Few practicing Stoics think of Stoicism as a transcendent way of life. Most of us focus on striving for virtue, using our rationality, and trying to find contentment and meaning in our lives. We see Stoicism as a “therapy of the passions,” as a route to mental freedom, or as a useful way of dealing with adversity. Stoicism is all these things, of course, but it is also something more. Stoic philosophy offers a way of getting outside ourselves and getting over ourselves, of overcoming our egotism to see the world from a broader, universal perspective. Wisdom and contentment are almost impossible if we continue to see the world through the lens of our own narrow interests. By rising above our own small selves and cultivating a mindset of transcendence, we learn to see the world as it really is, and as a result we reach a more profound level of wisdom and virtue.
If you’ve ever tried to live a philosophical life, Stoic or otherwise, you’ve probably noticed how difficult it is. As the ancients recognized, it’s one thing to talk about being virtuous and a different thing entirely to live virtuously. It would be nice if we could decide one day that virtue is the only true good, and let the rest of our thoughts and actions flow simply and logically from this very rational decision. But the truth is, humans aren’t put together this way. We have to remind ourselves to live up to our ideals. We fail, and then we have to try even harder. Practicing virtue sometimes seems like a constant exercise in willpower.
What I’ve found, in my personal efforts toward attaining virtue, is that true progress comes not from gaining more willpower, but from changing your perspective of the world. The French philosopher and historian of philosophy Pierre Hadot suggests—and my own experience agrees—that living philosophically does not merely entail a rational understanding of philosophical principles. Living philosophically also requires seeing the world in a different way. It is this new way of seeing, this inner transformation, that allows us to truly inhabit a philosophical way of life.
The ancient spiritual exercises that Hadot identified, such as living in the present moment and attaining a view from above, are designed to help us develop this new way of seeing. These exercises are not an end in themselves. They are a means of cultivating the right outlook on life. This “cosmic consciousness” (Hadot’s term) or “cosmic connectedness” (A. A. Long’s term) is essential to the everyday ethical practice of Stoicism. I prefer to call this practice transcendence because it’s essentially about rising above your own small self to understand the big picture of the world around you. Transcendence is a term I can relate to and envision myself practicing. But I want to emphasize that this is not about transcending to some spiritual realm, but about metaphorically getting outside yourself.
Rational transcendence is woven into the very fabric of Stoic philosophy, which encourages us to leave behind our self-centered preoccupations in favor of a rational, universal perspective. Stoic ethics, physics, and logic all demand that we get outside ourselves and see things as they really are. What else is Marcus Aurelius doing in his Meditations than reminding himself to see things as they really are? What else is Epictetus doing in his lectures than reminding his students to see things as they really are? In order to see things as they really are, we must be able to surpass our personal egotism to “see events from the perspective of what they mean for the universe.”[1] When we bear patiently with others because we see them as members of the same body as ourselves, we are practicing transcendence. When we view a disappointing event from the point of view of the cosmos—and thereby perceive that it’s not so disappointing after all—we are practicing transcendence.
Stoic transcendence is an active exercise that takes us to a new level of understanding about the world. Below we will explore what Stoic transcendence is (and isn’t) and its relationship to Stoic physics and ethics.
What Is Stoic Transcendence?
First, a word about what Stoic transcendence is not. It is not a religious or mystical experience, designed to commune with a transcendent god. Stoicism rejects the idea of a transcendent god or any kind of otherworldly realm. For the ancient Stoics, there were no Platonic ideals, no incorporeal divinities, no god external to nature that we must reach by transcending our physical bodies. Instead, nature itself is imbued with a sort of divine energy that all physical entities (including humans) participate in.[2] Any effort toward transcendence within a Stoic framework is therefore metaphorical, not literal. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
We should also distinguish transcendence from ecstatic experience. Hadot was no stranger to ecstatic experience—the “oceanic feeling” of cosmic unity inspired him throughout his life—yet he concluded that ecstasy is not necessary for leading a philosophical life.[3] Ecstasy can have benefits, he tells us, such as opening a person to new ways of seeing the world, but it can also be difficult and dangerous.[4] And this type of ecstatic experience is missing from the texts we have of Greek and Roman Stoicism. The ancient Stoics frequently spoke of wonder before nature, but the closest we come to reading about the “oceanic feeling” of cosmic unity is when Seneca says that the perfect soul is toti se inserens mundo, “plunged in the totality of the world.”[5] Just because they did not write about ecstatic experience does not mean it was absent, Hadot reminds us,[6] but we have no reason to believe that ecstatic experience is part of a Stoic life.
Now we can further clarify what type of transcendence is cultivated through Stoic philosophy. We know it’s not the type of short-lived ecstasy in which you are “invaded” by an external force. It’s not a mystical connection with an otherworldly being. What does that leave us? Seeking transcendence through rational means, of course. Rather than trying to find meaning in life by losing ourselves, we can find meaning by overcoming ourselves. When we manage to do this, our happiness will not be fleeting and capricious; it will be hard-won, but it will be steady, unbreakable, and enduring. It will, in other words, be very similar to eudaimonia.
Eudaimonia is a psychological state, a “condition in which a person of excellent character is living optimally well, flourishing, doing admirably, and steadily enjoying the best mindset that is available to human beings.”[7] Paradoxically, we do not find eudaimonia by seeking happiness; we achieve eudaimonia by seeking moral excellence. It “supervenes” on those who walk the path of virtue. I believe that transcendence has a role to play as we strive to perfect our rational and social nature through virtue. Humans generally do not flourish and find contentment by focusing only on themselves. Instead, we become both wiser and happier by getting outside ourselves and feeling connected to something much bigger than ourselves. Transcendence is the psychological effort to see things from the perspective of Universal Reason rather than from the perspective of our own narrow interests. It is this psychological effort—and your resulting psychological condition—that makes you morally beautiful and wise.
Transcendence in Stoic Physics and Ethics
Transcendence in Stoic philosophy is not a supernatural or mystical affair, but rather the psychological effort toward a cosmic consciousness. All the major Roman Stoics remind us that we each occupy a small place in the universe, and we must joyfully play our part in Nature. We must aim, in Pierre Hadot’s words, to “surpass our partial point of view, to make us see things and our personal existence from a cosmic and universal perspective, to place ourselves within the immensity of the universe but also, you could say, in the ineffable mystery of existence.”[8]
A. A. Long describes a similar phenomenon as “cosmic connectedness,” or the idea that we are all interdependent parts of the universe. In his talk at Stoicon 2018, Long named cosmic connectedness as one of the key tenets of Stoicism for modern times:
This idea comes up all the time in the ancient texts, sometimes by the postulate that we human beings are parts of the whole or citizens of the world, sometimes by describing us as links in the chain of fate, or even as children of God. . . . It often appears in theological contexts that seem to some interpreters to be unhelpful and unacceptable to modern Stoics. Can we moderns, agnostic as many of us are, relate sympathetically to a philosophy whose physics are founded on fate or universal determinism, divine and omnipresent causality, cosmic teleology, and providence?[9]
His answer is yes. Along with other key tenets of Stoicism, cosmic connectedness allows us to understand our place in the world and our natural interdependence with everything around us.
When Epictetus urges his students to give thanks to providence and acknowledge divine agency, he starts by remarking on the interconnectedness of earth and sky, seasonal change, the sun’s rising and setting, and living bodies’ dependence on these things. As a modern Stoic you don’t need to credit Nature with divinity and providence.[10]
I completely agree. Cosmic connectedness is a rational form of self-transcendence that does not require specific religious or metaphysical beliefs. Although the ancient Stoics attributed a providential nature to the cosmos, we can practice transcendence today regardless of whether we share their view of providence. What matters most, I think, is not our specific conception of the divine but the quality of our minds as we practice the hard daily work of becoming wise. Personally, I have found that in those moments when I’m able to get outside myself and come closer to a universal perspective, everything makes sense in a way it didn’t before. It’s a relief to find that all my small problems, which loomed so large in the landscape of everyday life, aren’t so important in the context of existence as a whole. This psychological condition does not require a specific set of beliefs about the nature of god, but rather the proper understanding of our relationship to the world.
The ethical implications of this cosmic connectedness are laid out very clearly in one of my favorite passages from Hadot’s interviews with Arnold I. Davidson. Davidson begins by asking,
In antiquity, one couldn’t care for others if he didn’t take care of himself. Do you think this is a necessary link? . . . It seems to me that the philosophical mode of caring for others always demands a care of the self, which is actually a transformation of the self.
Hadot replies,
I think we need to reverse your formula, at least as far as the Stoics are concerned. It’s not: one can’t care for others if one doesn’t care for oneself, but on the contrary, as Seneca said (Letter 48, 3): “Live for others, if you want to live for yourself.” Because, adds Seneca, you cannot be happy if you only consider yourself. It is true that you might think that in order to care for others, you must first transform yourself. But this transformation of self consists precisely in being attentive to others . . . I would say that there is no true concern for others without a forgetting of the self . . . As Marcus Aurelius clearly says (VII, 13), the foundational reason for loving others, at least for the Stoics, is awareness of being parts of the same body, so that each part, in putting itself at the service of the whole body, is also serving itself. You can find joy in doing good for others because in doing good for others, you are also doing good for yourself.[11]
This is the core of Stoic ethics: We find meaning and contentment not by acting for ourselves alone, but by acting with other people in mind. Like a typical Stoic paradox, it is counterintuitive yet undeniably true. When we act selfishly, we may get what we want, but we never find lasting joy or contentment. When we act selflessly, we find great joy and purpose in life. That’s not to say that we must always turn the other cheek, because there are times when that is not appropriate. But it does mean that all our thoughts and actions should be guided by principles higher than our own egotism. In order to see things clearly, we must get outside ourselves.
In fact, many other sages who have given thought to the problems we face in life have reached similar conclusions. In her brilliant study of the religions of the Axial Age (approximately 800 to 200 BCE), Karen Armstrong finds striking similarities between the philosophies that developed in ancient China, India, Israel, and Greece.[12] She concludes,
Regardless of their theological “beliefs”—which, as we have seen, did not much concern the sages—they all concluded that if people made a disciplined effort to reeducate themselves, they would experience an enhancement of their humanity. In one way or another, their programs were designed to eradicate the egotism that is largely responsible for our violence, and promoted the empathic spirituality of the Golden Rule. This, they found, introduced people to a different dimension of human experience. It gave them an “ekstasis,” stepping out from their habitual, self-bound consciousness that enabled them to apprehend a reality that they called “God,” nibbana, brahman, atman, or the Way. It was not a question of discovering your belief in God first and then living a compassionate life. The practice of disciplined sympathy would itself yield intimations of transcendence.[13]
This passage is helpful for Stoics in several ways. For one, it develops a link that also exists in Stoicism: the connection between ethical action and ego transcendence. By rising above our own egotism to consider not just what is good for ourselves, but what is good for other people, we practice a rational transcendence. And this transcendence is no mean thing. In many wisdom traditions, it is a path to enlightenment, to a different dimension of human experience.
This new dimension of experience is ekstasis in its original sense, a “stepping out” from our everyday consciousness. We achieve this type of consciousness-altering experience not by waiting for some unknown presence to descend on us, but through the hard work of overcoming our egos. If we seek ecstasy for itself, we have missed the point. Like eudaimonia, it supervenes on us when we make a consistent, concerted effort to rise above our own small concerns. As Armstrong puts it, “First you must commit yourself to the ethical life; then disciplined and habitual benevolence, not metaphysical conviction, would give you intimations of the transcendence you sought.”[14]
I find it fascinating that both Armstrong and Hadot came from an ecclesiastical background (he was a priest, she was a nun), and that both left the religious life but devoted themselves to studying variations of religion, spirituality, and philosophy. Both of these scholars suggest that enlightenment comes through the hard work of “disciplined sympathy” for others. “If such an attitude became habitual,” says Armstrong, “people could live in a state of constant ekstasis, not because they were caught up in an ecstatic trance but because they would be living beyond the confines of egotism.”[15]
By “stepping out” of ourselves, we learn to see everything through new eyes, and this in turn transforms our perception of the world. For Stoics, it’s not about seeking mystical experience or waiting to feel a divine presence. Neither of those are required for wisdom and eudaimonia. It is telling that despite his transformative ecstatic experiences, Hadot concluded that ecstatic experience is not an integral part of the philosophical life.[16] Rather, he said, “daily life itself, notably in the relationships we have with other people, can be charged with a value that is mystical or sacred.”[17]
What does it mean for our daily relations with other people to take on a sacred value? I think this means that our ethical actions can themselves be spiritual exercises. We shouldn’t see our daily routines and encounters as something to be gotten out of the way so we can concentrate on more important things (like reading or meditation). Instead, they are opportunities to practice virtue, become wise, and experience the wonder of life. We can start to see every interaction with another person as a step on the path to virtue.
The Stoics have always told us that we must learn to see the world differently: We must question our assumptions, change our perspective, and see things as they really are. We do this by understanding ourselves as one small part of a vast, beautiful universe. But transcendence is not merely about communing with the cosmos; at its core, it is also about our relationships with other people. Our lifelong task is to transform ourselves and our way of seeing the world, so that we deeply and genuinely understand our relationship to everything—and everyone—around us.
[1] Pierre Hadot, La Philosophie comme manière de vivre: Entretiens avec Jennie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson (Albin Michel: Paris, 2001), 217.
[2] John Sellars, Stoicism (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2006), 91-95.
[3] Pierre Hadot, La Philosophie comme manière de vivre: Entretiens avec Jennie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson (Albin Michel: Paris, 2001), 135.
[4] Ibid., 129.
[5] Ibid., 28.
[6] Ibid., 28.
[7] A.A. Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 193.
[8] Ibid., 160.
[9] A.A. Long, “Stoicisms Ancient and Modern,” Stoicism Today blog, October 6, 2018, https://modernstoicism.com/stoicisms-ancient-and-modern-by-tony-a-a-long/.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Pierre Hadot, La Philosophie comme manière de vivre: Entretiens avec Jeannie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson (Albin Michel: Paris, 2001), 174-175.
[12] Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, (Alfred Knopf: New York, 2006). Armstrong does not include Stoicism and the other Hellenistic schools in her classification of Axial Age philosophies. Unfortunately, she is misinformed about the core tenets of Stoicism, so she misses the connection between Stoicism and Buddhism, Confucianism, and the other Axial Age traditions. However, I think the connections are significant, and that they can inform our understanding of Stoic philosophy.
[13] Ibid., ebook loc. 7758.
[14] Ibid., ebook loc. 120.
[15] Ibid., ebook loc. 7763.
[16] Pierre Hadot, La Philosophie comme manière de vivre: Entretiens avec Jennie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson (Albin Michel: Paris, 2001), 135.
[17] Ibid., 137.