Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.15

Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest; and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2 (tr Long)

The statement here that “all is opinion” is perhaps the most widely quoted passage from Marcus Aurelius these days, and I have seen it, and quite a number of creative variations, confidently referenced by people who may know absolutely nothing else about Stoicism.

I once met an interesting fellow who had a version tattooed on his arm, and I asked him what he thought it meant. “Truth is a lie!” he said, as he stared at me intently. I slowly nodded, and resisted asking him how he knew it to be true that there was no truth.

We live in an age of skepticism, where we deny that anything can be known for certain, and relativism, where we insist that nothing is every really true or false. There have been a variety of skeptics throughout the history of philosophy, but our own post-modern era has a special preference for it. I suspect we like to deny that there is any objective truth, because then things can mean whatever we want. It is the ultimate “get out of jail free card” for dodging accountability to anything beyond our own desires.

I do not know to what extent Monimus of Syracuse was himself a skeptic, because we have very few sources on his thinking. What should interest us here is how Marcus Aurelius understood the statement, and how this can assist us in the Stoic life.

Marcus Aurelius, like any good Stoic, defined man by his power to understand his own nature, and how he has a place within the Nature of all things. Our reason can be misled by judging hastily from impressions, or clouded by surrender to our desires, but our ability to judge what is true from what is false is in turn what decides how well we will live.

This is precisely what Marcus Aurelius is referring to when he says that “all is opinion”, because the way we think informs our every decision and every action. Hypolepsis refers here to how we take something up, reply, estimate, assume, or have a notion. This does not deny that there is truth, but asserts that it is our ability to distinguish the truth that will make all the difference.

I may also say, for example, that “it all depends on how you look at it.” This does not mean that there is nothing to look at, or that I am unable to see, but that how I go about looking will determine how clearly and fully I see something. My view certainly proceeds through my perception, but this does not validate any perception.

It is one of the essential lessons of Stoicism that any circumstance in my life is only as good or bad for me as what I will make of it, and this is what is clearly useful to remember. How we relate to our world, and the place of our own judgment in finding meaning and purpose within Nature, is itself a part of what reason must discover.

I should first learn what something is, and then learn how it can help me to live with virtue. An apple is good in itself for being an apple, but the question for me is then whether it is good for me to eat it. The moral good of anything proceeds from how the nature of something else can enrich the exercise of my own nature.

Our opinions will indeed shape our lives. Now let us be certain we have the right opinions instead of the wrong ones. It would be quite right, for instance, to think that we should make the most of what is given to us, but quite wrong to think that we are made by what is given to us.

The Stoic is not a skeptic, and anyone should carefully consider this before tattooing any Stoic slogan on his arm. Any opinion is only as helpful as far as it is true. 

Written in 9/2004