Recently, I received a thoughtful email from someone who is reading my new book Epictetus’s Encheiridion: A New Translation and Guide to Stoic Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2023). This thoughtful reader notes that we write (on page 81): “The things ‘up to us’ are naturally, intrinsically ‘free, unhindered, and unimpeded’... We are each free to understand ideas, interpret events and think about things however we want.” But he asks:
"Is this true in modern society with social media? After reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011), Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (Penguin, 2013), and other books, I see how easily humans fall into cognitive traps—sometimes of their own making and other times through someone else’s manipulations. Even external events, such as the weather, can subconsciously affect mood and decision-making. In addition to the cognitive biases and mistakes these authors discuss, I also worry about the echo chamber effect of social media. It seems to condition people to think in specific ways. Is our thinking really something we control in this environment? Is it free, unhindered, and unimpeded? Are we thinking about things as we want? Or as ‘they’ want us to?"
This excellent question is a serious challenge to the entire Stoic program. Here is how I would respond.
It is absolutely correct to say that virtually everyone in the world who has access to electricity and media, whether radio, television, or the internet is bombarded with advertising in the form of words, images, and music daily. This digital bombardment assaults us with rhetoric, propaganda, and psychological manipulations of various kinds aimed at controlling our political beliefs, our identity and self-image, our fears and appetites, and so our actions. The people pushing this propaganda are trying to manipulate us, pushing our buttons, as it were, both as consumers in a capitalist, materialistic society and as citizens being herded (or trampled) by the super-wealthy and powerful.
My thoughtful reader also notes that even the weather can affect our moods and decision-making. Seasonal affective disorder is a subtle example of this. An unsubtle example is exposure to extreme heat or extreme cold for extended periods of time. This summer extreme heat and humidity, wildfires and their smoke, and violent storms have the power to trigger in us—if, that is, we assent to the commonly accepted impression that they truly are bad things—negative emotional responses and threatened, or so it seems, our ability to think calmly and circumspectly.
Moreover, human beings are indeed subject to cognitive biases of various kinds, including confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the psychological tendency to notice, focus on, and give greater credence to evidence that fits with our existing beliefs. Here’s an example. A young child named Ilsa has a fever. Her mother Pia, who is very religious, insists Ilsa just needs prayer to get better. She completely dismisses the need to give Ilsa medication in order to help her. On the other hand, Ilsa’s father Aldo disagrees with Pia and medicates Ilsa with acetaminophen. Ilsa soon makes a full recovery. While Pia is convinced that her prayer caused Ilsa to overcome her illness, Pia rejects the possibility that the medication contributed to Ilsa’s recovery.
My reader is entirely right that in various media outlets (on the left and right of the political spectrum) conspiracy theories are allowed to spread like viruses. Often the crazier and racier the ‘theory’, the more seductive it is to those eager to embrace it and propagate it.
So, the worry goes, given all these factors relentlessly pushing and pulling on our cognitive faculties, deviously conditioning us to believe what others benefit from us believing, isn’t Epictetus not just wrong but naïve to insist that our beliefs, opinions, understanding, judgments, impulses, desires, and aversions are completely up to us and ‘naturally free, unhindered and unimpeded’ (Ench. 1.2)?
A Stoic’s answer to this criticism begins by noting that the thoughtful reader describes these cognitive biases, mistakes, and manipulations as traps. These are indeed traps, and very dangerous ones at that. Other people and forces in nature beyond our control can try to set traps to constrain our beliefs. But it is not inevitable that a savvy Stoic must fall into these traps. Consider a minefield. If you suspect that the field in front of you contains mines, then you are free not to run willy-nilly into it. You have options: skirt the field and go around it. Reverse your course and move away from it. Or, if you must cross the field, get yourself a metal detector, learn to use it, and use it wisely with each step you take. The longer-term solution is to enlist the help of others and work to find and defuse the mines one at a time, clearing the entire field over time. Your choices are yours. Whether you assent to a possible belief is up to you, it is not controlled by other people, the stock market, the economy, the weather, an earthquake, a tidal wave, or anything else not up to you.
That is to say, the first step is to become aware of these cognitive biases and learn how they work. Learn how to identify them. The second step is to train yourself to be epistemically fastidious. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies what knowledge (epistêmê in Greek) is and how it is acquired. A person who wants to gain knowledge and doesn’t rest content with mere opinions won’t assent to any old proposition that comes down the pike which other people tout or because it seems appealing. People are especially prone to believing what they want to believe. They are especially attracted to beliefs that flatter them, or make them feel powerful or clever or special in some way. But Stoics understand that in order to live a good life, you have to become virtuous. A good life is one free from fear, anger, jealousy, resentment, hatred, loneliness, greed, and all negative, psychologically harmful passions and emotions. And all virtues, they argue, are different applications of the same unitary cognitive excellence known as wisdom. Wise people have trained themselves to examine impressions (propositions, beliefs, appearances, images, advertisements, slogans, rhetoric, propaganda) with meticulous care. A big part of being wise is understanding that before embracing a belief, one must collect adequate evidence pertaining to that belief. Only when the preponderance of evidence supports a particular impression is it permissible to assent to that impression. If the evidence for believing it or disbelieving it is roughly equal, then the only sensible thing to do is to suspend one’s assent. On the other hand, if there is just too little evidence available to decide whether to believe it or not, then the only wise thing to do is, again, to withhold one’s assent and neither believe nor disbelieve. When additional evidence becomes available, then you can reconsider whether you have sufficient reason at that time to believe it or not. Assessing evidence takes time, effort, and patience. Wisdom never comes quickly or easily.
On the Stoic analysis, the main reason people fall victim to cognitive biases, mistakes, and traps is that they are unprepared, uneducated in Stoic teachings, or too lazy to patiently scrutinize the ideas and opinions that are hurled at them through mass media, social media, and advertising. William Clifford was a mathematician and philosopher who happened to be a fan of Epictetus. Clifford wrote an influential work called The Ethics of Belief. His thesis: It is wrong, always and everywhere, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. This scrupulous approach to belief formation is deeply Stoic. It is important to remember that the ancient Stoics considered the study of language, persuasion (rhetoric and dialectic), and reasoning a vital part of philosophy. They called this part of philosophy “logic” (the other two parts being physics and ethics). Study of logic, argument, and inference they regarded as indispensable to acquiring virtue and living well. Weighing evidence and arguments for and against beliefs enables one to curate one’s beliefs in a very methodical, painstaking, and patient way. This is the only path to wisdom, according to the Stoics’ analysis. To do what is good and right you must know what is good and right. There is thus no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard epistemic work of patiently evaluating evidence before accepting a belief necessary to avoid falling into the swarm of cognitive traps which others are all too eager to set for us. Believing what is comforting is far too easy. Racy opinions from our own tribe offer us quick, reflexive gratification. Gaining knowledge, in contrast, is hard work.
So, to return to the question: Are our thoughts really ‘free, unhindered, and unimpeded’? Do we really think as we want to or is our thinking controlled by powers outside our control? I think Epictetus and other Stoics would grant that the thoughts of most people are highly manipulable. But this is because most people don’t know any better. They lack the proper education. They lack training in logic, reasoning, and in how to assess evidence. Indeed, they don’t even know why it is vital to assess evidence. Most people are heavily swayed by their emotions, so emotional plays jerk their minds around like puppets on strings. Cautious thinking takes more effort and more patience than many people are inclined to invest. Do vaccines really protect us from viruses? Does wearing a protective mask the correct way really lessen the chances of spreading a virus? Should we accept the advice of medical “experts,” physicians, and epidemiologists on such matters? Or should we agree with members of our tribe who portray vaccines as the government’s attempt to inject us with nanobots that control us? Should we agree with pundits on our preferred television network that mask-wearing tramples our freedom to breathe and that viruses don’t exist because we can’t see them? Are birds real animals or animatronic drones deployed by the government to spy on us?
Most people are mired in foolishness and disinclined to fight their way out of it, from the Stoic perspective. Ignorance can be very comforting. Getting an education, that is, being epistemically fastidious when sorting through opinions and carefully assessing evidence for beliefs before accepting them—this is a process that takes time and effort, and so commitment. But those who recognize that wisdom is absolutely necessary for liberating the mind from sloppy, lazy, complacent, uneducated belief acceptance know they must practice the discipline of epistemic fastidiousness. Logic and education in what is good, what is bad, and what is neither can free our minds from folly, but only a few have the mental stamina and perseverance to break free by studying logic seriously and applying it, always and everywhere, to candidates for belief. Why don’t the majority dedicate themselves to a life of epistemic fastidiousness? Because wisdom (virtue) is rare, not common, according to the Stoics. The good news is that anyone who is not mentally impaired has what it takes to learn logic, learn how to recognize (and reject) fallacies, and assess evidence carefully and dispassionately. We can all improve our skills at not believing anything anywhere on insufficient evidence. And the wisdom we gain, after all this hard work, cannot be stolen from us.
