Yes, and not only that, but science itself would be threatened, because then I could just turn the table and say, Oh, you cognitive scientists, you think that youre the only ones not rationalising and the whole damn thing collapses.
Thats debatable, though a good point. I can understand why this is a useful philosophy to hold in adversity because it could give you a focus and a strength to discount external obstacles, but in ordinary life do we really need it? Unsubscribe at any time.
So I did this, and the woman that was leading the excursion of course talked a lot about Nero, and she also talked a lot about Seneca. As he quipped to a friend, I dont care about the author if the line is good. That is the ethos of practical philosophyit doesnt matter from whom or when it came from, what matters if it helps you in your life, if only for a second.
If you get angry, for instance, at something, think: Why am I getting angry here? For the early Stoics, the emphasis was on what the Greeks called the eudaimonic life. Is there some truth perhaps in what hes saying?
I just want to read you one which is right at the beginning of the Discourses, volume 1, chapter 1.32, its an example of the dichotomy of control, but its also an example of something that immediately endeared Epictetus to me: his sense of humour.
This was a crucial Stoic principle, the idea that you really should surround yourself with good people, ideally people who are better than you, because thats the way you learn, thats the way you challenge yourself.
Elizabeth Laird, one of the judges, talks us through their choices this year. Even if you have anger and indignation at injustice? He had a major Stoic for a teacher who gave him a copy of Epictetus Discourses. There are several chapters in which Irvine goes into these ideas about the Stoics and emotions. Trained in stoic philosophy, Marcus stopped almost every night to practice a series of spiritual exercisesreminders designed to make him humble, patient, empathetic, generous, and strong in the face of whatever he was dealing with. The really interesting thing about Stoicism is that, in its modern form, there are large numbers of people trying to practise Stoicism with a view to becoming better people. Well, its also hard to imagine that people do that in the contemporary world, but they do. He reminds the reader throughout that he is a Stoic, not just a scholar of Stoic philosophy. . Seneca wasnt fond of the Roman games and festivals: he thought they produced a lot of noise and a lot of confusion.
Seneca calls it a temporary madness. On top of that he was immensely wealthy. The Stoics believed that good character is made of the practice of four fundamental virtues, we call them the cardinal virtues.
), Epictetus is the most preachy and for many, the least fun to read. Epictetus says exactly this in the Discourses, he says: I used to go round responding humorously to people and then I got my nose broken. And he adds: so I dont do it anymore, I just walk away.. Theres very little theoretical philosophy in Epictetus. But Christians did learn from Stoicismnot only from Epictetus Enchiridion but also Saint Paul knew Senecas brother, Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and so was aware of Stoic writing. Its not that you cant influence the things not under your control, of course you can. I think what youre getting at there is this separation between academic philosophy and practical philosophy. My guess is that it has to do with a combination of factors.
Epictetus was focused on ethics, which is the third Stoic concern. He wrote the definitive account of Alexander the Greats expedition.
Seneca was a stoic as well, but like Marcus, he was practical and borrowed liberally from other schools. Its hard to tell for sure, of course. The Penguin translation is fantastic, both for this collection of letters (which are more like essays than true correspondence) and for his collection of essays, On the Shortness of Life. I cant do this any more.
In fact one of the four Stoic virtues is temperanceself-control, so that you do everything in moderation, including, of course, these Stoic exercises of self-deprivation. But carrying on with that style of thinking, you could end up getting someone to water-board you for a little bit, so you realise how lucky you are to be able to breathe. This cold shock has a number of effects. Some of his works survive. You know that you can handle it, within physiological limits. When we think about Rome, we think about persecution of the Christians, but actually philosophers, and in particular the Stoics, were persecuted by several Roman emperors because they really didnt like this constant reminder that you should be doing better than you are doing. Seneca was a stoic as well, but like Marcus, he was practical and borrowed liberally from other schools. Thats the equivalent of 200 today presumably. He completely lost the use of both legs and arms. It was during those years that Nero became unhinged: he killed his mother, several of his wives, and his stepbrother. In addition to the books he has written on Stoicism, he is one of the organisers of Stoicon, an annual meeting of people interested in exploring Stoicism as a philosophy of life. Exactly. If you read them through you will see that theres a lot of redundancy there. Yes, I think we do.
He lived in Nicopolis to a ripe age of 80, which for the time was remarkable.
Stoics are not Cynics (in the ancient sense), so theyre not against wealth. One was Domitian, who was a little unhinged himself and wasnt particularly fond of philosophers: all this talk about virtue and how you should do things as opposed to how you actually do things I guess didnt agree with him. He makes mistakes, hes a human figure, hes somebody you can relate to but who constantly strives to do better: he constantly strives to do the right thing. There is a particular collection of epistles, normally referred to as either The Moral Epistles or the Letters to Lucilius. Thats an interesting point about Stoicism: is it an impossible ideal? But the main sections of each chapter can be read, can be understood, by somebody with little or no background in philosophy.
All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evilI can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him What is this person who is insulting me trying to tell me? Epictetus referred to it as the open door. He says to his students several times not to take it lightly: suicide for the Stoics was a serious business and he was not saying jump out of the window at the first problem; but, he says, if you do get yourself into a situation where there really is no way out and life really does become insufferable, or so painful, or you realise that you cannot contribute any longer to society in any meaningful way, then the door is open, you can leave of your own accord. If you can use your wealth for good, youre fine from a Stoic perspective, theres nothing wrong with that; but if you keep accumulating wealth for the sake of it, then youre definitely not a good Stoic. Theres no tradition of proselytising for Stoicism. Eventually I said to myself, you know, maybe its time to take a second look at Stoicism and see what it is that these people are actually doing. That would be pushing it.
Marcus wrote this over the course of a few years when he was on the German frontier fighting the Marcomanni revolt against Rome. Then theres: On the terrors of death. Death was a constant Stoic theme. In the meantime, several political events happened in Rome: there was one emperor after another.
Meditations is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made.
You can find reactions to Stoicism in all the major Christian Church fathers beginning with Augustine, too, and then all the way to Thomas Aquinas.
The last major Stoic was Marcus Aurelius. The Penguin translation is fantastic, both for this collection of letters (which are more like essays than true correspondence) and for his collection of essays, P.S. Then, at around age 15, he was bought by a much better master, who turned out to be Neros personal secretary.
Why do you think Stoicism is proving so popular? You could study philosophy to a high level without studying Epictetus. They didnt counsel apathy. But then if you bear in mind that it is the most powerful person in the world writing this, and in his own personal diarynot done for show to other peoplehe starts out by thanking people who had made a good impact on his own life: its a very humbling exercise. The Stoics also had fictional role models, ancient heroes and demigods like Hercules. He was a very interesting figure. You shouldnt go around with either a metaphorical or an actual stick beating people and saying, youre not virtuous enough.. He also adds, which is crucial I think to understanding the whole thing, that it is that fact that the door is open that gives meaning to what you do. Heres the quotation: Bills response to insults is magnanimous. How did I come to it? Is that the driving motivation for this kind of behaviour?
The basic idea is this: yes, Stoics do have that reputation, but if you look at what they wrote and the way they actually behaved in life, they were far from emotionless. Thats like a kind of martial art: if you imagine in judo, somebody moving in a certain direction, well you help them carry on a bit and trip them up in the process. Much of that advice survives in the form of letters. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount. Yes, it is a better title, I agree. Becker takes that into account, and says, Look, we need to understand that even the dichotomy of control has to be revised and updated as it turns out there are fewer things that are completely under our control. If you were to go with the most extreme view that Ive seen coming from cognitive science, which is the idea that conscious thinking is entirely an illusion, its all about rationalisations, then Stoicism would collapse. The dichotomy of control is crucial in Stoicism, particularly to Epictetus philosophy. One of those virtues is justice, and yes, a sense of justice needs to be cultivated because it is a positive emotion. It is the most accessible editioncompletely devoid of any thous and shalls. Becker wants to explore how much Stoicism can be updated to be compatible with modern science, with modern philosophy. There is very good empirical evidence that this actually helps significantly. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at editor@fivebooks.com. Just like it did back in Athens around 300 BCE, when Zeno of Citium got things started. I had a vague idea that it was the attitude Mr Spock takes in Star Trek: going around life with a stiff upper lip, or something like that. Your first impression, your first reaction might be one of fear, and the Stoics said theres nothing you can do about that. This is an interesting aspect of Stoicism because some people think that many elements of the British public school system, the private school system, were modelled on Stoicism: that a certain amount of deprivation, quite a few cold showers, cold baths, early morning runs and so on, built character. So that puts the emphasis on the virtues. Yes, the past few years have seem quite a number of new entries! Now, the reason Im bringing this up, in answer to your question, is because there is a good, interesting distinction between Christianity and the Stoic approach. We decided to put together a short list with three books that will help you both understand Stoicism but also teach you valuable lessons for life. Subscribe to get our free Daily Stoic email.
I read Kant and Mill, and looked at modern ethics in terms of deontology and utilitarianism in all their forms. Going back to Marcus Meditations, that book was never meant for publication. So actually the translation might be better: we are dying every day?
Thats not the point.
We know what these people did, and how they practised their philosophies. Im so glad you brought that up because indignation at injustice, a sense of injustice, those are positive emotions.
Becker is interested in updating Stoic philosophy for today. One slightly odd feature of the book is that when he writes about Stoics, he writes in the first person plural. Thats easier for some of us than others. Then I went beyond Aristotle and read what little there is available on Epicureanism and some of the other Hellenistic schools of virtue ethics. Yes.
Larry Baker and James Stockdale are showjust how much a human being can actually deal with. Am I right that many of the Stoics grounded their ethics on metaphysics, so the metaphysics actually shaped the ethics? I know youre both a theorist and a practitioner. He kept teaching and he built a reputation so that fairly wealthy people sent their kids to Nicopolis to study with Epictetus and one of the later emperors, Hadrian, became a good friend of his.
Of course I also went back and read the Platonic dialogues to look at the source of all of this. But it strikes me that the virtue ethicists, although theyve theorised virtue, arent necessarily striving to be more virtuous. For more recommendations (books, blogs, articles), sign up for the Daily Stoic free 7-day series. Yes. Its hard to imagine that Seneca actually took stories about the Olympian gods seriously. A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living (UK title: The Stoic Guide to a Happy Life), A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control 52 Week-by-Week Lessons, How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal Philosophy, How To Be A Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living, Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology, Tales of the Rational : Skeptical Essays About Nature and Science, The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist, The Best Recent Novels from Francophone Africa, Modern Stoicism blog on the University of Exeter site.
Arrian was probably about 23 or so when he did this. Although our focus currently is on a pandemic, we shouldnt forget that we still face the possibility of climate collapse, are under the constant threat of nuclear Armageddon, and we keep experiencing dramatic political upheavals and civil unrest. You would hope that somebody would think its time to do something about this.
So, heres the thing, the reason there was a shift between Greek Stoicism and Roman Stoicism. img_border: true, img_border_color: '#ECECEC',},}}; What is an insult? People need some sort of ethical compass to live and perhaps even thrive through these sorts of things. Could you say a little bit about how you came to Stoicism? You could do two or three degrees in philosophy and never hear his name mentionedin fact I think I did. Throughout the Renaissance, for example, Seneca was thought of as close to being a secular saint. Some things are under your control and other things are not under your control. He says so explicitly. Externalities, practical goods and things like that, are OK. We think there are people who actually are sages, and those are our role models, and we try to do as they did. They went to Rome which was basically the enemy headquarters. There are people interested in that stuff and theyll figure it out, but really when you have to deal with your daily life and the challenges that it brings, thats not going to be particularly helpful. Epictetus, by the end of his life took a wife of about his own age, apparently so she could help him raise a child fathered by a friend of Epictetus.
One of my favourite exercises which does come straight out of Senecas writing and the ancient Roman tradition is this idea of taking a hot shower and then during the last few seconds turning it completely cold. He has a very wicked sense of humour, a very interesting sense of humour. Thats right. That was the end of all Hellenistic philosophy, not just Stoicism.
So in that respect this book is very different from Marcus Aureliuss Meditations. The starting point of any new pursuit is critical. Make sure you pick up the Gregory Hays translation from Modern Library. No.
He was a slave, born in Hierapolis, which is modern Pamukkale in Turkey, which at that time was a Greek city and became a Roman colony in the late 1st century/early 2nd century. They feel as if they were written two weeks ago, not two millennia ago. Then I heard about an event that takes place in the UK called Stoic Week; I remembered Stoicism from studying it in high school. People like Larry Baker and James Stockdale are obviously fascinating because they show you just how much a human being can actually deal with. Eventually he became a freedman, which was not unusual for bright slaves in ancient Rome. I think the ancient Stoics believed it was the only way.
This is described as Letters to Lucilius. So in some sense, yes, its a bag of psychological tricksbut the reason its a philosophy is because this bag of tricks is put into a more general context and framework, and this is the idea that the good life is the moral life, and that the moral life is the life where you practise the four fundamental virtues: temperance, justice, courage, and wisdom. Its not something that everybody can dothe fact that he as a man achieved enlightenment, however, shows that it is achievable. In fact Epictetus says just this in several places in the Discourses. The best way to translate this word is as magnanimity or great soul-ness.
Exactly, and in fact that is the title of one of the two recent biographies I mentioned of Seneca: Dying Every Day.
In fact his foot writing was much neater than my friends handwriting, apparently. He writes, for instance, that its good to fast every now and then, because these moderate exercises of self-deprivation, a day or two without eating, remind you that you can deal with not being fed.
He started spending more time outside of Rome, and thats when he wrote the Epistles to Lucilius. img_width: 120, img_height: 120, title: true, price: false, facebook: false, free_clicks: false, }, Broadly speaking the Discourses are about how to live your life: they present the basic principles of Stoicism over and over, from different angles and exploring the consequences in different contexts. It is not so great to read through from beginning to end for this reason.
As soon as I read the Modern Stoicism blog on the University of Exeter site, I started exploring on my own, and all of a sudden things started clicking and fitting in, and the puzzle was coming together. This is a recent thing, a20th century phenomenon. var rs = this.readyState; if (rs) if (rs != 'complete') if (rs != 'loaded') return; It presents 52 exercises for practising Stoicism, from which people can sample in order to tailor their practice to their specific needs. Thats an interesting question. A few years ago I went through a midlife crisis and switched from my first academic career as an evolutionary biologist to become a philosopher.
Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. So if, in order to acquire or attain health, or wealth, or education, you did something that was morally questionable, morally wrong, then you would be doing the wrong thing from a Stoic perspective. It is the private thoughts of the worlds, giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. Now, after that event, we are talking about 1st century BCE here, there was no relevant school of philosophy left in Athens. They retained this fundamental idea that its about practising virtue, its about having the good moral life, but they also added what they call apatheia, which of course is the Greek root for the English word apathy, and yet has nothing to do with it. Its a hands-on book, meant to be written on, and the exercises are grouped according to the three disciplines of the second century Stoic Epictetus: desire (i.e., how to reorient our priorities), action (i.e., how to deal with other people), and assent (i.e., how to improve our judgment).
Some of them have been elaborated into fully-fledged psychotherapeutic approaches, such as Viktor Frankls logotherapy; cognitive behavioural therapy; Albert Ellis rational emotive behaviour therapy, and others. You can only try to be healthy, and wealthy, and educated, and have a good life in the sense of externalities, but, you know, shit happens, so to speakthats not a direct quoteand Stoicism in the great part, especially Epictetus Stoicism, is about how to deal with situation where shit does actually happen. Then, eventually, he recovered the use of his legs to some extent, though never his arms or hands; and then for several years he has been living in a wheelchair. Arguably the most basic one, which Epictetus insists on several times, and is also how the Enchiridion starts, is his famous dichotomy of control: he says, some things are under your control and other things are not under your control. For me this made it clear that he had lived the philosophy of Stoicismtalk about having no control over external circumstances! Exactly, its a sort of philosophical judo, what Bill practises. One of the things I find interesting about the modern Stoic authors is that those people really do try to live their life that way. Im very happy that I switched and Im very interested in what Im doing, but it is disturbing when you hear things like that, especially the rationalisation. The first emotional reaction you have to something, they called an impression.
Ethics, for them, was the study of how to live a good life. Epictetus studied with him for a number of years, and eventually started teaching on his own. Picking up the wrong book can derail even the most interested student. First off, Stoicism is a solid philosophy of life, analogous to, say, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. So, in modern terms, we would say that Epictetus thought that the physics and the logic were relevant at some level to the ethics, but they underdetermine it. But the colleague immediately added Yes, Im trying to decide on whether your work is just mistaken or downright evil. Now, Epictetus and the ancient Stoics had a somewhat optimistic view of what is up to us, as it turns out, because of course a lot of modern cognitive science tells us that much human thinking is not conscious, and that a lot of the time we engage in rationalising about things more than in proper rational thinking. Its your own discipline. If in fact one of these days, as a result of externalities or adversity, you really do find yourself starving, you will be psychologically prepared.
Second, Stoicism originated and became popular back during the Hellenistic period at a time of turmoil, where society was changing in dramatic ways, and people felt they had no control over what was happening.
Thats debatable, though a good point. I can understand why this is a useful philosophy to hold in adversity because it could give you a focus and a strength to discount external obstacles, but in ordinary life do we really need it? Unsubscribe at any time.
So I did this, and the woman that was leading the excursion of course talked a lot about Nero, and she also talked a lot about Seneca. As he quipped to a friend, I dont care about the author if the line is good. That is the ethos of practical philosophyit doesnt matter from whom or when it came from, what matters if it helps you in your life, if only for a second.
If you get angry, for instance, at something, think: Why am I getting angry here? For the early Stoics, the emphasis was on what the Greeks called the eudaimonic life. Is there some truth perhaps in what hes saying?
I just want to read you one which is right at the beginning of the Discourses, volume 1, chapter 1.32, its an example of the dichotomy of control, but its also an example of something that immediately endeared Epictetus to me: his sense of humour.
This was a crucial Stoic principle, the idea that you really should surround yourself with good people, ideally people who are better than you, because thats the way you learn, thats the way you challenge yourself.
Elizabeth Laird, one of the judges, talks us through their choices this year. Even if you have anger and indignation at injustice? He had a major Stoic for a teacher who gave him a copy of Epictetus Discourses. There are several chapters in which Irvine goes into these ideas about the Stoics and emotions. Trained in stoic philosophy, Marcus stopped almost every night to practice a series of spiritual exercisesreminders designed to make him humble, patient, empathetic, generous, and strong in the face of whatever he was dealing with. The really interesting thing about Stoicism is that, in its modern form, there are large numbers of people trying to practise Stoicism with a view to becoming better people. Well, its also hard to imagine that people do that in the contemporary world, but they do. He reminds the reader throughout that he is a Stoic, not just a scholar of Stoic philosophy. . Seneca wasnt fond of the Roman games and festivals: he thought they produced a lot of noise and a lot of confusion.
Seneca calls it a temporary madness. On top of that he was immensely wealthy. The Stoics believed that good character is made of the practice of four fundamental virtues, we call them the cardinal virtues.
), Epictetus is the most preachy and for many, the least fun to read. Epictetus says exactly this in the Discourses, he says: I used to go round responding humorously to people and then I got my nose broken. And he adds: so I dont do it anymore, I just walk away.. Theres very little theoretical philosophy in Epictetus. But Christians did learn from Stoicismnot only from Epictetus Enchiridion but also Saint Paul knew Senecas brother, Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and so was aware of Stoic writing. Its not that you cant influence the things not under your control, of course you can. I think what youre getting at there is this separation between academic philosophy and practical philosophy. My guess is that it has to do with a combination of factors.
Epictetus was focused on ethics, which is the third Stoic concern. He wrote the definitive account of Alexander the Greats expedition.
Seneca was a stoic as well, but like Marcus, he was practical and borrowed liberally from other schools. Its hard to tell for sure, of course. The Penguin translation is fantastic, both for this collection of letters (which are more like essays than true correspondence) and for his collection of essays, On the Shortness of Life. I cant do this any more.
In fact one of the four Stoic virtues is temperanceself-control, so that you do everything in moderation, including, of course, these Stoic exercises of self-deprivation. But carrying on with that style of thinking, you could end up getting someone to water-board you for a little bit, so you realise how lucky you are to be able to breathe. This cold shock has a number of effects. Some of his works survive. You know that you can handle it, within physiological limits. When we think about Rome, we think about persecution of the Christians, but actually philosophers, and in particular the Stoics, were persecuted by several Roman emperors because they really didnt like this constant reminder that you should be doing better than you are doing. Seneca was a stoic as well, but like Marcus, he was practical and borrowed liberally from other schools. Thats the equivalent of 200 today presumably. He completely lost the use of both legs and arms. It was during those years that Nero became unhinged: he killed his mother, several of his wives, and his stepbrother. In addition to the books he has written on Stoicism, he is one of the organisers of Stoicon, an annual meeting of people interested in exploring Stoicism as a philosophy of life. Exactly. If you read them through you will see that theres a lot of redundancy there. Yes, I think we do.
He lived in Nicopolis to a ripe age of 80, which for the time was remarkable.
Stoics are not Cynics (in the ancient sense), so theyre not against wealth. One was Domitian, who was a little unhinged himself and wasnt particularly fond of philosophers: all this talk about virtue and how you should do things as opposed to how you actually do things I guess didnt agree with him. He makes mistakes, hes a human figure, hes somebody you can relate to but who constantly strives to do better: he constantly strives to do the right thing. There is a particular collection of epistles, normally referred to as either The Moral Epistles or the Letters to Lucilius. Thats an interesting point about Stoicism: is it an impossible ideal? But the main sections of each chapter can be read, can be understood, by somebody with little or no background in philosophy.
All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evilI can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him What is this person who is insulting me trying to tell me? Epictetus referred to it as the open door. He says to his students several times not to take it lightly: suicide for the Stoics was a serious business and he was not saying jump out of the window at the first problem; but, he says, if you do get yourself into a situation where there really is no way out and life really does become insufferable, or so painful, or you realise that you cannot contribute any longer to society in any meaningful way, then the door is open, you can leave of your own accord. If you can use your wealth for good, youre fine from a Stoic perspective, theres nothing wrong with that; but if you keep accumulating wealth for the sake of it, then youre definitely not a good Stoic. Theres no tradition of proselytising for Stoicism. Eventually I said to myself, you know, maybe its time to take a second look at Stoicism and see what it is that these people are actually doing. That would be pushing it.
Marcus wrote this over the course of a few years when he was on the German frontier fighting the Marcomanni revolt against Rome. Then theres: On the terrors of death. Death was a constant Stoic theme. In the meantime, several political events happened in Rome: there was one emperor after another.
Meditations is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made.
You can find reactions to Stoicism in all the major Christian Church fathers beginning with Augustine, too, and then all the way to Thomas Aquinas.
The last major Stoic was Marcus Aurelius. The Penguin translation is fantastic, both for this collection of letters (which are more like essays than true correspondence) and for his collection of essays, P.S. Then, at around age 15, he was bought by a much better master, who turned out to be Neros personal secretary.
Why do you think Stoicism is proving so popular? You could study philosophy to a high level without studying Epictetus. They didnt counsel apathy. But then if you bear in mind that it is the most powerful person in the world writing this, and in his own personal diarynot done for show to other peoplehe starts out by thanking people who had made a good impact on his own life: its a very humbling exercise. The Stoics also had fictional role models, ancient heroes and demigods like Hercules. He was a very interesting figure. You shouldnt go around with either a metaphorical or an actual stick beating people and saying, youre not virtuous enough.. He also adds, which is crucial I think to understanding the whole thing, that it is that fact that the door is open that gives meaning to what you do. Heres the quotation: Bills response to insults is magnanimous. How did I come to it? Is that the driving motivation for this kind of behaviour?
The basic idea is this: yes, Stoics do have that reputation, but if you look at what they wrote and the way they actually behaved in life, they were far from emotionless. Thats like a kind of martial art: if you imagine in judo, somebody moving in a certain direction, well you help them carry on a bit and trip them up in the process. Much of that advice survives in the form of letters. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount. Yes, it is a better title, I agree. Becker takes that into account, and says, Look, we need to understand that even the dichotomy of control has to be revised and updated as it turns out there are fewer things that are completely under our control. If you were to go with the most extreme view that Ive seen coming from cognitive science, which is the idea that conscious thinking is entirely an illusion, its all about rationalisations, then Stoicism would collapse. The dichotomy of control is crucial in Stoicism, particularly to Epictetus philosophy. One of those virtues is justice, and yes, a sense of justice needs to be cultivated because it is a positive emotion. It is the most accessible editioncompletely devoid of any thous and shalls. Becker wants to explore how much Stoicism can be updated to be compatible with modern science, with modern philosophy. There is very good empirical evidence that this actually helps significantly. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at editor@fivebooks.com. Just like it did back in Athens around 300 BCE, when Zeno of Citium got things started. I had a vague idea that it was the attitude Mr Spock takes in Star Trek: going around life with a stiff upper lip, or something like that. Your first impression, your first reaction might be one of fear, and the Stoics said theres nothing you can do about that. This is an interesting aspect of Stoicism because some people think that many elements of the British public school system, the private school system, were modelled on Stoicism: that a certain amount of deprivation, quite a few cold showers, cold baths, early morning runs and so on, built character. So that puts the emphasis on the virtues. Yes, the past few years have seem quite a number of new entries! Now, the reason Im bringing this up, in answer to your question, is because there is a good, interesting distinction between Christianity and the Stoic approach. We decided to put together a short list with three books that will help you both understand Stoicism but also teach you valuable lessons for life. Subscribe to get our free Daily Stoic email.
I read Kant and Mill, and looked at modern ethics in terms of deontology and utilitarianism in all their forms. Going back to Marcus Meditations, that book was never meant for publication. So actually the translation might be better: we are dying every day?
Thats not the point.
We know what these people did, and how they practised their philosophies. Im so glad you brought that up because indignation at injustice, a sense of injustice, those are positive emotions.
Becker is interested in updating Stoic philosophy for today. One slightly odd feature of the book is that when he writes about Stoics, he writes in the first person plural. Thats easier for some of us than others. Then I went beyond Aristotle and read what little there is available on Epicureanism and some of the other Hellenistic schools of virtue ethics. Yes.
Larry Baker and James Stockdale are showjust how much a human being can actually deal with. Am I right that many of the Stoics grounded their ethics on metaphysics, so the metaphysics actually shaped the ethics? I know youre both a theorist and a practitioner. He kept teaching and he built a reputation so that fairly wealthy people sent their kids to Nicopolis to study with Epictetus and one of the later emperors, Hadrian, became a good friend of his.
Of course I also went back and read the Platonic dialogues to look at the source of all of this. But it strikes me that the virtue ethicists, although theyve theorised virtue, arent necessarily striving to be more virtuous. For more recommendations (books, blogs, articles), sign up for the Daily Stoic free 7-day series. Yes. Its hard to imagine that Seneca actually took stories about the Olympian gods seriously. A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living (UK title: The Stoic Guide to a Happy Life), A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control 52 Week-by-Week Lessons, How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal Philosophy, How To Be A Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living, Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology, Tales of the Rational : Skeptical Essays About Nature and Science, The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist, The Best Recent Novels from Francophone Africa, Modern Stoicism blog on the University of Exeter site.
Arrian was probably about 23 or so when he did this. Although our focus currently is on a pandemic, we shouldnt forget that we still face the possibility of climate collapse, are under the constant threat of nuclear Armageddon, and we keep experiencing dramatic political upheavals and civil unrest. You would hope that somebody would think its time to do something about this.
So, heres the thing, the reason there was a shift between Greek Stoicism and Roman Stoicism. img_border: true, img_border_color: '#ECECEC',},}}; What is an insult? People need some sort of ethical compass to live and perhaps even thrive through these sorts of things. Could you say a little bit about how you came to Stoicism? You could do two or three degrees in philosophy and never hear his name mentionedin fact I think I did. Throughout the Renaissance, for example, Seneca was thought of as close to being a secular saint. Some things are under your control and other things are not under your control. He says so explicitly. Externalities, practical goods and things like that, are OK. We think there are people who actually are sages, and those are our role models, and we try to do as they did. They went to Rome which was basically the enemy headquarters. There are people interested in that stuff and theyll figure it out, but really when you have to deal with your daily life and the challenges that it brings, thats not going to be particularly helpful. Epictetus, by the end of his life took a wife of about his own age, apparently so she could help him raise a child fathered by a friend of Epictetus.
One of my favourite exercises which does come straight out of Senecas writing and the ancient Roman tradition is this idea of taking a hot shower and then during the last few seconds turning it completely cold. He has a very wicked sense of humour, a very interesting sense of humour. Thats right. That was the end of all Hellenistic philosophy, not just Stoicism.
So in that respect this book is very different from Marcus Aureliuss Meditations. The starting point of any new pursuit is critical. Make sure you pick up the Gregory Hays translation from Modern Library. No.
He was a slave, born in Hierapolis, which is modern Pamukkale in Turkey, which at that time was a Greek city and became a Roman colony in the late 1st century/early 2nd century. They feel as if they were written two weeks ago, not two millennia ago. Then I heard about an event that takes place in the UK called Stoic Week; I remembered Stoicism from studying it in high school. People like Larry Baker and James Stockdale are obviously fascinating because they show you just how much a human being can actually deal with. Eventually he became a freedman, which was not unusual for bright slaves in ancient Rome. I think the ancient Stoics believed it was the only way.
This is described as Letters to Lucilius. So in some sense, yes, its a bag of psychological tricksbut the reason its a philosophy is because this bag of tricks is put into a more general context and framework, and this is the idea that the good life is the moral life, and that the moral life is the life where you practise the four fundamental virtues: temperance, justice, courage, and wisdom. Its not something that everybody can dothe fact that he as a man achieved enlightenment, however, shows that it is achievable. In fact Epictetus says just this in several places in the Discourses. The best way to translate this word is as magnanimity or great soul-ness.
Exactly, and in fact that is the title of one of the two recent biographies I mentioned of Seneca: Dying Every Day.
In fact his foot writing was much neater than my friends handwriting, apparently. He writes, for instance, that its good to fast every now and then, because these moderate exercises of self-deprivation, a day or two without eating, remind you that you can deal with not being fed.
He started spending more time outside of Rome, and thats when he wrote the Epistles to Lucilius. img_width: 120, img_height: 120, title: true, price: false, facebook: false, free_clicks: false, }, Broadly speaking the Discourses are about how to live your life: they present the basic principles of Stoicism over and over, from different angles and exploring the consequences in different contexts. It is not so great to read through from beginning to end for this reason.
As soon as I read the Modern Stoicism blog on the University of Exeter site, I started exploring on my own, and all of a sudden things started clicking and fitting in, and the puzzle was coming together. This is a recent thing, a20th century phenomenon. var rs = this.readyState; if (rs) if (rs != 'complete') if (rs != 'loaded') return; It presents 52 exercises for practising Stoicism, from which people can sample in order to tailor their practice to their specific needs. Thats an interesting question. A few years ago I went through a midlife crisis and switched from my first academic career as an evolutionary biologist to become a philosopher.
Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. So if, in order to acquire or attain health, or wealth, or education, you did something that was morally questionable, morally wrong, then you would be doing the wrong thing from a Stoic perspective. It is the private thoughts of the worlds, giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. Now, after that event, we are talking about 1st century BCE here, there was no relevant school of philosophy left in Athens. They retained this fundamental idea that its about practising virtue, its about having the good moral life, but they also added what they call apatheia, which of course is the Greek root for the English word apathy, and yet has nothing to do with it. Its a hands-on book, meant to be written on, and the exercises are grouped according to the three disciplines of the second century Stoic Epictetus: desire (i.e., how to reorient our priorities), action (i.e., how to deal with other people), and assent (i.e., how to improve our judgment).
Some of them have been elaborated into fully-fledged psychotherapeutic approaches, such as Viktor Frankls logotherapy; cognitive behavioural therapy; Albert Ellis rational emotive behaviour therapy, and others. You can only try to be healthy, and wealthy, and educated, and have a good life in the sense of externalities, but, you know, shit happens, so to speakthats not a direct quoteand Stoicism in the great part, especially Epictetus Stoicism, is about how to deal with situation where shit does actually happen. Then, eventually, he recovered the use of his legs to some extent, though never his arms or hands; and then for several years he has been living in a wheelchair. Arguably the most basic one, which Epictetus insists on several times, and is also how the Enchiridion starts, is his famous dichotomy of control: he says, some things are under your control and other things are not under your control. For me this made it clear that he had lived the philosophy of Stoicismtalk about having no control over external circumstances! Exactly, its a sort of philosophical judo, what Bill practises. One of the things I find interesting about the modern Stoic authors is that those people really do try to live their life that way. Im very happy that I switched and Im very interested in what Im doing, but it is disturbing when you hear things like that, especially the rationalisation. The first emotional reaction you have to something, they called an impression.
Ethics, for them, was the study of how to live a good life. Epictetus studied with him for a number of years, and eventually started teaching on his own. Picking up the wrong book can derail even the most interested student. First off, Stoicism is a solid philosophy of life, analogous to, say, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. So, in modern terms, we would say that Epictetus thought that the physics and the logic were relevant at some level to the ethics, but they underdetermine it. But the colleague immediately added Yes, Im trying to decide on whether your work is just mistaken or downright evil. Now, Epictetus and the ancient Stoics had a somewhat optimistic view of what is up to us, as it turns out, because of course a lot of modern cognitive science tells us that much human thinking is not conscious, and that a lot of the time we engage in rationalising about things more than in proper rational thinking. Its your own discipline. If in fact one of these days, as a result of externalities or adversity, you really do find yourself starving, you will be psychologically prepared.
Second, Stoicism originated and became popular back during the Hellenistic period at a time of turmoil, where society was changing in dramatic ways, and people felt they had no control over what was happening.