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What is logos in Stoicism? What does it mean to live according to the logos principle?
Stoics believed that to live a good life, one must live according to logos. Following the Stoic logos means accepting that every occurrence is the right one, as surely as if someone had measured every outcome and chosen the best possibility.
Keep reading to learn about the Stoic concept of logos and how you can put it into practice in your own life.
In Praise of Logos
Nature also follows logos. (In fact, it has to, because it lacks humans’ ability to go against logos.) Therefore, whatever happens in the natural world must be the best possible thing that could happen. Logos ensures that you live in a healthy world and that living creatures as a whole enjoy health and prosperity.
In spite of that fact, individual beings often suffer. This is because nature isn’t selfish. Lower creatures exist for the benefit of higher ones; for example, plants are eaten by prey animals, which in turn are eaten by predators. Meanwhile, higher creatures (like ourselves) are meant to support one another. Everything is connected and related—all things exist in harmony with one another and because of one another.
With the above facts in mind, you can accept that everything that happens to you is ordered by logos. Consider each event—even events that seem negative, like illness or injury—as being prescribed by nature (which, remember, is driven by logos). Such things are no different from treatments prescribed by a doctor, and complaining about those misfortunes hurts you as surely as refusing to take your medicine would.
However, don’t show off and gloat about your obedience to logos. Be secure and comfortable in your actions, knowing that you’re doing what nature demands of you.
Finally, there will be times when you fail to remember logos. When that happens, don’t get discouraged—instead, simply pick yourself up and continue with your work. Celebrate being human, including the flaws that come with humanity. Your own shortcomings are just more seemingly-negative events for you to accept.
Know Your Personal Nature
People who don’t understand the Stoic logos principle often celebrate their good fortunes or bemoan their bad fortunes. They don’t realize that good fortune is something you create for yourself through good intentions, actions, and character. In short, a good nature will lead to good fortune.
As we’ve noted, logos drives nature, which determines everything that happens in the world. However, you also have your own personal nature, which influences your actions as surely as the nature of the world does.
To understand your own nature, you must question yourself. Try to find out what kind of person inhabits your mind: a child? A tyrant? A predator, or prey? Once you know that, you’ll better understand what your nature drives you to do.
If you’re not pleased with what you find, you can work to change your nature. What you think about determines the condition of your mind—your soul reflects your thoughts. Therefore, focus on positive ideas, such as the knowledge that you can lead a good life no matter what your personal situation may be.
Do Your Duty
Your work—your duty—should be doing good for others. This is a crucial point and one which we can prove logically, as follows:
All humans have thought and reason. The reasoning that determines what you should and shouldn’t do is shared between us all, and therefore we have a common, natural law (separate from any written laws). Having common laws makes us citizens of the same thing—to encompass all of humanity, that “thing” must be the world.
Therefore, as surely as you obey the laws of your own land and support your countrymen, you should obey the natural laws of logos that connect us and tell us to support one another. This is your duty as a rational being.
If you’re not convinced, then consider this: You’ll be nothing but bones and ashes soon. Since that’s the case, whatever you might seek for yourself in your short life is empty and unimportant. You might as well seek to work for the common good.
Recognize That Others Can’t Hurt You
Note that there will be times when others try to stand in the way of your duty to help others and remember logos. In doing so, they’ll try to hurt you (because not following logos and doing your duty is harmful to you and others). However, those people are irrelevant—they might be able to temporarily impede your actions, but it’s impossible to impede your intentions.
Never compromise with those who try to take you away from logos. Consider how professionals can meet laypeople at a sort of halfway point: They can discuss what they do in simple terms, without compromising the sense of importance their craft has or their own pride in it. You should feel no less responsibility to your own logos—share it with those who would listen, but never compromise your ideals just to make them more palatable.
Ultimately, people who stand in your way can’t hurt you: The only thing that can hurt you is that which hurts your character. Therefore, others’ thoughts and actions can’t harm you; only your own reactions to them can. If you decide not to be harmed, you won’t be harmed. If you don’t feel hurt, then you haven’t been hurt. All that matters is what your mind is doing at the present moment.
Finally, if someone else has tried to hurt you, that’s his problem and not yours. Remember: What happens to you is prescribed by nature, and how you respond is prescribed by your personal nature. In the same vein, what the other person did was dictated by his own nature—those actions reflect upon him, not upon you.
Don’t think that any particular event, such as someone trying to hurt you, was unfortunate—rather, you should feel fortunate you weren’t harmed by it.
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