What Did Stoics Think About Exercise? w/ Donald Robertson

The Stoics talked about training the body as well as the mind, but it rarely comes up in modern Stoicism. So I asked Donald Robertson what the ancient Stoics actually thought about exercise, and how their view of physical training fits with the rest of the philosophy.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

What if any is the stoic view on physical exercise? You know, did they think it was useful, important, you know? What was the role of that? They've got a surprising view on it. Like um, I guess it's hard to explain in a in a way and and sometimes people for certain reason this way annoys people. Um the I think is culturally, we our view about exercise is in some ways quite different from the the way it was perceived in the ancient world. So basically, their view I think is broadly similar to the view of Socrates and some other philosophers, um, which is that gosh, like exercise first of all plays a very different role in Greek and Roman culture. Like, obviously, most of them did far more exercise than we do today. Um, so it was normal like for people to uh Roman citizens and for Athenian citizens to have undergo kind of military cadet training where they would uh do martial arts like boxing and wrestling and pancratian and stuff like that. Um but they also and their their athletic contests were bound up with their religious ceremonies in a way that seems kind of alien to us today. Um, however, they also believe that people that over-exercise or become overly preoccupied with exercise. So I guess uh essentially their view is all things in moderation. Socrates that in Xenophon's Memorabilia Socrates, there's a really cool dialogue where Socrates is talking to a young philosopher who doesn't do any exercise, and so I guess a lot of modern people that are into exercise would love this dialogue because he basically says Socrates' arguments are often really simple. Like sometimes we we lose sight of that because they kind of seem convoluted, but the basic point is often incredibly simple. So he says to this guy, look, if you get a fever or like you know, you become really sick, does that affect your ability to concentrate? And the guy's like, Well, yeah, obviously. And and he's like, Socrates is like, so can you kind of reason and engage in debate? And he's like, Well, no, because your thinking's a lot clouded and stuff. And Socrates says, So, like, if you don't take care of your body, then that makes you poorer at reasoning, potentially. And the guy's like, Well, yeah, like I guess so. And so Socrates basically proves to this guy that if you're committed to the love of wisdom and following reason, then you have to take care of your body as well. Like, because like clearly, if your poor health can impair your reasoning abilities, so the two things aren't completely separate. It's a really simple argument, right? But this guy's very bookish and he doesn't do exercise, and Socrates is like, this doesn't make any sense at all. Socrates used to dance, according to Xenophon. Socrates used to dance every morning for exercise on his own, um, and his friends used to laugh at him because he he said he would like wave his arms and legs around to exercise his whole body. I'd love to see that. Apparently, even the Athenians were like, This is ridiculous. But he did this kind of he made up his own Tai Chi or something that he would do every every day when he got out of bed. That's how crazy Socrates was. But he was a he was a dancer and uh he believed in Socrates was also a veteran of the Peloponnesian War. As an aside, I I my belief is that Socrates would have been the Athenian equivalent of a centurion. Like he seems to have been like uh an NCO, like uh he uh he would liaise between uh infantrymen and the senior officers. Like he wasn't I don't think he was really a regular soldier, he seems more knowledgeable and more experienced than that. Um so he's more of a military figure in some ways than than people normally assume, as well as being he was famous as a war hero, as well as being a philosopher. So he's kind of a physical guy in in some regards, um, but he also ridicules athletes. Uh he thinks they're too preoccupied with competitiveness. He has a really cool, it's also a really cool argument about that in Xenophon, which infuriates people. And so Socrates meets uh uh an Olympic wrestler, and this guy's ecstatic because he's won uh the Olympic Games, the ancient Olympics. And Socrates says to him, Oh, that's really cool. Like, you know, um just out of curiosity, the guys that you beat, were they weaker than you or stronger than you? And the guy's like, Well, they were weaker than me, obviously. I sure approved I was stronger than them. And Socrates is like, oh, cool. Like, so were they more skilled or less skilled than you? And the guy's like, Well, they were less skilled, like I'm much more skilled than them. Like, I proved that by beating them. Like, and Socrates is like, Oh, like, so were they like more disciplined or like less disciplined in their training than you? And he was like, Well, clearly I'm more disciplined, right? Otherwise I wouldn't beat them. And so Socrates says, So what honour is there then or glory in beating people that are weaker, less skilled, and less disciplined than you? Like, and this guy's like, Ah, sharp, Socrates, like, but I actually think that's a valid philosophical argument. Like, like most of the things that Socrates says, it's not like cut and dried, but it should at least make us kind of think. Especially, by the way, as an aside, that argument is much more pertinent today with all the scandals about drug use and other controversies that that uh arise in competitive sport. Like this question, the philosophy of what does it mean to win a competition? Like, I Socrates is getting right to the heart of it uh and saying, look, it you know, are we just discovering who was better all along or who hadn't advanced all along? And if we already knew that, then it wouldn't be would it not be interesting at all? So are we just kind of celebrating ignorance in a way when we celebrate victory in a competition? Like what does it really mean? Like I that's a really good question. I don't know the answer. But that that's the the stoic attitude is they think in the ancient world that they they do think that a lot of athletes are like what do we call them, like gym rats or whatever, and they they also kind of caution against becoming so preoccupied, not just with exercise, but they think that their idea is that athletes are kind of egotistical in the ancient world, that they just want to beat people and they want the glory of winning competitions. And the Stoics and Socrates, I think, think that that's a kind of superficial, like although we really celebrate it in our culture, they were a little bit wary of it, because they think if you spend your whole life just like trying to win football matches or you know, like win a golf or something like that, is it really worthwhile at the end of it? You just like you know, is that other achievements worth celebrating? That like they think we should be cautious about investing too much importance in winning at competitive sport.