u/-tehnik

I started looking over it again on the SEP page today and while that did remind me of the outline I needed I think there are still a lot of gaps I would like to get filled. So I will just write out all of the questions I can think of in hopes that they get answered by either pointing me to a source or answering them in this thread.

Firstly, how did the stoics demonstrate that virtue is the only good? So, specifically, that:

1. virtue/s is/are (a) good

2. That as a good it is a) necessary and b) sufficient for happiness

3. (related to, and maybe logically equivalent with 2) that externals, which are commonly judged to be either good or bad, are falsely judged to be so and are actually different

Second, how does telos exactly relate to the above? The telos for humans (according to stoics) is to live in accordance with nature. But I don't see how it fits in the sequence of: have and be able to identify virtue -> be happy

Another question about telos: is this the telos because it leads to happiness (because then you are able to accept whatever happens), or is it the opposite? The former seems problematic because it would make stoicism seem like it's ultimately just a cope in the sense that they are just saying that it is the purpose of a human because it leads to desirable results and not because we can be certain that this is our telos. If it's the opposite why is that the telos and how did they know that it is?

Lastly, how does the idea that virtue is necessary for happiness fit with the fact that many people can be happy due to external things? It's true that that happiness is conditional and therefore (more or less) volatile in a way the sage's isn't, but is there a reason that makes it not count as happiness? For example, someone could be happy because they have a family they love, and then feel intense sorrow when they die. This does still give good reason to cultivate stoic virtue (since it means one would avoid pathos), but it would nevertheless mean that the claim regarding the necessity of virtue for happiness as false, strictly speaking.

Because it seems like the reflection on it stems from very basic considerations of the universality of thought in contrast to the particularity of sensible being. Certainly people already implicitly understood that language is (in part) about universals for millennia because they were users of language. So how come that in those millennia, with all the intellectuals all the cultures preceding Greece in the Archaic period didn't seem to think of something like this?

Of course any counter examples are welcome.