Deo Parere Libertas Est: Stoic Echoes in Wittgenstein’s Conception of Destiny

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to examine some aspects of the relationship between the concepts of God, destiny, and happiness in Wittgenstein’s writings. The analysis is done—to use an expression of the philosopher’s own—by contrast with and against the background of Roman Stoicism’s views on this matter, mainly Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The different uses of the concept of God that appeared in their texts are analysed, and the relationship between the notions of destiny, self-sufficiency, and happiness is clarified. Several similarities between Wittgenstein and Roman Stoics are traced, among others, those relating to the sense of the principle of distinction between what depends on oneself and what does not, the primacy of inner life as an absolute alternative to the impossible mastery of the world of facts, and the ideas of a serene acceptance of adversity and of happiness as peace of mind.

I have to submit entirely to my fate.

Whatever is imposed on me, will be.

I live in the hands of fate.

L. Wittgenstein, Private Notebooks 1914–1916.1

1. Introduction

L. Wittgenstein held W. James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience in high esteem,2 describing it as having done him “a lot of good”, insofar as at a certain point in his life it had helped him to free himself from Sorge.3

As is known, in this work James undertakes a study of the religious constitution of the human being from the standpoint of psychology—that is, from the standpoint of religious feelings and impulses, or, stated more precisely, of “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (James 2002, lecture II, pp. 29–30).

From reading this work, it can be inferred that, in the author’s view, religion and happiness are closely connected. Religious life is broadly and generally defined as the belief “in an unseen order and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto”.4 Along the same lines, it is stated that “the more complex ways of experiencing religion are new manners of producing happiness—wonderful inner paths to a supernatural kind of happiness, when the first gift of natural existence is unhappy, as it so often proves itself to be”.5

James maintains the thesis that the entire problem of morality and religion is ultimately reduced to the attitude with which one faces the world and the evils that afflict it: “At bottom the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe. Do we accept it only in part and grudgingly, or heartily and altogether? Shall our protests against certain things in it be radical and unforgiving, or shall we think that, even with evil, there are ways of living that must lead to good?”.6

In this regard, he contrasts two major types of religious personality. These types correspond to different tendencies within human nature and are distinguished on the basis of the different ways they face evil. On one hand, there is what he calls “the healthy-minded temperament”, and, on the other, “the sick soul”. The first can be characterized, in James’s own words, as “the tendency which looks on all things and sees that they are good”.7 It serves as the basis of those types of religion in which “good, even the good of this world’s life, is regarded as the essential thing for a rational being to attend to”.8 Conversely, the opposing type of temperament rests on the conviction that “the evil aspects of our life are its very essence, and that the world’s meaning most comes home to us when we lay them most to heart.”9

V. Sanfélix Vidarte has brilliantly argued that Wittgenstein displays all the symptoms of the melancholy that James attributes to the sick soul.10 In James’s characterization of it, extreme pessimism is one of the defining symptoms or traits of the morbid soul. In the same vein, James contends that, although it might appear otherwise, the attitude of the ancient Greeks was fundamentally pessimistic. Epicureanism and Stoicism, in his view, represent the most fully developed step that Greek culture made in the direction of pessimism.11 He asserts in this regard: “Each of these philosophies is in its degree a philosophy of despair in nature’s boons. Trustful self-abandonment to the joys that freely offers has entirely departed from both Epicureans and Stoics; and what each proposes is a way of rescue from the resultant dust-and-ashes state of mind” (ibid.).

My aim in this paper is to show some similarities and differences between Wittgenstein’s ethics and ancient Stoicism with regard to their conception of the attitude with which one faces the world, as well as the pursuit and attainment of a happy life. I will focus mainly on the early Wittgenstein, although I will not exclude references to some of the later Wittgenstein’s texts, as I think that in the subject examined in this paper there are no significant changes, let alone a break, but rather a continuity, between the views held by Wittgenstein throughout his life. I will focus the analysis on comparing Wittgenstein’s texts with those of Roman Stoicism, particularly the works of Epictetus (1966), Seneca (2014a), and Marcus Aurelius (2008). If anything distinguishes Roman Stoicism, it is the predominance of religious interest. This interest is grounded in the emphasis given by the Roman Stoics to the theme of spiritual interiority. The Stoic conception of the wise person as self-sufficient, immune to fate, and seeking truth within himself is the basis for the value Stoicism begins to ascribe to what we now call introspection or consciousness. To reach God and align himself with his law, the Stoic sage needs not to look outside himself; he needs only to look within. The Roman Stoics made this turning of man toward himself one of their favorite themes. This is also a point of considerable significance in Wittgenstein’s personal writings.

Before I begin, it might be worth addressing a possible objection to this attempt. If we compare a philosopher A with a philosopher or a philosophical movement B, the first thing to ask is whether A knew—and, if so, to what extent and whether directly or indirectly—the philosopher or the philosophical movement B. Now, in our case, it is quite clear that Wittgenstein had indirect knowledge of Stoicism and did not devote much time and effort to reading Stoic texts.

Given this, it would be worth specifying why, nevertheless, I consider this comparison to be useful. First, because it is not necessary to have evidence of an effective relationship between two authors for their comparison to be relevant. The relationship between Hellenistic and Eastern philosophy, for example, has not been proven beyond doubt, but the comparison between Taoism and Stoicism, for example, is completely relevant; otherwise, Jaspers’ work on the Axial Age (Jaspers 2017) would be of no interest. But, above all, because Stoicism is one of the fundamental currents of Western thought. When Hume, for example, speaks of philosophical characters, he speaks of the Platonic, the Epicurean, the Skeptic, and the Stoic—not the Aristotelian—(Hume 1742a, pp. 155–204) and even more so in Modernity, with the collapse of Aristotelianism. It is not too risky to say that Stoicism is present in authors such as Descartes, Spinoza, Kant… or even Tolstoy. So, to relate Wittgenstein to Stoicism is to study the relationship of his thought to one of the fundamental currents of thought that is no longer ancient, but also—and I would say even more so—modern. For the rest, Wittgenstein (1922) claims, in the preface to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, that his ideas are not original. As a self-assessment, this claim may be dubious. However, even in cases where this is so, often there is no direct line of influence. Wittgenstein, so to say, invented and revitalized classical ideas anew.

2. The Concept of God in the Stoics and in Wittgenstein

Before proceeding further, it will be useful to examine more closely the conception of God found in the writings of the Stoics and Wittgenstein.

In their physics, the Stoics adopted Heraclitus’s doctrine that Reason (Logos) and Fire are the substance of the world.12 But they also incorporated elements from Plato and Aristotle.13 For example, the doctrine of seminal reasons appears to be a transposition of the theory of Forms onto the material plane.

The Stoics replaced Aristotle’s four causes with two principles: the active principle (τὸ ποιοῦν) and the passive principle (τὸ πάσχον). Yet, this does not amount to a dualism of the kind that we find in Plato, since the active principle is not spiritual but material. The Stoic cosmological doctrine is thus a form of material monism, although its exponents did not always adhere to it with complete consistency.14 The passive principle is matter without any qualitative determination,15 while the active principle is the immanent Reason or God.

Natural beauty or the observable purposiveness in nature indicates the existence of a thinking principle of the universe: God, who, in his providence,16 has arranged all things for the good of humankind. Moreover, since the most exalted phenomenon in nature, the human being, possesses consciousness, it cannot be supposed that the world as a whole is devoid of it, for the whole cannot be less perfect than the part. Consequently, God is the consciousness of the world. However, God, like the substrate upon which he operates, is material. God is the active fire immanent in the universe, yet He is at the same time the primordial source from which the elements that constitute the corporeal world proceed and into which they will ultimately be resolved. Thus, everything that exists is either the primordial fire (God in Himself—not the elemental fire used by humans, which destroys things, but a warm and vital breath that preserves, nourishes, sustains, and causes all things to grow) or God in his various states. When the world exists in its formed state, God is to it as the soul is to the body—He is the Soul of the world.

In Stoic philosophy, then, God, Logos, or Reason is the active principle that contains within itself the formative causes of all things that are to be—the seminal reasons (λόγοι σπερματικοί), which are like rational seeds that develop into individual entities. This notion would later be adopted by Neoplatonism and by Augustine.

As for the creation of the world according to Stoic doctrine, the world emerges when the primordial matter has been differentiated and transformed into various elements. Through condensation and coarsening, it becomes earth; through rarefaction, it becomes air and then moisture and water; being further refined, it becomes fire. From these four elements all things are composed: two—air and fire—are active; the other two—earth and water—are passive. The world is finite and spherical in shape; the sphere of fire lies above that of the fixed stars. Outside the world, there is void, but within it, there is no void, for all things are joined and compact.

By identifying God with the universe, that is, with the necessary order of things, the Stoic doctrine proves to be a form of pantheism. At the same time, Stoic doctrine also provided a justification for traditional polytheism: the gods of tradition were seen as various aspects of divine ordering activity. Divinity is called Zeus insofar as it is the cause of life (ζῆν), Athena insofar as it rules over the ether, Hera insofar as it governs the air, and Hephaestus as the creative fire.

As for Wittgenstein, in his writings, we find at least three distinct representations of God, and none of them bears any resemblance to the Stoic conception of divinity. On the one hand, there is the God of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. He should be understood, in my opinion, as a contemporary echo or survival of the Platonic Form of the Good. Indeed, the Tractarian God brings together several of the traditional features of the God of the philosophers, which ultimately traces its roots to the Platonic theory of the supreme Good.17 Thus, his principal attribute is self-sufficiency (αὐταρχία) and therefore also transcendence: “God”, writes Wittgenstein, “does not reveal himself in the world” (“Gott offenbart sich nicht in der Welt”, Tract. Log. Phil., 6.432). From this also follows his ineffable character, as well as his indifference toward the world: “How the world is, is completely indifferent for what is higher” (“Wie die Welt ist, ist für das Höhere vollkommen gleichgültig”, Tract. Log. Phil., 6.432). Finally, it also follows from this his sterile or barren character, that is, far from being conceived as a fecundating or productive power, the God of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, like that of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, does not create the world. Regarding this aspect of Wittgenstein’s thinking, N. Malcolm recalls that “the notion of a being making the world had no intelligibility for him at all”.18 For if God, in his absolute self-sufficiency, is transcendent to the world, he cannot arrogate to his nature the impulse to create or give life, since such an assertion would contradict that of his independence. God cannot be bound to the world either by causation or in any other way. These traditional aspects or elements of the God of the philosophers have survived through the centuries because they harmonize well with one of the varieties of religious experience: for a type of religious imagination and feeling there can be no satisfaction other than with the idea of the total transcendence of the supreme Good with respect to the natural world and of his sublime indifference even toward the human beings who venerate him.

Now, on the other hand, the influence on Wittgenstein of the Judeo-Christian representation of God as a severe and authoritarian judge seems clear. Thus, for example, this is the God who, on a cold night in Trattenbach, made Wittgenstein feel completely overpowered by Him: “I suddenly felt my complete nothingness and saw that God could demand of me what He wills on the condition that my life would immediately become meaningless if I didn’t obey… I felt totally annihilated and in the hands of God who could at every moment do with me as He wills”.19 In another place, he speaks of a God vested with authority to “demand everything from one at any moment”.20 In this regard, to cite one more example, Wittgenstein also writes: “God may say to me: ‘I am judging you out of your own mouth. You have shuddered with disgust at your own actions when you have seen them in other people’”.21

Lastly, traces may be found in Wittgenstein of the idea of a God whose essence is love.22 This feature of “divine love” seems to have been conceived by Wittgenstein in a manner similar to that of early Christianity. According to this, the essence of God would consist in bestowing love and relieving the suffering of his creatures. At least, this appears to be what may be inferred from the many devout ejaculatory prayers and invocations to God in some of his personal notebooks, in which in God he sought refuge and inner strength to face “this soul-sickness”.23 In the Notebooks 1914–1916, to the question “What do I know about God and the purpose of life?” he responds that “the meaning of life, i.e., the meaning of the world, we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father”.24 A certain use of the concept can also be understood in the sense of a God who loves peace and good understanding among men. Whatever the latter may be, what seems clear is that Wittgenstein saw in religion a leveling factor, an element of equality among men: “Someone who in this way opens his heart to God in remorseful confession opens it to others too. He thereby loses his dignity as someone special & so becomes like a child. That means without office, dignity & aloofness from others. You can open yourself to others only out of a particular kind of love, which acknowledges, as it were, that we are all wicked children”.25 For the rest, it also seems clear that Wittgenstein’s interpretation of Christianity was intensely irrationalist and fideist, an approach clearly influenced by Kierkegaard. Consider, for example, the following remark: “If Christianity is the truth, then all the philosophy about it is false.”26

3. Destiny and Happiness in Stoicism and in Wittgenstein

Let us now try to clarify the relationship established by the Stoics and by Wittgenstein between destiny and happiness. I shall begin by pointing out that a general assumption common to both Stoic ethics27 and Wittgensteinian ethics28 is the intimate connection of happiness (εὐδαιμονία, felicitas, Glück) with life itself—that is, of living with living happily. In these philosophies, it is assumed—to use a phrase employed by Hume in describing the Stoic moral temperament—that “the great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness” (Hume 1742b, p. 167). This Socratic assumption, being almost self-evident, is taken for granted.29 Wittgenstein writes: “I keep on coming back to this! Simply the happy life is good, the unhappy bad. And if I now ask myself: But why should I live happily, then this of itself seems to me to be a tautological question; the happy life seems to be justified, of itself, it seems that it is the only right life”.30 This means that it is considered a moral obligation to strive to conquer happiness—that is, complete satisfaction with life. Unhappiness is a state of the soul, not only painful but also unworthy, insofar as it significantly increases the evil of one’s situation. In the encrypted part of the notebook, Wittgenstein writes: “I am living in sin, hence unhappily. I am morose, joyless”.31

Likewise, both the Stoics and Wittgenstein start from the distinction between what depends on oneself (οἰκεῖον) and what does not (ἀλλότριον). I shall recall “the distinction”, as it is known in Socratic circles, in the terms expressed by Epictetus (1966), whose doctrine is that of classical Stoicism, directly connected with Zeno and Chrysippus (and with the exemplary personal models of Socrates and Diogenes of Sinope), ignoring the innovations introduced into the school by Panaetius and Posidonius: “There are two classes of things: those that are under our control and those that are not. … The things that are under our control are by nature free, unhindered, unimpeded; the things that are not under our control are weak, slavish, hindered, up to others. Remember, therefore, that if you regard the things that are by nature slavish as free, and the things that are up to others as your own, you will be hampered, you will suffer, you will get upset, you will blame both gods and men; if, on the other hand, you regard as yours only what in fact is yours, and what is up to others-as it is-as up to others, nobody will ever compel you, nobody will hinder you, you will blame nobody, you will not reproach anyone, you will do nothing against your will, nobody will harm you, you will have no enemy, for you will not suffer anything harmful” (Epictetus 1999).32

We can never attain happiness or imperturbability if we concern ourselves with what does not depend on us, fearing or desiring it. When we have an impression (φαντασία) of something that does not depend on us, we must adopt toward it an attitude of indifference, for it is nothing—neither good nor bad—for us: “Therefore you should do your best from the outset to say to every harsh impression: ‘You are an impression, and not at all what you seem to be’; then examine it and judge it by those standards that are at your disposal, in the first place and especially by this one, whether it belongs to the things that are under our control or to the things that are not under our control; and if it has to do with one of the things that are not under our control, bear in mind that it is nothing to you” (ibid.). The education consists of “learning how to apply the natural preconceptions (προλήψεις) to particular cases, each to the other in conformity with nature, and, further, to make the distinction, that some things are under our control while others are not under our control. Under our control are moral purpose and all the acts of moral purpose; but not under our control are the body, the parts of the body, possessions, parents, brothers, children, country—in a word, all that with which we associate” (Diss. I, 22, 9). Our external life—our dealings with external things and even with our own body—depends on fate, the world, and others. Only our inner life, our dealings with our impressions, depend on us. They are the material of our independent and happy life: “My mind is the material with which I have to work, as the carpenter has his timbers, the shoemaker his hides; my business is to make the right use of my impressions” (Diss. III, 22, 20).33

This distinction operates as a fundamental key in the search for and attainment of happiness, both in the sense that what does not depend on oneself must be excluded from the definition of happiness, and in the sense that one must assume the formula—of Socratic and Antisthenic–Cynic origin—of adhering to virtue (ἀρετή) as the only thing truly within one’s power. Reflecting on the thought that nothing can be done either for or against what is not in one’s own hands, Wittgenstein writes: “I may die in an hour, I may die in two hours, I may die in a month or only in a few years; I can’t know it and can’t do anything either for or against it. That’s how life is. How then must I live so as to be prepared for that moment? One must live for the good and the beautiful until life ends of its own accord”.34 And elsewhere in the same notebook: “Do good and be happy about your virtue (Tue Gutes und freue dich über deine Tugend)”.35 “Think about the goal of life (das Ziel des Lebens). That is still the best thing you can do”.36

It can be observed that Wittgenstein’s acute sensitivity to life leads him to a philosophy of death, another point shared with Roman Stoics in general and with Seneca (2015) in particular. Compare these two texts: “We have to shake off this passion for life. We need to learn that it makes no difference when you suffer, because you are bound to suffer sooner or later. What matters is not how long you live but how well. And often, living well consists in not living long” (Seneca, Letter 101, 15). “Yesterday, I was fired at. I fell apart. I was afraid of death. I now have such a strong wish to live! And it is hard to renounce life once one is fond of it. That is precisely what ‘sin’ is, an unreasonable life, a wrong view of life. From time to time, I become an animal. Then I can think of nothing but eating, drinking, sleeping. Terrible! And then I also suffer like an animal, without the possibility of internal salvation. I am then at the mercy of my appetites and aversions. Then an authentic life cannot even be considered”.37 For Wittgenstein, as for Seneca, facing death—immanent as a possibility each day of life—is a testing ground for wisdom. Fear of death is overcome by considering “each day as a life in itself” (Seneca, Letter 101, 10), endowed in itself with that self-sufficient plenitude which constitutes happiness. For “a man who is happy must have no fear. Not even in face of death. Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy. For life in the present there is no death. … Fear in face of death is the best sign of a false, i.e., a bad, life”.38

With the application of the distinction between what depends on oneself and what does not, the aim is to achieve a certain detachment39 from things, according to the Stoic formula of “indifference toward indifferent things”, that is, the liberation from any form of servitude to external objects. In Hume’s words: “I need not tell you, that by this eager pursuit of pleasure, you more and more expose yourself to fortune and accidents, and rivet your affections on external objects, which chance may, in a moment, ravish from you” (Hume 1742b, p. 169). But also, and above all, a detachment from persons. Wittgenstein states: “It is easier to detach oneself from things than from people. But even that is something one must master!”.40 From the reading of these diaries, it can be inferred that Wittgenstein sought to follow, in relation to his fellow soldiers, a Stoic-inspired strategy of desensitization, akin to that defended, for instance, by Seneca in On the Constancy of the Wise Person. In both texts, the prevailing idea is that of a quest for independence from the social world in which one lives but from which one feels banished or exiled.41 This independence would seek to guarantee for the philosopher a state of untouchability or invulnerability with respect to any form of injustice or insult. In this sense, virtue or wisdom would be measured by the capacity to provide stability and protection against the many ways in which human beings contrive to make life undesirable or to waste it. One is reminded, for example, of the following note by Wittgenstein: “It is remarkable how people turn work itself into ugly hardship. Given all our external circumstances, working on this ship could be a wonderfully happy time and instead!”.42 The anti-hedonism that constitutes an essential part of the Stoic tradition plays an important role at this point. Seneca, for instance, affirms in this regard: “That person can be called happy who feels neither desire nor fear, owing to the gift of reason. … For as regards pleasure, even if it is infused from all sides and floods every pathway and soothes the mind with its characteristic blandishments and adds one thing after another to harass us in part and in whole, who among mortals that has any trace of humanity left in him would wish to be titillated day and night and to desert his mind and give in to the body?”.43 For his part, Wittgenstein approaches the problem in rather similar terms: “For it is a fact of logic that wanting does not stand in any logical connexion with its own fulfilment. And it is also clear that the world of the happy is a different world from the world of the unhappy. … Is it possible to will good, to will evil, and not to will? Or is only he happy who does not will? ‘To love one’s neighbour’ means to will! But can one want and yet not be unhappy if the want does not attain fulfilment? (And this possibility always exists.) Is it, according to common conceptions, good to want nothing for one’s neighbour, neither good nor evil? And yet in a certain sense it seems that not wanting is the only good”.44

But the application of this distinction is also expected to foster that autonomy of one’s own inner world, which is the source of the greatest tranquility and joy. At this point, the conceptual framework is again substantially Socratic and firmly links Wittgenstein with the Stoic tradition. It is, in fact, the Socratic idea that the good (τὸ ἀγαθόν) for human beings consists, even in everyday life, in self-sufficiency (αὐταρχία),45 that is, in the liberation from any kind of attachment that might endanger the individual’s liberty or independence. It may likewise be affirmed, in my view, that this constitutes one of the main concerns or motivations of Wittgenstein’s ethics. In his Private Notebooks, Wittgenstein often refers to the classical ideal of autarchy by appealing to the necessity of “collecting oneself”46 and of “not losing oneself”,47 as well as by expressing a desire for “pull yourself together”,48 in a way reminiscent of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius when they invoke the duty to be self-sufficient in order to be happy,49 or the idea that the meaning of life is condensed in the quality of one’s inner refuge. Marcus Aurelius, for example, says: “They seek retirements in the country, on the sea-coasts, or mountains: you too used to be fond of such things. But this is all from ignorance. A man may any hour he pleases retire into himself; and no where will he find a place of more quiet and leisure than in his own soul: especially if he has that furniture within, the view of which immediately gives him the fullest tranquility. By tranquility, I mean the most graceful order. Allow yourself continually this retirement, and refresh and renew your self. … Remember to retire into this part of yourself” (Med. IV, 3).50 Belonging to oneself, being content with oneself, is a source of joy and consolation: “It is really fortunate to have one’s self & that one can always withdraw into the self”.51 This, of course, provided one trains oneself to live fully at every moment and devotes oneself to the cultivation of knowledge and virtue. For the philosopher who aspires to happiness, work is experienced as a “blessing”,52 as a gift from heaven that shelters him from the misery of this world: “Suppose that man could not exercise his will, but had to suffer all the misery of this world, then what could make him happy? How can man be happy at all, since he cannot ward off the misery of this world? Through the life of knowledge. The good conscience is the happiness that the life of knowledge preserves. The life of knowledge is the life that is happy in spite of the misery of the world. The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. To it the amenities of the world are so many graces of fate”.53 In self-contentment, obtained at such a high price, there dwells a grand and solitary happiness. For its part, unhappiness always has its ultimate cause in the loss of oneself. The following passage may serve as an illustration: “I take no real pleasure in anything. And I live in fear of the future! Because I am no longer at peace with myself. Every indecency around me—and there are always such—wounds me to the quick and before the bound can heal, there is a new one! Even when—like now, in the evening—I am not depressed, I still don’t feel quite right. Only occasionally, and even then quite in passing, do I have a desire to work. Because I cannot find a way to feel comfortable. I feel dependent of the external world & must therefore be afraid of it even when there is not immediate threat to me. I see myself, the I which I used to be able to inhabit securely, as a longed for but distant island that has deserted me”.54

I will conclude with an analysis of the link established by these philosophies between the notions of self-sufficiency, happiness, and fate. There is, indeed, the expectation that self-sufficiency enables one to face the power or influence of fate upon human life in a proper manner. As Hume puts it in his depiction of the Stoic moral temperament: “But surely the instability of fortune is a consideration not to be over-looked or neglected. Happiness cannot possibly exist, where there is no security; and security can have no place, where fortune has any dominion. Tho’ that unstable deity should not exert her rage against you, the dread of it would still torment you; would disturb your slumbers, haunt your dreams, and throw a damp on the jollity of your most delicious banquets” (Hume 1742b, p. 170). This is a theme present in many of Wittgenstein’s ethical remarks and, at this point, he indeed appears close to the Stoics: his central idea is, in effect, that of the primacy of the inner life as an absolute alternative to the impossible mastery of the world of facts.

According to the Stoics, the life of the world follows its own cycle. When, after a long period of time (the Great Year), the stars return to the same positions they occupied at the beginning, a conflagration (ἐκπύρωσις) or cosmic fire occurs, resulting in the destruction of all beings, and the same cosmic order is formed anew,55 with all the events of the previous cycle occurring again, without any modification. Each individual exists again, with the same friends and fellow citizens, the same beliefs, the same hopes, and the same illusions. And this cycle repeats eternally.

In accordance with this doctrine, the Stoics denied human freedom, or rather, for them, freedom meant consciously and consentingly doing what one would do in any case: Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt (“Fate guides the man who’s willing, drags the unwilling”), as Seneca states (Letter 107, 11).56 The Stoics expressed this dominion of necessity with the notion of fate (εἱμαρμένη).57 But fate is not something distinct from God and from universal reason, nor does it differ from providence, which orders everything for the best. Fate and providence are simply different aspects of God.

Yet, the Stoics modified this cosmological determinism with their insistence on inner freedom: man can change his judgment and attitude in the face of the events that befall him by regarding and greeting them as manifestations of the will of God. In this respect, man is free. In other words, as with all schools rooted in the Socratic model of happiness, for the Stoics it is also a question of drawing a defensive line that protects the man’s self-sufficiency and peace of mind, freeing him from any internal or external ties or dependencies: “The wise person is not able to lose anything: he has placed everything in himself, he places no trust in fortune, and he has his goods on solid ground, being content with virtue, which does not have need of fortuitous things and therefore cannot be increased or diminished” (Seneca 2014b, sct. 5.4). However, it is characteristic of the Stoics to emphasise the idea that self-sufficiency requires the subject to be in agreement with the world. As we have seen, far from being conceived as a space dominated by capricious luck, the world is thought of by the Stoics as an order governed according to a meaningful plan: “If, because of the way the universe is configured, there is something we must suffer, let us take it on with a great mind. This is the oath we took when we enlisted: to bear mortal things, and not to be disturbed by things that it is not in our power to avoid. We have been born under a king: freedom consists in obeying God” (Seneca 2014c, sct. 15.7). But for them, this obedience has nothing to do with servile submission. It is understood as consensus: “I am coerced into nothing. I suffer nothing unwillingly. I do not serve God, but rather I agree with Him—all the more so because I know that all things come to pass by a law that is fixed and is decreed for eternity” (Seneca 2014a, sct. 5.6).58

In turn, although Wittgenstein’s philosophy contains no trace of cosmological determinism, it does present the notion that human freedom lies in surrendering one’s will to whatever destiny—or the will of God—brings. In this respect, it is worth recalling the contingent and pessimistic character of the ontology found in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, an ontology, let us remember, that rejects any possible value within the world. Wittgenstein writes: “The sense of the world––which ‘we can call God’59––must lie outside the world. In the world, everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it, there is no value––and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is a value that is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so, for all happening and being-so is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world” (Tract. Log. Phil. 6.41). The “great problem” around which all his thought revolves, he notes as early as in 1915, lies in determining whether there is an a priori order in the world and, if there is, what it consists in.60 However, in an existence in space and time, nothing seems to be inferable from the postulate that the world is the manifestation of a system of an eternal and necessary order. The world seems to consist of a random set of objects, none of which is based on any necessary reason for existing. The constitution of the world is accidental and could well be perfectly different from what it is. Thus, Wittgenstein’s ontology is based on the idea of the ultimate irrationality of things: “There is no a priori order of things” (“Es gibt keine Ordnung der Dinge a priori”, Tract. Log. Phil. 5.634).

However, the acknowledgment of the accidental character of the world does not lead Wittgenstein to the conception of a world in which the subject may choose among different possibilities. Unlike what occurs, to compare it with a classic example, in Aristotle’s ontology—whose contingent universe, precisely because of its accidental nature, opens to the human being the possibility of transforming it—the conception of a capricious world leads Wittgenstein to the idea of a subject whose will bears no logical connection to the world (Tract. Log. Phil. 6.374), and who drifts in complete impotence upon “the desolate, boundless, gray seas of happenings”.61 In other words, the pessimistic ontology of contingency of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus goes hand in hand with that confident form of fatalism so typical of the Stoic philosophers of the imperial period: “I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will: I am completely powerless”.62 This is followed by the solution he proposes to nevertheless affirm the active power of the self, its exercise of self-mastery: “I can only make myself independent of the world––and so in a certain sense master it––by renouncing any influence on happenings” (ibid.).

By overturning the connection that common sense typically draws between the goods of fortune and happiness, it is understood, then, that the meaning of life ought not to be left at the mercy of destiny. Wittgenstein writes: “Man must not depend on chance. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable”.63 Indifference toward “what is external”, and therefore toward what may prove a potential source of unhappiness, is imposed as the only path to happiness—that is, to peace of mind and full contentment with life. To give expression to the idea of projecting oneself into a dimension eccentric to oneself and to the human scale of valuation, Wittgenstein employs the image—also favored by Marcus Aurelius (Med. VI, 13)—of the spectator of the world and of one’s own life: “Only one thing is necessary: to maintain one’s distance from everything that happens”.⁶⁴ Moreover, this image carries within it the implicit idea of detachment from oneself, even to the point of abandoning self-reference as a determined individuality.65

It should be noted, however, that this is not merely a question of prudence, but rather of embracing an entire way of life that accustoms one to remain impervious to any vicissitude dependent on chance, or at least renders it less difficult to accept the circumstances imposed by destiny. In accordance with the celebrated Stoic image, one must be like a rock that the waves cover but cannot penetrate or move: “Stand firm like a promontory, upon which the waves are always breaking. It not only keeps its place, but stills the fury of the waves” (Marcus Aurelius, Med. IV, 49). For his part, Seneca says: “I offer myself like a lonely outcrop in a shallow sea, which the waves keep lashing, from whichever side they have been stirred up. Yet they do not for that reason either move it from its place or exhaust it with their endless onslaught through so many ages. Pounce, make your attack: I will defeat you by endurance. Something that crashes into things that are firm and cannot be overthrown exercises its strength to its own detriment” (On the Happy Life, 27). This metaphor points to the idea of repelling “the furies and assaults of fate” through the strength of character, as well as to the sense of satisfaction derived from having obeyed no one but oneself. The practice of autarky, arduously gained through the exercise of rational self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια), is thus meant to prepare one to face any ordeal, in the awareness that what truly matters is not the events themselves—however adverse they may be—but the attitude one assumes toward them: “If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important & effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us, & we can decide on this only with the utmost difficulty”.66

Since it concerns a style or form of life, the indifference to all emotion (ἀπάθεια) to which one aspires—identified with the wise condition that partakes of the divine—67 is not conceived as a practice detached from suffering. Rather, it is conceived as a force that must contend with the duty of being self-sufficient in order to be happy. This means that the intellect, to which the helm of life is entrusted, cannot merely act as a repressive or censoring faculty regarding desire, nor can the passions be regarded simply as elements that disturb its tranquility. The function of the intellect is also one of persuasive integration of the emotional elements, since happiness depends on the quality of the bond that man is capable of establishing with his emotional components. Were it not to fulfill this other function, the intellect would find itself powerless before the overwhelming force of passions and emotions. In Wittgenstein’s own words: “Live so that you can prevail in the face of that condition: for all your wit, all your intellect won’t do you any good then. You are lost with them as if you didn’t have them at all. (You might as well try to use your good legs while falling through the air.)”68

On this point, one text is particularly interesting. It is one of the long monologues in which Wittgenstein gives free rein to his will to sound the depths of his own mind.69 There he remarks that everything enjoyed in life is “a gift” (ibid.), that one cannot “rest on it as something firm” (ibid.), bearing in mind that it may be lost through an accident, a sickness, or any other reason. Or again, if one has rested on it but has now lost it, it must be accepted as a fact; one must make do with it—“I shall not gape at it in shock but be happy in spite of it” (ibid.). The point is not to seek a remedy to rid oneself of the awareness of such dependence, since in seeking it one remains within that painful state, and it may happen that no remedy can be found; yet what is right must still be done even amid that suffering. One must therefore accommodate oneself to it. The worst attitude one can adopt in such a situation is indignation: “That is the death of me! In rage I only beat up on myself. But that is obvious! for, whom am I supposed to be beating with this? Therefore I must surrender. Any fight in this is only a fight against myself; & the harder I beat, the harder I get beaten. But it is my heart that would have to submit, not simply my hand. Were I a believer, that is, would I intrepidly do what my inner voice asks me to do, this suffering would be over. What helps in praying is not the kneeling, but one kneels. Call it a sickness! What have you said by that? Nothing. Don’t explain!—Describe! Submit your heart & don’t be angry that you must suffer so! This is the advice I should be giving myself” (ibid.).

In this same sense, Wittgenstein adheres to the Stoic idea we have seen that a happy life consists of an activity of conciliation with the world. “In order to live happily”, he states, “I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what ‘being happy’ means. I am then, so to speak, in agreement with that alien will on which I appear dependent. That is to say: ‘I am doing the will of God.’”70 It follows that, to be happy, one must succeed in nullifying all emotional belligerence toward the world,71 “to mount no opposition”,72 as he puts it, “to lighten up, so to speak, my outer self, so as to allow my inner being to be undisturbed” (ibid.). For wasting one’s life or squandering one’s inner strength in a “hopeless struggle against the external world”73 would be devoid of sense. It may be said that the central point of Wittgensteinian mysticism has much to do with the idea of accepting the world as it is, and of accepting one’s own destiny.74 As expressed by V. Sanfélix Vidarte: “The mystical is not some remote region accessible through a strange trance. Rather, it is an attitude or a way of inhabiting this world—a way that, no matter what happens, finds it good, beautiful, and, ultimately, sacred. If logic reveals the conditions of intelligibility for this world (or any other), ethics shows the conditions for its acceptability”.75 I shall conclude by recalling a passage that is especially illustrative of this point: “If you want to quarrel with God, that means that you have a false concept of God. You are superstitious. You have an incorrect concept when you get angry with fate. You should rearrange your concepts. Contentment with your fate ought to be the first command of wisdom”.76 It is in this free, calm, and definitive agreement with fate that wisdom, virtue and happiness consist, according to both the Stoics and Wittgenstein.

4. Conclusions

I have taken as my starting point the analysis of religious feelings and experiences made by W. James, as well as those made by V. Sanfélix Vidarte on the philosophical character of Wittgenstein. According to James, the whole problem of morality and religion revolves around how we deal with the existence of evil in the world. In this regard, he identifies two types of moral and religious temperament: those he calls “healthy-minded temperament” and “the sick soul”. According to V. Sanfélix Vidarte, Wittgenstein exhibits all the symptoms that James describes as characteristic of a sick moral and religious temperament. One defining feature of this type of philosophical character, shared by Wittgenstein and the ancient Stoics, has particularly interested me: his extreme pessimism. The idea that has guided me in this article has been to examine how this extreme pessimism is expressed in the Stoic and Wittgensteinian conception of fate and how it relates to their idea of happiness.

The study of the similarities and differences between Wittgenstein’s thinking and that of the ancient Stoics on these points has begun with an analysis of the different meanings or uses of the concept of God in their writings. I have briefly examined the Stoic cosmological doctrine and the different facets, nuances, or functions of their idea of God. In this sense, the main motif has been the idea of a God identified with the rational order of the universe and the consequent pantheistic religious doctrine. As for Wittgenstein, in his writings I have identified at least three different (and contradictory) uses of the notion of God: (a) God as a self-sufficient, transcendent, indifferent, and ineffable unity; (b) God as judge of human actions; and (c) God as a loving father. This has allowed us to gain a clearer idea of the uses of the concept of God in Wittgenstein’s hands and to draw a distinction with those of the Stoics, as none of them seems to have anything to do with the Stoic divinity.

In the central part of this paper, I have analysed in detail various aspects of the idea of happiness in the thinking of Wittgenstein and the Roman Stoics. A general assumption, namely the intimate connection between living and living happily, has emerged as a common point between both philosophies. So too has the application of the principle, of fundamental importance in all ancient philosophy, of the distinction between what depends on us and what does not, a principle which leads to equate a happy life with the pursuit of moral excellence and to exclude from it everything that is beyond control. Likewise, this principle has made us see the importance of freeing oneself from anything that can compromise the inner freedom and happiness, both from dependence on external things and internal things, such as the fear of death. The diaries that Wittgenstein kept during the war show that the philosopher opted for a stoic strategy of desensitisation and, more generally, that his ethics can be described as an ethic of non-desire, in line with Stoic anti-hedonism. In my view, his ultimate ideal would be, as in Stoic ethics, to achieve the greatest possible autonomy, which would open up the possibility of happiness for man, that is, serenity of soul and complete satisfaction with life.

The examination has concluded with an analysis of the relationship between this ideal and the Stoic doctrine of fate—identified by the Stoics with God. I seem to hear clear echoes of that fatalism and sense of powerlessness so characteristic of Roman Stoicism in many of Wittgenstein’s observations on fate. At this point, the guiding idea has been that of the inner refuge that is one’s own self as an alternative to the impossible control of the facts of the world. We have seen that, although the Stoic ontological framework is deterministic in nature, human freedom is not denied, as it is conceived in terms of obedience to God. This obedience, far from being conceived as a form of servile submission, is thought of as agreement or consensus with the course of happenings. The same conception of freedom appears in Wittgenstein’s personal writings, although a notable difference between him and the Stoics is the accidental and, therefore, worthless nature that Wittgenstein attributes to the facts of the world. In any case, it seems to me that Wittgenstein’s ethics on this point are rooted in the Stoic tradition, insofar as he emphasises the decisive nature of the attitude one adopts towards the happenings of the world, extols the idea of strengthening one’s character, and ultimately seeks to cultivate the imperturbability of the soul. For Wittgenstein, as for the ancient Stoics, happiness consists fundamentally of an activity of reconciliation or joyful acceptance of the world and of one’s own destiny.