Abstract
This chapter analyzes the connection between gender and education in Stoic philosophy and argues that the Stoic theory provides the premises on which to construct a strong case for the equal education of girls and boys. The Stoic views on children are analyzed in two parts, first focusing on their ways of demarcating childhood through privation (such as irrationality, moral irresponsibility, lack of emotions in the Stoic sense of the term), and then highlighting the positive content of children such as the claim that children in some sense perceive the world correctly and are born with impulses for self-preservation. The latter remark is linked to the central Stoic theory of oikeiôsis. In both contexts, the sources support a view of equal capacities of girls and boys.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, Seneca groups women and children together in De Ira (cf. Chap. 6). In Discourses, Epictetus asks scornfully: “Do the tears of poor foolish women make you effeminate (apothemlunei klainonta gynaia môra)? And will you never cease to be a little child?” (Disc. III.xxiv.53; transl. Hard) Here, as in many other remarks certain tendencies in children are compared to tendencies in women or effeminate men (here, however, Epictetus talks about gynaia môra, which could indicate that he did not take all women to be prone to weeping). Grouping women and children together could be understood in the Stoic context as signifying that neither of them can realize their full rational potentiality as both are uneducated, amathês.
- 2.
Thomas Wallgren draws evidence from Socrates, Foucault, and Wittgenstein in his discussion on “transformative philosophy” by which he means a form of philosophy that is rooted in the problems individuals encounter in their daily lives. He also analyzes the Ancient notion of care of the self which finally can expand to encompass care of others. Cf. Wallgren 2006. Stoicism would certainly provide fruitful material for this type of philosophical research.
- 3.
In this chapter, I focus on analyzing the arguments Musonius provides for the equal education of girls and boys. For further information on Musonius, see Nussbaum (2002). Some of the texts dealing with gender and sexuality are also either entirely or partly translated by Martha Nussbaum in an appendix to this article. Cynthia King (2011) provides new translations of Musonius’ text, which are the ones I use for the direct quotations in this section. For the original source, see Stobaeus 2.31.123.
- 4.
I have already noted the importance of analogy in Stoic philosophical argumentation. Musonius also uses multiple analogies in order to appeal to something the reader already accepts and on the basis of which she or he can be led to accept the more controversial part of the argument. On Musonius’ rhetoric, see also Nussbaum (2002).
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- 6.
Musonius also remarks that he does not suggest that women should possess professional skills in logic, but adds that he does not admire these competences much in men, either. (Lecture 4, in King 2011) This remark is peculiar and seems to refer rather to sophism or rhetoric than to logic proper. The Stoics generally include logic as one of the three areas of philosophy, together with ethics and physics. They were famous for developing propositional and modal logic, and they gave logic an important position in their philosophy: some even called it a virtue (aretê; DL VII: 92). Stoics generally claimed that a sage, being infallible, would necessarily think logically. They compared the division between the three parts of philosophy to a garden, in which physics corresponds to the soil, ethics to the useful fruits, and logic to the protecting fence. This analogy illustrates the protective and restrictive functions of logic: all philosophical activity must take place within the prescribed limits because no rational activity is possible without the requirement of sound reasoning. On Stoic logic, see, e.g., DL VII: 55–83; Barnes et al. (2005: 77–176); Bobzien (2003).
- 7.
Although Musonius does not specify who should be responsible for educating children, one could speculate that because he considered education such an important issue, he might also have supported the education of women for the reason that educated and intelligent mothers would make better role models and educators for their children.
- 8.
In this chapter, the Stoic views are placed into the context of philosophy of childhood , which in recent philosophical scholarship has been established as a field of its own and distinguished from philosophy of education. The main problems in this field, and in this part of my discussion on Stoicism, concern philosophical views on children, childhood as a specific phase of life and children’s capacities, for example. Cf. Matthews and Mullin (2015). On a reading of philosophy of childhood in Plato, see Grahn-Wilder (2018).
- 9.
Not only is the assertion of the nonrationality of children unlikely to convince any contemporary readers, it also seems to cause certain problems in other parts of Stoic theory. The child’s capacity to learn and make use of language seems particularly problematic in the light of Stoic premises positing that the use of language is a rational skill. One could defend the Stoic position by pointing out that they meant “rationality” in a very specific sense: to be rational means to have full rationality and the ability to act as an agent of rationality who makes independent use of rational skills such as inference, not just repeats rational activities. The same could be said about language skills: a rational language user not only repeats some rationally formed utterances like a trained parrot but also makes use of internal speech, inferences, combinations‚ and signs (Sextus Empiricus makes a similar point in Against the Professors 8.275–6; L&S 53T). However, this definition would not only leave some adults outside of rationality (e.g., people suffering from certain forms of brain damage), it also apparently includes, rather than excludes, children above a certain age that is clearly much younger than 7 or 14 years. In defense of their position‚ the Stoics might claim that children have a slowly developing capacity to use rationality, but are called nonrational until it is fully developed.
- 10.
To understand the concept of “constitution‚” it is helpful to look at Brad Inwood’s analysis of the concept (in his part of his joint-article with Pierluigi Donini, referring to Cicero’s De Fin. III and Seneca’s Letter 121). He defines “constitution” as the “person, the compound of body and soul which constitutes the identifiable individual.” He also compares this to the more modern concept of the “self.” (Inwood and Donini 2005: 679–680).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius (VII:85).
- 14.
This argument is closely connected to the Stoic idea that the natural impulses to love and take care of one’s offspring lead to genuine other-concern. The Stoics defend this position partly with physiological observations of male and female bodies which, according to them, provide a proof of naturalness of procreation (cf. Sect. 4.6). This idea culminates in Stoic cosmopolitan ethics, to be analyzed in Chaps. 13 and 14.
- 15.
On the so-called Stoic cradle argument, see Jacques Brunschwig 1986.
- 16.
Seneca’s version of this is that humans are not actually born with these conceptions, but with an innate ability to receive them (Letter 120: 4) There was apparently some disagreement within the Stoic school over the right way of understanding preconceptions—a discussion I do not enter into here. For the present purpose‚ it is sufficient to consider the crucial role of preconceptions in the Stoic view of education. In my discussion on the theory of preconceptions‚ I concentrate on the view of the Roman Stoics, leaving aside the possible differences between earlier and later thinkers in this regard.
- 17.
- 18.
Cf. Cicero’s “natural light argument”, according to which bad cultural influence dims our “natural light” (Tusc.Disp. III.i.2).
- 19.
When Marcus Aurelius praises his parents and forefathers in Meditations Book I he was clearly thinking about the things he had learned from them rather than biological heredity, since he also praises his educators and several thinkers who obviously could only have influenced his character through education. He praises his father extensively in I.16, describing how he had acted correctly in different situations and thus exemplified a virtuous character in action (the list includes virtues such as modesty and justice, and other more specific features such as having given up all love-relations with young boys and never taking a bath at unusual times).
- 20.
I here agree with Martha Nussbaum, who writes that at least in the context of philosophical education / therapy the Hellenistic philosophers in general “appear to achieve an egalitarian result that would have been unachievable in the world around them.” (1994: 12).
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Appendix
Appendix
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Grahn-Wilder, M. (2018). The Stoics on Equal Educability of Girls and Boys, and the Origin of Gendered Characteristics. In: Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53694-1_8
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