In an age obsessed with control—over our careers, relationships, health, and futures—two ancient philosophical traditions offer a paradoxical path to freedom: acceptance of what we cannot change. Baruch Spinoza’s 17th-century rationalist philosophy and Marcus Aurelius’s 2nd-century Stoic meditations, though separated by fifteen centuries and distinct intellectual traditions, converge on a profound insight: true freedom emerges not from resisting reality, but from understanding and embracing it.
Both Spinoza and Marcus Aurelius present us with what initially appears contradictory: we become most free when we accept that we are not free in the conventional sense. This isn’t fatalistic resignation but active engagement with reality as it is.
Spinoza’s Ethics presents a rigorously logical vision of reality where everything follows necessarily from the nature of God or Nature (Deus sive Natura). In this framework, free will as commonly understood—the ability to have chosen otherwise—is an illusion born of ignorance.
“Men think themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions and desires, but are ignorant of the causes whereby they are led to wish and desire.” (Ethics, Part I, Appendix)
For Spinoza, we are like leaves convinced they choose to fall in autumn, unaware of the seasonal forces compelling them. Our sense of autonomous choice masks the complex causal chains—biological, psychological, social—that determine our actions.
Yet Spinoza doesn’t conclude we are mere puppets. Instead, he distinguishes between two types of necessity:
True freedom (libertas) means transitioning from the first to the second—from being pushed by causes we don’t grasp to acting from adequate understanding of ourselves and reality.
Marcus Aurelius, writing in his Meditations during military campaigns and plague, articulates a complementary vision rooted in Stoic physics and ethics. The Stoics believed in a rational, providential order (logos) pervading all nature.
“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?” (Meditations, 5.8)
For Marcus, the universe operates according to rational principles, and our individual lives are threads in a cosmic fabric. Resistance to what happens is not merely futile but irrational—it’s fighting against the nature of reality itself.
The Stoic dichotomy of control provides the framework:
Freedom comes from focusing exclusively on the former while accepting the latter with equanimity.
How exactly does acceptance produce freedom? Both philosophers offer sophisticated answers that go beyond simple resignation.
Spinoza’s route to freedom is fundamentally cognitive. We become free by moving from inadequate ideas (confused, partial understanding) to adequate ideas (clear, complete understanding).
Consider emotional responses. When someone insults us, we might feel immediate anger. Spinoza would say this anger arises from inadequate ideas:
Through reason, we develop adequate ideas:
This understanding doesn’t suppress the emotion through willpower but dissolves it through comprehension. As Spinoza writes:
“An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it.” (Ethics, Part V, Proposition 3)
The progression looks like this:
Bondage → Reactive emotions from inadequate ideas → Controlled by external causes
Freedom → Understanding through adequate ideas → Acting from our rational nature
Marcus Aurelius offers a more practice-oriented approach centered on how we interpret events. The famous Stoic principle: it’s not events themselves that disturb us, but our judgments about them.
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” (Meditations, 8.47)
Marcus provides concrete techniques for reframing:
1. The View from Above Zoom out to see your situation in cosmic perspective:
“Asia and Europe are but corners of the universe; every sea a drop in the ocean; Mount Athos a clod of earth; the present moment a point in eternity.” (Meditations, 6.36)
This isn’t minimizing genuine concerns but contextualizing them to prevent disproportionate reactions.
2. Objective Description Strip away value-laden interpretations to see things as they are:
“When you have savouries and fine dishes set before you, you will gain an idea of their nature if you tell yourself that this is the corpse of a fish, this the corpse of a bird or pig.” (Meditations, 6.13)
This technique, while sometimes extreme, reveals how much of our experience is interpretation rather than raw reality.
3. Remembering Impermanence Recognize that all things pass:
“All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in time.” (Meditations, 9.14)
This doesn’t breed nihilism but appropriate attachment—we can appreciate without clinging.
Despite their different starting points—Spinoza’s geometric rationalism and Marcus’s practical Stoicism—these philosophies converge on several key insights:
Both locate wisdom in aligning with nature rather than fighting it.
Spinoza: God and Nature are identical. Understanding Nature’s laws is understanding God. Living according to reason is living according to our nature as rational beings, which is part of infinite Nature.
Marcus: Nature is rational and providential. Our rational faculty is our divine element, connecting us to the cosmic logos. Living according to nature means fulfilling our function as rational, social beings.
Both place reason at the center of the good life.
Spinoza: Reason allows us to form adequate ideas, which liberates us from passive emotions and external control. The highest good is knowledge of God/Nature.
Marcus: Reason enables us to make correct judgments about what’s truly good, bad, or indifferent. It’s our unique human capacity that allows us to live virtuously.
Neither advocates suppressing emotions but transforming them through comprehension.
Spinoza: Emotions rooted in adequate ideas (active emotions) replace those rooted in inadequate ideas (passive emotions). We move from being affected to being active.
Marcus: Negative emotions arise from false judgments. Correct the judgment, and the emotion dissolves. What remains is appropriate feeling—joy at virtue, concern for others, acceptance of necessity.
Both redefine freedom not as uncaused choice but as self-determined action.
Spinoza: Freedom is acting from your own nature with adequate understanding, not being externally compelled by forces you don’t comprehend.
Marcus: Freedom is maintaining your inner citadel—your capacity for judgment and virtue—regardless of external circumstances.
These aren’t merely theoretical positions but practical approaches to life’s challenges.
The Spinozist Approach: When someone treats you poorly, investigate the causes. What in their history, psychology, or current circumstances necessarily produced this behavior? Seeing the causal chain doesn’t excuse harmful actions but transforms your emotional response from reactive anger to understanding. You might still need to set boundaries or respond, but from clarity rather than passion.
The Stoic Approach: Remind yourself that others act according to their own judgments about what’s good. If their judgment is mistaken, they’re to be pitied, not hated—like someone who mistakes poison for medicine. Focus on maintaining your own virtue in response rather than controlling their behavior.
The Spinozist Approach: Recognize that what happened followed necessarily from prior causes. Your disappointment arises from inadequate ideas—perhaps the belief that reality should conform to your preferences. Develop adequate ideas by understanding why this outcome was necessary given the circumstances. This doesn’t mean passivity but responding from understanding rather than reactive disappointment.
The Stoic Approach: Distinguish what was in your control (your effort, intentions, preparation) from what wasn’t (the outcome, others’ decisions, chance events). If you did your best regarding what you controlled, you succeeded regardless of outcome. The setback might even be an opportunity—obstacles can become the way forward.
The Spinozist Approach: Anxiety stems from inadequate ideas about future possibilities. Develop adequate ideas by recognizing that whatever will happen will follow necessarily from present causes. Your anxiety doesn’t change what will happen but does make you suffer now. Use reason to prepare for likely scenarios while accepting that the future is already determined by present conditions.
The Stoic Approach: Most anxiety concerns things outside your control. Redirect attention to what you control now—your present judgments and actions. The future doesn’t exist yet; the present moment is all you have. As Marcus writes: “Confine yourself to the present” (Meditations, 7.29).
The Spinozist Approach: Joy arises from adequate ideas and increased power of acting. Develop adequate understanding of the good things in your life—not as contingent gifts that might be withdrawn but as necessary expressions of Nature’s infinite productivity. Your existence itself is a manifestation of God/Nature’s essence.
The Stoic Approach: Practice negative visualization—imagine losing what you have—to recognize its value. Remember that everything is “on loan” from Nature and will be reclaimed. This doesn’t breed anxiety but appreciation. As Marcus notes, gratitude for what is, rather than complaint about what isn’t, characterizes the wise person.
These philosophies face serious challenges worth considering:
If everything is determined, how can we hold people responsible for their actions? Both philosophers struggle here:
Spinoza essentially bites the bullet: moral responsibility as traditionally conceived is incoherent. We can still respond to harmful behavior (as we’d respond to a dangerous animal) and use rewards/punishments as causes shaping future behavior, but retributive justice based on “could have done otherwise” makes no sense.
Marcus and the Stoics maintain that we’re responsible for our judgments, which are “up to us.” But if judgments arise from character, and character from prior causes, this “up to us” becomes murky.
Does acceptance of necessity lead to quietism—accepting injustice and not working for change?
Both philosophers would reject this. For Spinoza, understanding that change is possible (and how to effect it) is itself an adequate idea that produces action. For Marcus, virtue includes justice, and working to improve things within your control is part of your rational nature.
However, the philosophies might reduce the urgency or emotional drive that sometimes fuels important action. The reformer’s anger at injustice, while perhaps based on “inadequate ideas,” has historically motivated change.
Both place enormous faith in reason’s power to transform emotions and guide action. But modern psychology reveals how much of our behavior is driven by unconscious processes, cognitive biases, and emotional systems that don’t respond simply to rational argument.
Spinoza might respond that what we call “unconscious” is just inadequate ideas becoming adequate. Marcus might say that’s why philosophy requires constant practice, not just intellectual understanding.
When facing profound loss—death of loved ones, terminal illness, devastating tragedy—does acceptance offer genuine comfort or merely intellectual detachment?
Marcus faced this directly, losing multiple children. His response was to accept mortality as part of nature while still loving fully. Spinoza would say grief from adequate ideas (recognizing the necessity of loss while appreciating what was) differs from grief from inadequate ideas (refusing to accept reality).
But whether these philosophical frameworks can genuinely sustain us through the darkest valleys remains an open question—one each person must answer through lived experience.
Spinoza and Marcus Aurelius offer a challenging but potentially liberating vision: freedom comes not from controlling reality but from understanding and accepting it. This isn’t passive resignation but active engagement with what is.
In our contemporary context, obsessed with optimization, control, and unlimited possibility, this ancient wisdom feels both alien and urgently needed. We exhaust ourselves trying to control what we cannot—others’ opinions, unexpected events, our own mortality—while neglecting what we can: our understanding, our responses, our character.
The path these philosophers chart is demanding. It requires:
But the promise is profound: a freedom that can’t be taken away because it doesn’t depend on external circumstances. A peace that comes from alignment with reality rather than resistance to it. A joy rooted in understanding rather than in getting what we want.
As Marcus wrote in his field tent nearly two millennia ago:
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” (Meditations, 7.67)
And as Spinoza concluded his Ethics:
“The free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death.” (Ethics, Part IV, Proposition 67)
Perhaps the deepest freedom is this: to be so aligned with reality, so understanding of necessity, so accepting of what is, that we act not from compulsion but from our own nature—and in that action, find peace.