) of suffering are craving (trsnā(trishna)/tanha), ignorance/delusion (avidyā/avijja), attachment (rāga/lobha), and anger/aversion (dvesha/dosa).
  3. Cessation (nirodha/nirodha) of suffering is liberation (nirvana/nibbāna).
  4. The path (mārga/magga) to the cessation of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path (āryāstāngamārga/ariyātthangikamagga).

Graham Priest likens the Four Noble Truths to a medical diagnosis of the human condition:

  1. Illness: Life is full of suffering (duhkha).
  2. Cause: Suffering is caused by attachment and aversion (trsnā).
  3. Prognosis: Get rid of trsnā and you get rid of duhkha.
  4. Treatment: Noble Eightfold Path

Noble Eightfold Path:

  1. Right Understanding
  2. Right Intention
  3. Right Speech
  4. Right Action
  5. Right Livelihood
  6. Right Effort
  7. Right Mindfulness
  8. Right Unification

10.5.2.4 Refuge in the Three Jewels

  1. Buddha: the fully enlightened one
  2. Dharma: the teachings expounded by the Buddha
  3. Sangha: the monastic order of Buddhism that practice Dharmas

10.5.2.5 Five Precepts

Five precepts:

  1. Abstention from killing
  2. Abstention from theft
  3. Abstention from sexual misconduct
  4. Abstention from falsehood
  5. Abstention from intoxication

10.5.2.6 The Three Trainings

  1. Sīla - “discipline” or “moral conduct”
  2. Samadhi - “meditation”
  3. Prajña - “wisdom”

Meditation:

10.5.2.7 Buddhist paths to liberation

10.5.2.8 Buddhist philosophy

17 Siderits & M (2021).

Epistemology and metaphysics

Ethics

Atheism

18 Batchelor (1998).

19 Contestabile (2018).

“So it seems that none of the brahmins have seen Brahmā with their own eyes, and not even the ancient hermits claimed to know where he is. Yet the brahmins proficient in the three Vedas say: ‘We teach the path to the company of that which we neither know nor see. This is the only straight path, the direct route that leads someone who practices it to the company of Brahmā.’

What do you think, Vāsettha? This being so, doesn’t their statement turn out to have no demonstrable basis?”

“Clearly that’s the case, Master Gotama.”

“Good, Vāsettha. For it is impossible that they should teach the path to that which they neither know nor see.

Suppose there was a queue of blind men, each holding the one in front: the first one does not see, the middle one does not see, and the last one does not see. In the same way, it seems to me that the brahmins’ statement turns out to be comparable to a queue of blind men: the first one does not see, the middle one does not see, and the last one does not see. Their statement turns out to be a joke—mere words, void and hollow.” (DN 13)

20 Hayes (1988).

Do you desire and love someone whom you do not know and have not seen? Then he would say, yes. What do you think, Kaccāyana? Doesn’t this talk turn out to be stupid talk? (MN 80)

Other stuff

21 Harris (2014).

22 Wright (2017).

See also:

Figure 10.7: Map of the spread of Buddhism in Asia, first begining ~ 5th century BCE, spreading to the south as Theravāda Buddhism, and into China and Tibet as Mahāyāna Buddhism (source: Talk by Graham Priest, 2018).
Figure 10.8: Map of the main modern Buddhist sects today. Kalmykia in western Russia was cropped out, sorry (Wikipedia, 2013).

10.5.3 Theravāda Buddhism

10.5.3.1 Introduction

  • Theravāda is Pali for “The School of the Elders”.
  • Theravāda Buddhism is the oldest existing branch of Buddhism, deriving from schools in Sri Lanka where much of the Pali Cannon was written.
  • In contrast to Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, Theravāda tends to be conservative in matters of doctrine and monastic discipline, with particular focus on being rational.
  • Theravāda rejects the authenticity of the Mahāyāna sutras and do not see them as reliable sources.
  • The primary goal for a Theravādan Buddhist is to become an arhat/arahant, one who has achieved enlightenment (bodhi or nirvana/nibbāna).
  • Very roughly, today Theravāda Buddhism is dominately found in south-east Asia: Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia; whereas Mahāyāna is found in more northern Asia: China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, but also Vietnam (see Figure 10.8).

10.5.3.2 History

23 Nanamoli (1992).

24 Fronsdal (2001).

10.5.3.3 Doctrines

  • Focus on the Noble Eightfold Path
  • Vipassanā - “special seeing” or “insight”
    • Vipassanā movement
    • branch of modern Burmese Theravāda Buddhism with widespread popularity since the 1950s
    • begat the western “Mindfullness movement”
  • Jhānas - states of meditation. See Dhyāna in Buddhism.
  • Acinteyya - the four imponderable or incomprehensible issues

10.5.3.4 Primary texts

Tripitaka - “The Three Baskets” of the Pali Canon:

  1. Vinaya Pitaka - “Basket of Discipline”
  2. Sutta Pitaka - “Basket of Discourse”
    1. Dīgha Nikāya (DN) - “collection of long discourses”
      • Mahāpadāna Sutta (DN 14) - “The Great Discourse on Traces Left Behind”
        • stories of past Buddhas including Prince Vipassī
      • Mahānidāna Sutta (DN 15) - “The Great Discourse on Causation”
        • dependent origination; non-self
      • Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16) - about the end of the Buddha’s life
      • Mahāsatipatthāna Sutta (DN 22) - “The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness”
    2. Majjhima Nikāya (MN) - “collection of middle-length discourses”
      • Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10) - “The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness”
    3. Samyutta Nikāya (SN) - “collection of connected discourses”
      • Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11) - “The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of the Dhamma Sutta”, the first discourse delivered by the Bhudda
      • Anattalakkhana Sutta (SN 22.59) - “Not-Self Characteristic Discourse”, the second discourse delivered by the Bhudda
      • Kaccānagotta Sutta (SN 12.15) - “On Right View”
      • Sabba Sutta (SN 35.23) or “Discourse on Everything”
    4. Anguttara Nikāya (AN) - “collection of numerical discourses”
    5. Khuddaka Nikāya (KN) - “minor collection”
  3. Abhidharma Pitaka - “Basket of Higher Doctrine”
    • compendium of Buddhist psychology
    • Kathāvatthu - “Points of Controversy”

Abhidhamma - systematic pedagogical presentations:

Online Suttas:

10.5.3.5 Secondary texts

25 Bodhi (2005).

10.5.4 Mahāyāna Buddhism

10.5.4.1 Introduction

  • Mahāyāna Buddhism
  • Sanskrit: “The Great Vehicle”
  • Mahāyāna tradition is the largest major tradition of Buddhism existing today.
  • Mahāyāna Buddhists teach that enlightenment can be attained in a single lifetime, and this can be accomplished even by a layperson.
  • Mahāyāna Buddhism has a lot of doctrinal diversity due to assimilating with Asian cultures, particularly in Tibet, China, and Japan.
  • In contrast with Theravāda, Mahāyāna Buddhism has more focus on devotionals, ritual, aesthetics, and monastic hierarchy. Mahāyāna Buddhism also has more of a tendency to deify Buddhas.
  • The primary goal for a Mahāyānan Buddhist is to follow the bodhisattva path to full buddhahood (samyaksambuddhahood) but taking however many reincarnations it takes to teach others the path, bringing them in the Great Vehicle as well.
  • Mahāyāna, in a somewhat pejorative way, sometimes refer to Theravāda as Hinayāna, “small/deficient vehicle”.
Figure 10.9: Nāgārjuna (source: www.tsemrinpoche.com).

10.5.4.2 History

10.5.4.3 Doctrines

  • Bodhisattva - any person who is on the path towards Buddhahood.
    • A person who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings.
    • The Bodhisattva Path
    • This path is contrasted with the Noble Eightfold Path, going beyond being an arhat towards full Buddhahood.
    • The Three Vehicles (yānas): disciples (śravakas, literally “hearer”), lone buddhas (pratyekabuddhas), and bodhisattvas.
  • Madhyamaka - “Middle Way”
    • AKA Śūnyavāda - “the emptiness doctrine”
    • Founded in Nāgārjuna’s work Mūlamadhyamakakārikā - Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way
  • Six Pāramitās - “Six Perfections”
    1. Dāna pāramitā: generosity, the attitude of giving
    2. Sīla pāramitā: virtue, morality, discipline, proper conduct
    3. Ksānti pāramitā: patience, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, endurance
    4. Vīrya pāramitā: energy, diligence, vigor, effort
    5. Dhyāna pāramitā: one-pointed concentration, contemplation
    6. Prajña pāramitā: wisdom, insight
  • Tathātā - “suchness”
  • Tathāgatagarbha - “the doctrine of Buddha nature”
  • Vijañānavāda - “the doctrine of consciousness”
  • Upaya - guidance, expedient means, pedagogy
  • Two truths doctrine
    • There are two levels of truth (satya): the conventional (samvriti) and the ultimate (paramārtha).
  • Amitābha AKA Amida - transcendental celestial buddha

10.5.4.4 Primary texts

26 Nagarjuna (1995).

10.5.4.5 Secondary texts

27 Williams (2009).

Figure 10.10: Blind monks examining an elephant, an ukiyo-e print by Hanabusa Itcho (1652-1724) (source: Wikipedia).

10.5.5 Vajrayāna Buddhism

10.5.5.1 Introduction

  • Sanskrit: “Thunderbolt Vehicle”
  • AKA Tantrayāna
  • Vajrayāna Buddhism
  • Tibetan Buddhism
  • Some consider Vajrayāna a separate branch or sub-branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
  • Developed in medieval period in India and spread to Tibet, Bhutan, and east Asia.
  • Adds esoteric teachings to the Mahāyāna tradition.
  • Often focuses on one-on-one teaching from a guru.

10.5.5.2 History

28 Nagarjuna (1995).

29 Garfield & Van Norden (2016).

10.5.5.3 Doctrines

  1. Don’t recall
  2. Don’t imagine
  3. Don’t think
  4. Don’t examine
  5. Don’t control
  6. Rest

10.5.6 Criticism

Paul Williams:

If rebirth is true, realistically we really have no hope. It is a hope-less doctrine. 30

30 Williams (2011).

  • Williams converted to Catholicism! WTF!
  • Where is there room for ambition in Buddhism?

10.6 Daoism

10.6.1 Introduction

  • Daoism (began c. 4th century BCE)
    • Also romanized as Taoism.
    • Dao - unplanned rhythms of the universe called “the way”
    • struggle between order and chaos
  • Laozi (b. 571 BCE)
  • Zhuang Zhou AKA Zhuangzi (c. 369-286 BCE)
  • Zou Yan (305-240 BCE)

Concepts:

10.6.2 Yijing

31 Rutt (2002).

32 Marshall (2001).

Figure 10.11: The sixty-four hexagrams of the King Wen sequence of the Yijing.

Gua 01:

䷀ Creating
The greatest fulfillment rewards persistence. 33

33 Yijing, Gua 01.

Gua 11:

䷊ Interplay
Smallness departs, greatness arrives
Promise and fulfillment. 34

34 Yijing, Gua 11.

See also:

10.6.3 Dao De Jing

10.6.4 Zhuangzi

10.7 Other religions

10.7.1 Western

10.7.1.1 Egyptian

10.7.1.2 Greco-Roman

10.7.1.3 Norse

10.7.2 Dharmic

Along with Hinduism and Buddhism, all dharmic religions originated in India.

10.7.2.1 Jainism

10.7.2.2 Sikhism

10.7.3 East Asian

10.7.3.1 Confucianism

Introduction:

Doctrines:

  • Focus on cultivating virtue and social harmony
  • Junzi - gentleman, ideal person
  • Rectification of names - ambition for a realist interpretation of language.
  • Four Books
    1. Great Learning
    2. Doctrine of the Mean
    3. Analects
    4. Mencius
  • Five Classics
    1. Classic of Poetry
    2. Book of Documents
    3. Book of Rites
    4. Yijing
    5. Spring and Autumn Annals

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart. 35

35 Confucius, Analects, chapter 17.

10.7.3.2 Mohism

  • Mohism
  • Mozi (470-391 BCE)
  • Anti-tribal: “impartial caring” or “universal love”
  • “We begin with what is near.”
  • “Befriending the learned”
  • “On the necessity of standards”

[F]ormulated China’s first explicit ethical and political theories and advanced the world’s earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of collective human welfare. 36

36 Fraser (2020).

See also:

10.7.3.3 Shinto

  • Shinto
  • Yayoi period (300 BCE - 300 CE) - neolithic Japan
  • In the late 6th century CE the name Shinto was created for the native religion to distinguish it from Buddhism and Confucianism.
  • Inari Ōkami
  • Meiji era
  • In Japan, today most people practice a mixture Shinto and Buddhist religions to some extent.
Figure 10.12: Statues of kitsune (foxes) at Fushimi Inari-taisha (photo by Ryan Reece, 2018).

10.7.4 African

10.7.5 American

10.8 Stoicism

10.8.1 History

  • Stoicism (began in the 3rd century BCE)
    • A stoa is an ancient Greek public covered walkway. Stoicism originally got its name from being a philosophy discussed out in public.
  • Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BCE)
    • He was a wealthy merchant, who on a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus, was shipwrecked. After surving he read Xenophon’s Memorabilia about Socrates, and Zeno devoted himself to studying philosophy.
    • He studied under the Cynic Crates of Thebes.
    • Founder of the Stoic school of philosophy in Athens c. 300 BCE.
  • Cleanthes (c. 330-230 BCE)
    • Successor to Zeno of Citium as the second head the Stoic school in Athens.
  • Chrysippus (c. 279-206 BCE)
    • Studied under Cleanthes and became the third head of the Stoic school in Athens.
  • Seneca (the Younger) (4 BCE - 65 CE)
    • Roman statesman and later tutor to Emperor Nero
    • On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae) (49 CE) 37
    • Letters from a Stoic (65 CE)
      • Collection of 124 letters addressed to Lucilius
    • His influence over Nero declined with time, and in 65 CE he was forced to take his own life.
  • Musonius Rufus (c. 25-100 CE)
    • Teacher of Epictetus
    • Both men and women should study philosophy in pursuit of living a virtuous life.
  • Epictetus (c. 50-135 CE)
    • Slave turned teacher
    • Discourses (108 CE)
    • Handbook (Enchiridion) (125 CE)
    • Both of theses works were recorded by Epictetus’ pupil Arrian of Nicomedia (c. 86/89-146/160 CE)
    • Translation by Hard 38
  • Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE)
    • Last “good” emperor of Rome
    • Meditations (170-180 CE)
    • Antonine Plague (165-180 CE)
    • Mac Suibhne 39

37 Seneca (1997).

38 Epictetus (2014).

39 Mac Suibhne (2009).

10.8.1.1 Three historical phases of Stoicism

  1. Early Stoa from the founding of the school by Zeno to Antipater.
  2. Middle Stoa including Panaetius and Posidonius.
  3. Late Stoa including Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

No complete works survive from the first two phases of Stoicism. Only Roman texts from the Late Stoa survive.

Figure 10.13: The historical and conceptual relationships among Hellonistic schools of philosophy and how they diverged from the thinking of Socrates. 40

40 Pigliucci (2017), p. 224.

10.8.1.2 Stoicism’s influence on Christianty

  • Pigliucci claims Paul was influenced by Seneca and the Stoics
  • Neostoicism
  • Spinoza
  • Nietzsche

10.8.1.3 Contemporary Stoicism

  • Former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis (b. 1950) carried his own personal copy of Meditations throughout his deployments as a Marine Corps officer in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. 41
  • US President Bill Clinton (b. 1946) said that Meditations is his favorite book. 42
  • Pigliucci, M. (2015). Talk: Stoicism 101.
  • Pigliucci, M. (2017). How to be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. 43
  • Pigliucci, M. (2020). Stoa Nova.
  • Ryan Holiday

41 Ricks (2006).

42 Kellogg (2009).

43 Pigliucci (2017).

10.8.2 Theses

My personal summary of the most important Stoic theses:

10.8.2.1 1. Dichotomy of control

  • Be mindful of what is and what is not in your control.
  • If something outside of your control causes you anxiety, you should try accept it and cast the anxiety aside.
  • We don’t control what happens; we control how we respond.

What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes.

–Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.17

Materials are indifferent, but the use that one makes of them is by no means indifferent. How, then, can one preserve firmness and calmness of mind, and at the same time the attentiveness that saves us from careless and thoughtless action? By following the example of those who play at dice. The counters are indifferent, the dice are indifferent. How can I know in what way the throw will fall? But to be attentive and skilful in making use of whatever does fall, that is now my task. And so likewise, my principal task in life is this: to distinguish between things, and establish a division between them and say, “External things are not within my power; choice is within my power.”

–Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.1-4

10.8.2.2 2. The obstacle is the way

  • If the cause of your anxiety is within your control, then the best (and really only good) solution is to face it.
  • We underestimate what stresses we can face.
  • In any circumstance, we have an opportunity to practice virtue, to be excellent.

The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.20 (Ryan Holiday version)

10.8.2.3 3. Reflection

  • Wise decisions come from patience and discernment.
  • Mindfulness, temperance, journaling, and focusing on what you can do will bring about the best solutions you can.

What is the first task for someone who is practicing philosophy? To rid himself of presumption: for it is impossible for anyone to set out to learn what he thinks he already knows.

–Epictetus, Discourses, 2.17.1

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, mountains, and you also tend to desire such things very much. But this is alltogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you shall choose. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.3

10.8.2.4 4. Preferred indifferents

  • Health, wealth, and success are natural to prefer, but they are not necessary for living a good life.
  • We can have aspirations and goals, but on the onset we must be ready for failure. Much is out of our control.
  • Our goal should be to do the best we can, not to have the best outcome.

10.8.2.5 5. Time is our most precious resource

  • TODO
  • Everything is impermanent. We are mortal. We will take nothing or no one with us beyond death.

Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear, both the things that are and the things which are produced. For substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities of things are in constant change, and the causes of work in infinite varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands still. And consider this which is near to you, this boundless abyss of the past and of the future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes himself miserable? For they vex him only for a time, and indeed for a time that is short.

–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.23

More:

  • TODO: virtue ethics

Stoic virtues:

  • Courage (andreia)
  • Justice (dikaiosyne)
  • Temperance (sophrosyne)
  • Wisdom (phronesis)

Stoic terms:

  • Apatheia
  • Apoproêgmena - dispreferred things. Morally indifferent but naturally undesirable things, such as illness. Opposite of proêgmena.
  • Ataraxia
  • Cosmopolis
  • Dogma - principle established by reason and experience.
  • Doxa - belief, opinion.
  • Ekpyrosis
  • Eudaimonia
  • Logos
  • Oikeiôsis
  • Pathos
  • Proêgmena - preferred things. Morally indifferent but naturally desirable things, such as health. Opposite of apoproêgmena.
  • Glossary of terms in Stoicism

Other stuff:

See also:

10.8.3 Related movements

Figure 10.14: Another reconstruction of the influence of Socrates on Hellonistic schools of philosophy (source: socrethics.com).

10.8.3.1 Cynicism

10.8.3.2 Epicureanism

44 Pigliucci (2019).

[T]he virtues for Epicurus are all purely instrumental goods—that is, they are valuable solely for the sake of the happiness that they can bring oneself, not for their own sake. Epicurus says that all of the virtues are ultimately forms of prudence, of calculating what is in one’s own best interest. In this, Epicurus goes against the majority of Greek ethical theorists, such as the Stoics, who identify happiness with virtue, and Aristotle, who identifies happiness with a life of virtuous activity. Epicurus thinks that natural science and philosophy itself also are instrumental goods. Natural science is needed in order to give mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena and thus dispel the fear of the gods, while philosophy helps to show us the natural limits of our desires and to dispel the fear of death. 45

45 O’Keefe (2001).

See also:

10.8.3.3 Pyrrhonism

  • Pyrrhonism
  • Pyrrho (c. 360-270 BCE)
  • If Pyrrho returned in 323 BCE from traveling with Alexander the Great in his campaign into the East for 11 years, he would have been about 37 years old, and Zeno would have been about 11 years old, being born about the year of the start of the campaign, c. 334 BCE.
  • Pyrrho was influened by Buddhism when he was in India.
  • TODO: Did Zeno of Citium ever meet Pyrrho or Timon of Phlius?
  • Timon of Phlius (c. 320-235 BCE)
  • Sextus Empiricus (160-210 CE)

See also:

10.8.3.4 Academic skepticism

10.8.4 Criticism

46 Russell (1945), pp. 248–56.

10.9 Romanticism

10.9.1 Introduction

William Jones, in his 1772 “Essay on the Arts called Imitative”, was one of the first to propound an expressive theory of poetry, valorising expression over description or imitation:

If the arguments, used in this essay, have any weight, it will appear, that the finest parts of poetry, musick, and painting, are expressive of the passions…the inferior parts of them are descriptive of natural objects. 47

47 Jones (2013), p. 379.

Berlin:

The importance of romanticism is that it is the largest recent movement to transform the lives and the thought of the Western world. 48

48 Berlin (1999), p. 1.

Me: And then there was hip hop.

10.9.2 Criticism

Joni Mitchell:

It’s love’s illusions that I recall.
I really don’t know love at all. 49

49 Joni Mitchell. (1969). Song: “Both sides now” on the album Clouds.

See also:

10.10 Comparative studies

10.10.1 Introduction

10.10.2 Indian and Greek philosophy

10.10.2.1 Greco-Buddhism

50 McEvilley (2002).

51 McEvilley (2002), p. 10.

10.10.2.2 Buddhism and Orphism

10.10.2.3 Buddhism and Plato

52 Hobson (2004).

10.10.2.4 Buddhism and Pyrrhonism

Figure 10.15: Campaign of Alexander the Great into the East (334-323 BCE). Larger version: here. (source:Wikipedia)

10.10.2.5 Buddhism and Stoicism

10.10.3 Eastern and modern western philosophy

53 Ryan (1996).

54 Nelson (2011).

55 Smith (2012).

56 Nietzsche (2004), §20–23.

57 Parkes (2011).

58 McMahan (2004).

Nietzsche:

With my condemnation of Christianity I should not like to have committed an injustice toward a related religion which even outweighs it in the number of its believers: Buddhism. Both belong together as nihilistic religions—they are decadence-religions—, both are separated from each other in the strangest way. That one may now compare them, the critic of Christianity is deeply obliged to the Indian scholars.—Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity—it has the inheritance of cool and objective problem posing in its blood, it comes after a philosophical movement lasting hundreds of years: the concept of “God” is already abolished when it comes. Buddhism is the only really positivistic religion history has to offer us, even in its epistemology (a strict phenomenalism), it no longer says “the struggle against sin,” but quite in keeping with reality, “the struggle against suffering.” 59

59 Nietzsche (2004), §20.

10.10.4 Perennial philosophy

60 Huxley (1945).

10.10.4.1 Criticism

In defending esoteric knowledge 61 Huxley’s views are decidedly not naturalistic:

61 See discussion of non-naturalistic “esoteric knowledge” in the Outline on naturalism.

If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do, in the field of metaphysics, is to study the works of those who were, and who, because they had modified their merely human mode of being, were capable of a more than merely human kind and amount of knowledge. 62

62 Huxley (1945), p. 5–6.

10.11 Biology

10.11.1 Darwinism

“Islands” by Muriel Rukeyser:

O for God’s sake
they are connected
underneath 63

63 Rukeyser (1976).

64 Hume (2007a), p. TODO.

Figure 10.16: The great tree of life. Larger version: here. Source:here.

65 Dennett (1995).

66 Okasha (2006).

67 M. Andrews (2018).

10.11.2 Mass extinctions

68 Raup & Sepkoski (1982).

10.11.3 Genetics

69 Schrödinger (1944).

70 Marletto (2015).

Figure 10.17: Animation by Drew Berry of DNA replication, where a helicase enzyme unzips DNA, and DNA polymerase synthesizes new strands with complimentary nucleotides.

10.11.4 Biochemistry

  • We are complex.

10.11.5 Evolution of vision

  • We are adapted certain ways for certain environmental reasons.

Water is strongly absorbing at most of the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, but it has a narrow window of transparency which includes the visible spectrum. The span of the absorption spectrum shown is from wavelengths on the order of a kilometer down to about the size of a proton, about 10–15 meters. It doesn’t absorb in the wavelength range of visible light, roughly 400–700 nm, because there is no physical mechanism which produces transitions in that region—it is too energetic for the vibrations of the water molecule and below the energies needed to cause electronic transitions. 71

71 Nave (2016).

Figure 10.19: Light absorbtion in water and the blackbody spectrum for the approximate temperature of the Sun (hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu, 2016).

TODO: Find Dawkins on multiple instances of convergent evolution of eyes.

10.11.6 Mortality

  • We will die.
  • We have about 3 billion heartbeats: 80 years \(\approx 2.5 \times 10^9\) seconds.
  • Arakenanusasani Sutta - On the finiteness and shortness of life (AN 7.70)
    • See also Bodhi. 72
  • Shelly Kagan (b. 1956)
  • Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)
    • Mortality 74
  • Cancer

72 Bodhi (2005), p. 206–7.

73 Kagan (2012).

74 Hitchens (2012).

Bertrand Russell:

In the visible [universe], the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded. They divide their time between labour designed to postpone the moment of dissolution for themselves and frantic struggles to hasten it for others of their kind. 75

75 Russell (2004a).

See also:

10.12 Psychology

10.12.1 History

TODO:

  • Freud
  • Jung
  • Pavlov
  • …

10.12.2 Neurobiology

  • Dopamine and anticipation

10.12.3 Depression

76 P. W. Andrews & Thomson Jr (2009).

See also:

10.12.4 Cognitive behavioral therapy

77 Diener (2019).

10.12.5 Terror management theory

  • Terror management theory (TMT)
  • Ernest Becker (1924-1974)
    • The Denial of Death (1973)
    • The fear of death is “the mainspring of human activity.”
  • Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski

See also:

10.13 Atheism

10.13.1 Apologetics

  • Plato, Laws, Book 10, on the nontheism of Democritus.

10.13.2 Pascal’s Wager

  • Responses to Pascal’s Wager 78

78 Weisberg (2019), ch. 14, section 5.

10.13.3 The problem of evil

C.S. Lewis’ translation of lines from Lucretius’ De rerum natura:

Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see. 79

79 Lewis (1955), p. 65.

  • Theodicy
  • Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
  • Lucretius (99-55 BCE)
    • On The Nature of Things (De rerum natura)
  • Jean Meslier (1664-1729)
  • Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
    • Why I Am Not a Christian (1927) 80
  • J.L. Mackie (1917-1981)
    • The Miracle of Theism (1982) 81
  • Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)
    • God is Not Great (2007) 82
  • Stephen Law (b. 1960)

80 Russell (2004b).

81 Mackie (1982).

82 Hitchens (2007).

83 Law (2010).

10.13.4 Euthyphro dilemma

  • Euthyphro dilemma
    • God commands it because it is right?
    • Or, it is right because God commands it?
  • Maudlin, T. (2014). Cosmology, theology, and meaning. Talk at the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture.
  • Replies:
    • Plato, Laws, Book 10

10.13.5 Physicalism

  • Lucretius
  • Arguments for the existence of souls
    • Plato - Phaedo
    • Ibn Sina (980-1037) AKA “Avicenna”
      • “The floating man” could attain the concept of being without any sense experience.
      • Adamson criticizes that the floating man argument does not prove that the soul is distinct from the body. 87

84 Lucretius (1995).

85 Greenblatt (2011b).

86 Greenblatt (2011a).

87 Adamson (2015), p. 84.

See also:

10.13.6 Miracles

  • Hume: Bailey, A. & O’Brien, D. (2014). Hume’s Critique of Religion: ‘Sick Men’s Dreams’. 88

88 Bailey & O’Brien (2014).

John Irving:

I’m not religious. In writing A Prayer for Owen Meany, I asked myself a fairly straightforward question—namely, what would it take to make a believer out of me? The answer is that I would have to meet someone like Owen Meany. If I’d had Johnny Wheelwright’s experience in that novel, I would probably be a believer too. But I haven’t had that experience—I only imagined it.

All novels (for me) begin with a kind of, “What if” and take flight from there. 89

89 J. Moore (2009).

See also:

10.13.7 Epistemic humility

Plato, Apology:

This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless. 90

90 Plato, Apology 23b, Cooper & Hutchinson (1997), p. 22.

Plato, Meno:

Meno: Somehow, Socrates, I think that what you say is right.

Socrates: I think so too, Meno. I do not insist that my argument is right in all other respects, but I would contend at all costs both in word and in deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver, less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it. 91

91 Plato, Meno 86c, Cooper & Hutchinson (1997), p. 886.

Hume:

There is a great difference between historical facts and speculative opinions; nor is the knowledge of the one propagated in the same manner with that of the other. An historical fact, while it passes by oral tradition from eye-witnesses and contemporaries, is disguised in every successive narration, and may at last retain but very small, if any, resemblance of the original truth, on which it was founded. The frail memories of men, their love of exaggeration, their supine carelessness; these principles, if not corrected by books and writing, soon pervert the account of historical events; where argument or reasoning has little or no place, nor can ever recal the truth, which has once escaped those narrations. 92

92 Hume (2007b), part 1, (N 1.8, Bea 36).

Maudlin:

Seek the truth with an open mind. And it’s worthwhile reflecting what a truth-seeking enterprise looks like.

10.13.8 Religion as a natural phenomena

Anthropology

  • Xenophanes

Xenophanes:

But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own—horses like horses, cattle like cattle. 93

93 Xenophanes, Fragment B15, https://iep.utm.edu/xenoph/

Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; Thracians that theirs red-haired and with blue eyes; so also they conceive the spirits of the gods to be like themselves. 94

  • Hume, D. (1757). The Natural History of Religion.

Hume:

Survey most nations and most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing but sick men’s dreams. Or perhaps will regard them more as the playsome whimsies of monkeys in human shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical assertions of a being who dignifies himself with the name of rational. 95

95 Hume (2007b), p. 184.

  • Dennett, D.C. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. 96

96 Dennett (2006).

Psychology

10.13.9 Costs of metaphysical confusion

97 Mahner & Bunge (1996).

10.13.10 Criticism

10.14 Existentialism

10.14.1 Proto-existentialists

  • Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
    • Either/Or (1843)
    • Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)
    • anxiety & subjectivity
    • hedonism & aesthetics
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
  • Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
    • The Gay Science (1882)
      • The will to power (der Wille zur Macht)
      • Eternal recurrence
      • Leiter, B. (2019). The death of God and the death of morality. 98
    • Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883)
      • Modernism and alienation
      • “God is dead”
      • Übermensch
    • Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
    • On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
    • Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (1889)
      • Zumbrunnen, J. (2002). “Courage in the face of reality”: Nietzsche’s admiration for Thucydides. 99
    • The Antichrist (1888; first published in 1895)
      • Revaluation of all values
    • Ecce Homo (1888; first published in 1908)
      • “the mouth of the first immoralist”

98 Leiter (2019).

99 Zumbrunnen (2002).

10.14.2 Existentialists

100 Heidegger (1966).

Bertrand Russell:

Highly eccentric in its terminology, his philosophy is extremely obscure. One cannot help suspecting that language is here running riot. An interesting point in his speculations is the insistence that nothingness is something positive. As with much else in Existentialism, this is a psychological observation made to pass for logic. 101

101 Russell (1989), p. 303.

  • Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
    • Existence precedes essence.
    • We are often in denial of how radically free we are.
    • Randomness decides a lot.
    • Authenticity vs Bad faith
    • Nausea / La nausée (1938) 102
    • Being and Nothingness / L’être et le néant (1943)
    • No Exit / Huis clos (1944)
    • L’Existentialisme est un Humanisme (1946) 103
  • Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
  • Albert Camus (1913-1960)
    • The Absurd
    • The question of suicide
    • To live without appeal
    • The Stranger / L’Étranger (1942) 104
    • The Myth of Sisyphus / Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1948)
    • The Fall / La Chute (1956)
  • Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
    • The Courage to Be (1952)

102 Sartre (1964).

103 Sartre (2007).

104 Camus (1988).

10.14.3 Artworks

  • Miller, A. (1949). Death of a Salesman. (a play)

From “Citizenship in a Republic” speech by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 105

105 Roosevelt (1910).

Cormac McCarthy:

Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world’s turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man’s will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay. 106

106 McCarthy, C. (1985). Blood Meridian, ch. 1, p. 4.

Figure 10.20: The Scream, Edvard Munch, 1893.

10.15 Nihilism

107 Schopenhauer (2015).

108 Schopenhauer (2014).

109 Janaway (1999).

110 Brassier (2007).

111 Tartaglia (2016).

Carl Sagan discussing Nietzsche:

In The Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche, as so many before and after, decries the “unbroken progress in the self-belittling of man” brought about by the scientific revolution. Nietzsche mourns the loss of “man’s belief in his dignity, his uniqueness, his irreplaceability in the scheme of existence”. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Which attitude is better geared for our long-term survival? Which gives us more leverage on our future? And if our naive self-confidence is a little undermined in the process, is that altogether such a loss? Is there not cause to welcome it as a maturing and character-building experience? 112

112 Sagan (1997), p. 16.

10.15.1 Artworks

The way of the transgressor is hard. God made this world, but he didnt make it to suit everbody, did he?

I dont believe he much had me in mind.

Aye, said the old man. But where does a man come by his notions. What world’s he seen that he liked better?

I can think of better places and better ways.

Can ye make it be?

No.

No. It’s a mystery. A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?

I dont know.

Believe that. 113

113 McCarthy, C. (1985). Blood Meridian, ch. 2, p. 20.

10.16 My thoughts

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10.17 Annotated bibliography

10.17.1 Camus, A. (1942). The Stranger.

  • TODO.

10.17.1.1 My thoughts

  • TODO.

10.17.2 Sartre, J.P. (1946). Existentialism is a Humanism.

  • “Existence precedes essence”
  • Refers to Nietzsche’s God is dead, therefore we are free.

10.17.2.1 My thoughts

  • TODO.

10.17.3 Williams, P. (2009). Mahāyāna Buddhism: The doctrinal foundations.

  • TODO.

10.17.3.1 My thoughts

  • TODO.