Stoic Meditations

Science, argues Cicero, makes reliable predictions of events based on the laws of nature. No such reliability is possible for mysticisms like divination.

Cicero says that nobody actually takes soothsayers seriously, because when we want to actually accomplish something, we go to an expert in that domain, like a doctor, and not a to a seer or a prophet.

Cicero is gearing up to respond to his brother's defense of the Stoic notion of divination. He will do so, however, while putting forth probable arguments, not declarations of certainty. As a good critical thinker ought to do.

Cicero explains the main reason he writes philosophy: to be helpful to other people. But we also know he was helping himself to overcome the grief he felt at the death of his beloved daughter Tullia.

Quintus, Cicero's brother, makes one last - and pretty good - argument in favor of divination, an argument that anticipated a famous idea by the astronomer Pierre-Simon de Laplace.

Nothing has happened which was not bound to happen, and, likewise, nothing is going to happen which will not find in nature every efficient cause of its happening.

Quintus, Cicero's brother, mentions Socrates' famous daimon as evidence of divine influence. But it is more likely that Socrates himself simply meant the concept as a way to represent his conscience.

Cicero makes reference to two problems, as we moderns may see them, with Stoic philosophy: the notion of an intelligence permeating the universe, and the idea that the body is a drag on the mind.

Quintus, Cicero's brother, relies on other people's testimony to establish the reality of divination. But as his brother, David Hume, and Carl Sagan observed, that sort of evidence is insufficient to establish his extraordinary claim.

Quintus, Cicero's brother, delivers yet another fallacious argument in defense of divination, one that implies that Epicurus got at least one thing right, despite how much Cicero obviously didn't like him or his philosophy.

Quintus, Cicero's brother, puts forth yet another bad argument in favor of divination, one that unfortunately is still used by many today: if celebrity so-and-so says X, then X must be true...

Cicero's brother, Quintus, uses a qualitative argument in defense of the notion of divination. The argument appears valid, but it is flawed because of the lack of quantification, which - to be fair - was invented only many centuries later.

Cicero's brother, Quintus, invokes an analogy between a dice game and the structure of the universe to deploy what we today recognize as an argument from intelligent design. Which doesn't work.

Cicero rejects the notion of divination on the grounds that there is no mechanism to explain it. He was wrong on the general epistemological principle, though right in the specific case.

Cicero tells us that some Stoics disagreed with the majority opinion within the Stoa on the topic of divination. Indeed, there were multiple opinions on various subjects. Stoicism was never a rigid school of thought.

Cicero's brother, Quintus, presents one Stoic argument in favor of divination: everyone knows it's true. This is an obvious logical fallacy. And yet, there are cases when it is justified to believe a majority opinion.

These days are my best, because my mind is at leisure to attend to its own affairs, and at one time amuses itself with lighter studies, at another eagerly presses its inquiries into its own nature and that of the universe.

The best middle course between affection and hard common sense is both to feel regret and to restrain it.

If you regard the end of your days not as a punishment, but as an ordinance of nature, no fear of anything else will dare to enter the breast which has cast out the fear of death.

Why do you amass fortune after fortune? Are you unwilling to remember how small our bodies are? Is it not frenzy and the wildest insanity to wish for so much when you can contain so little?