stoicism
intro slides by Donald Robertson
relation to
- buddhism
- secular humanism
- Miyamoto Musashi’s Dokkōdō
practioners
- Zeno of Citium
- Chrysippus
- Seneca
- Gaius Musonius Rufus
- Lectures
- Epictetus
- Discourses
- Enchiridion
- Marcus Aurelius
- Meditations
- William B. Irvine
- John Sellars
- Donald Robertson
- Massimo Pigliucci
Goal: living in accordance with Nature
- people are social and capable of reason
- phronêsis (prudence/practical wisdom)
- what is good, bad, and indifferent in life
- grasping the value of things rationally
- navigate complex moral situations, trade-offs
- andreia (fortitude/courage)
- act in the face of danger/criticism/retaliation
- endurance of pain and discomfort
- dikaiosunê (justice/morality)
- moral in our dealings with others
- kindness and fairness
- sôphrosunê (temperance/moderation)
- self-discipline/self-control
- self-awareness or being self-possessed
- mindfulness
Stoic fork, dichotomy of control
- things up to us
- our endorsed values
- our considered judgements
- our decision to act or not act
- things not up to us
- everything else!
- health, wealth, career, reputation
- story of the archer, try your best but the outcome is not up to us
three area of study
- logic - how to reason well
- physics - how the world works
- ethics - how to live well
- metaphor: logic is the fence of a garden in which the crop of ethics grow from the soil of physics
three discipines
- desire - endorsing the right values (physics)
- shift your goals from external to internal
- remind yourself of the impermanence of things
- action - how do we act or not act (ethics)
- assent - arrive at better judgements (logic)
Lessons in Stoicism by John Sellars
- natural reaction -> judgement -> emotion
- anger arising from a sense of injury
- pause and reflect before making judgement
- adversity as a chance to exercise virtues
- fate works through us, we are contributors to fate
- everything we have or love is merely on loan
- living up to the various roles we find ourselves in
- Hierocles and the expanding circle of concern
Practical Stoicism, 24 Stoic Spiritual Exercises
- examine your impressions
- premeditatio malorum
- Murphy’s law
- stoic’s reserve clause is “fate permitting”
- keep change and death in mind
- memento mori
- how can I use virtue here and now?
- pause and take a deep breath
- otherize
- choose your company well
- respond to insults with humor
- don’t speak too much about yourself
- speak little and speak well
- speak without judging
- keep at-hand principles
- why am I doing this?
- renunciation
- decomposition exercise describing events/things in very objective language avoid attributing more importance than they do in fact have
- acknowledging others’ virtues
- take another’s perspective
- view from above
- reconsider the wrong
- when offended, reflect
- rebutting thoughts
- morning meditations on others
- morning meditations on the cosmos
- acceptance of one’s fate
How to be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci
Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius. Translated by Gregory Hays.
resources