Whereas for Aristotle the sociopolitical milieu of the individual was still the source of ethical valuation, the Stoical interest in the practical actually involved only the individual, and the elevation of the individual to the system’s prescribed ideal became so exclusively the arbiter of Stoical practice that the interrelations of individuals became no more than a means to that ideal, individualistic end. This goal, of course, was defined in content by the idea of a universal Reason that infused all individual beings. Every person was thought to partake in this Reason, and its realization in the individual constituted the Stoical ideal. Transcending all barriers of nationality and social exclusiveness, Reason wove a bond of equality and brotherhood around all human creatures. Thus, the individualism of the Stoics had its complement in cosmopolitanism; the rending of narrower social bonds, which during this period was promoted no less by the political situation than by theoretical contemplation, shifted the center of gravity toward the individual, on the one hand; and on the other, toward that widest circle to which every human belongs simply by virtue of his humanity.

DEFINE: Clarifies the relationship between Stoic individualism and cosmopolitanism — that individual self-cultivation implies membership in a universal human community distinguished from Aristotle's sociopolitical grounding.

DEFINE: Clarifies how Stoic ethics fused individual self-realization with cosmopolitan equality through a shared universal Reason.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 658