Musonius Rufus, Lectures 1.2

The gods, we may assume, need no proof of anything inasmuch as nothing to them lacks clearness or is obscure, and it is only in reference to obscurity that there is any need of proof. Man, however, must seek to find out that which is neither plain nor self-evident through the medium of the plain and obvious. That is the function of proof.

Take for example the proposition that pleasure is not a good. At first sight we do not recognize it as true, since in fact pleasure appeals to us as a good. But starting from the generally accepted premise that every good is desirable and adding to it a second equally accepted premise that some pleasures are not desirable, we succeed in proving that pleasure is not a good: that is we prove the unknown or unrecognized by means of the known or recognized.

Or again, that toil is not an evil is not on the face of it a persuasive proposition, while its opposite, that toil is an evil, seems much more persuasive. But starting from the known and accepted premise that every evil is a thing to be avoided, and adding to it another obvious one, namely that many forms of toil are not in the category of things to be avoided, we conclude that toil is not an evil. 

If we knew everything immediately and directly, as it surely must be for a divine mind, then we would hardly need proof for anything. But the human mind comes to understand gradually and progressively, by means of experience and reasoning. We need to proceed from what is known to what is unknown, from what is clear to what is unclear, from what is given to what we ourselves can conclude from what is given.

Now I have often been told that I am overly reflective, or that I think too much for my own good, so take this with a truckload of salt, but I notice that most of us hardly choose to do much reasoning at all. We treat thinking as a largely passive state, where we “have” an idea, or assert an opinion, or agree with what we are told. We begin with a conclusion, instead of arriving at it from rightly arranging the premises. We insist that a proposition is obvious, when it is not obvious at all.

If you find that to be critical, yes it is, at least in the narrow sense of the word, but I do not intend it to be mean-spirited. I will find myself as guilty of mental sloth as the next fellow, and I do not excuse myself from the criticism. I recognize that most every failure in my life has come from not thinking clearly.

Consider how often we speak about the need for rigorously exercising our bodies, and then ask yourself when that very same rigor was applied to our minds. Now if the mind should rule the body, wouldn’t it require even more rigor?

Most of us, for example, will simply assume the conclusion that pleasure is always a good thing, and hence that happiness is about “having fun”. It sounds ridiculous to suggest otherwise, because people just seem to take it for granted.

Yet we would say that all good things are desirable, by their very nature of being good. We would also say that not all pleasures are desirable, because some will do us harm. If we only bother to put together the pieces we already know, we have proven, therefore, that not all pleasures are good, the correct conclusion we at first didn’t know.

The same is true of the claim that difficulty and struggle are bad things, that hardship is something to be avoided. Why suffer through more, if you could get by putting up with less?

Yet we would say that bad things should be avoided, by their very nature of being bad. We would also say that there are times when toil should not be avoided, because it can be of advantage. If we only bother to put together the pieces we already know, we have proven, therefore, that not all toil is a bad thing, the correct conclusion we at first didn’t know.

All P are M

Some S are not M

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Some S are not P

“Ow! That makes my head hurt!” At first maybe, yes, but it doesn’t hurt any more than going for a brisk run after sitting on the couch, eating chips, and watching television for a few months. The mind will take to clarity of reasoning through good habits, just as the body will take to health and strength through good habits.

To work toward a conclusion, and not to start with one, to prove something, and not merely to assert it, isn’t just for fancy academics with their abstract concepts. It is for all of us, in our most basic and everyday needs. The worth of our every action depends upon it, because we can hardly choose something good without first knowing the reasons why it is good.

Written in 2/1999