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Dictionary:

stoicism

  (stō'ĭ-sĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.
  1. Indifference to pleasure or pain; impassiveness.
  2. Stoicism The doctrines or philosophy of the Stoics.

 
 
World of the Body: stoicism

Stoic philosophy was developed in Athens in the third century bc, and reached the peak of its popularity among the upper classes of Rome during the first century bc and the first century ad. The Stoic view of knowledge is empirical; knowledge comes to us from the world through ‘appearances’, which are impressed on our minds. Reason, seen as the quintessentially human characteristic, enables us to understand the world; it is possible to form a community of those who use reason, which will be superior to any secular community. While in pursuit of this ideal, Stoics did not always withdraw from participation in political life; the Roman Stoic Seneca served in the Roman senate and influenced the emperor Nero, although in later life he moved away from Rome to concentrate on writing.

Stoicism denied the importance of all bodily conditions, and emotions were always regarded as bad. The only factor seen as essential to human happiness was virtue, all else in life having significance only as an opportunity to demonstrate that one possesses virtue. Seneca claimed that one could demonstrate virtue equally well through pleasure or through pain, whether enjoying a banquet or submitting to torture. Since all bodily experience equally provided an opportunity to show virtue, no experience was to be deliberately sought out over another. This contrasted with other philosophical approaches; for example, Epicureanism, which regarded pleasure as the goal of life. For the Stoic, poverty and detachment from the world were not seen as essential for the achievement of the good life, nor need worldly wealth be abandoned in the quest for virtue.

In the treatise De Officiis (On Duties), written after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 bc, the Roman politician and philosopher Cicero gave a Stoic account of the correct use of the body as part of his advice to his son — and to the Roman governing classes in general — on how to make moral decisions and to live in the best way possible. As a manual for the upper classes, this text was highly influential in Western political and social thought. Cicero says that both the mind and the body should be trained from childhood into moderate and appropriate behaviour, and this should be expressed through every action — there being a seemly way to stand, walk, or sit. Nature, Cicero argues, has constructed the body so that the most honourable parts are the most visible. Sane people mirror Nature's wisdom in keeping out of sight the parts Nature has hidden away, and in performing bodily functions in private. Moving too slowly is seen as effeminate: hurrying around makes someone out of breath, thus distorting the face. Anger, pleasure, and fear equally transform the faces, voices, and gestures of those experiencing them: the ideal is to control the body, avoid excessive gestures, and follow a moderate way of life. While recommending following ‘Nature’, Cicero also recommends training the body in such a way that one's natural faults are played down; presentation of self can thus be achieved in a way which deceives the onlooker.

— Helen King

 
Political Dictionary: Stoicism

With an initial capital, the word refers to the philosophy of Zeno (c.300 bc) and his followers. Stoics believed that the world was determined by necessity; that there is no point in humans' fighting necessity; and that humans should therefore confront it calmly. This last gives the link with the ordinary meaning of the word.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Stoicism

School of philosophy in Greco-Roman antiquity. Inspired by the teaching of Socrates and Diogenes of Sinope, Stoicism was founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium c. 300 BC and was influential throughout the Greco-Roman world until at least AD 200. It stressed duty and held that, through reason, mankind can come to regard the universe as governed by fate and, despite appearances, as fundamentally rational, and that, in regulating one's life, one can emulate the grandeur of the calm and order of the universe by learning to accept events with a stern and tranquil mind and to achieve a lofty moral worth. Its teachings have been transmitted to later generations largely through the surviving books of Cicero and the Roman Stoics Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

For more information on Stoicism, visit Britannica.com.

 
Philosophy Dictionary: Stoicism

A unified logical, physical, and moral philosophy, taking its name from the stoa poikile or painted porch in Athens where Stoic doctrine was taught. The first recognized Stoic was Zeno of Citium, who founded the school c. 300 BC. Other early Stoics were Cleanthes of Assos and Chrysippus of Soli. The middle stoa, whose members included Panaetius of Rhodes and Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135-c. 51 BC), was responsible for introducing Stoicism to the Roman world, where it had a lasting effect. The late stoa was Roman, and its most distinguished members included Epictetus and Seneca. As a professed system Stoicism fought running battles especially with the sceptical philosophers of the Academy.

Stoic epistemology was based on the phantasia kataleptikē or apprehensive perception. A perception has to fill certain conditions in order to be veridical, and these conditions (clarity, common consent, probability, system) were variously attacked by sceptical opponents. The cosmology of the Stoics was firmly deterministic and orderly, as the eternal course of things passes through returning creative cycles (see eternal return), in accordance with the creative principle or logos spermatikos. Stoic proofs of the existence of God centred on versions of the argument to design (hence the name Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion).

The capstone of Stoic philosophy was an ethic of the consolations of identification with the impartial, inevitable, moral order of the universe. It is an ethic of self-sufficient, benevolent calm, with the virtuous peace of the wise man rendering him indifferent to poverty, pain, and death, so resembling the spiritual peace of God. This fortitude and indifference can sound sublime, but also sound like stark insensibility. As Adam Smith objects, ‘By Nature the events which immediately affect that little department in which we ourselves have some little management and direction…are the events which interest us the most, and which chiefly excite our desires and aversions, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows’ (Theory of the Moral Sentiments, vii. 2. 1). By being above all that, the Stoic is also less than human, and the pursuit of Stoical indifference becomes a celebration of apathy (see also agent centred morality). However, the generally individualistic cast of Greek ethics is tempered in Stoicism by the need to recognize the creative spark in each individual, giving the Stoic a duty to promote a political and civil order that mirrors the order of the created cosmos.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Stoicism
(stō'ĭsĭzəm) , school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium (in Cyprus) c.300 B.C. The first Stoics were so called because they met in the Stoa Poecile [Gr.,=painted porch], at Athens, a colonnade near the Agora, to hear their master Zeno lecture. He had studied with Crates the Cynic, and his own teaching included the Cynic adaptation of the Socratic ideals of virtue, endurance, and self-sufficiency. He added to them the explanation of the physical universe given by Heraclitus and something of the logic of Aristotle. The development and organization of Zeno's doctrines into a great system of metaphysics was the work of Chrysippus (c.280–207 B.C.), successor to Cleanthes. Among the acknowledged leaders of the Stoics in the following period was Panaetius of Rhodes, who in the 2d cent. B.C. introduced Stoicism into Rome. He and his pupil Posidonius sought to lessen the attacks of critics by mingling with the Stoic doctrines some of Plato's psychological views. Cicero, a pupil of Posidonius, was indebted to a work of Panaetius for the basis of his own treatise De officiis. The Romans, who had received Stoicism more cordially than they did any other Greek philosophy, can claim the third period as their own. To it belong the philosophers Seneca and Epictetus of Phrygia and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism, with its roots in earlier doctrines and theories of the human person and the universe, built up an ideal of the virtuous, wise man. Regarding philosophy as divided into physics, logic, and ethics, the Stoics made logic and physics a foundation for ethics. The Stoics, especially Chrysippus, are renowned for their logic, which contains the first systematic analysis of how the truth value of a compound proposition depends upon the truth values of its components. The physical theory underlying Stoicism is materialistic. All that has reality is material. Force, which is the shaping principle, is joined with matter. The universal working force, God, pervades all and becomes the reason and soul in the animate creation. In their ethical creed, the Stoics accepted virtue as the highest good in life. They identified virtue with happiness, claiming that it was untouched by changes in fortune. “To live consistently with nature” was a familiar maxim among the Stoics. Only by putting aside passion, unjust thoughts, and indulgence and by performing duty with the right disposition can people attain true freedom and rule as lords over their own lives.

Bibliography

See J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (1969); A. A. Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism (1971); A. A. Long and P. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, (2 vol., 1987); M. Reesor, The Nature of Man in Early Stoic Philosophy (1989).

 
History 1450-1789: Stoicism

In the century after Aristotle's death, the Greek founders of Stoicism recognized three interrelated constituents of philosophy: logic, physics, and ethics. The study of logic taught the recognition of truth and the avoidance of error, preparing the mind to understand the physical construction of the world and to engage in ethical behavior. The Stoic cosmos was an organic unity that unfolded according to the logos or plan of a universal mind or soul. The physical basis for the universal mind was the pneuma, an all-pervasive animating spirit. At the beginning of each cosmic cycle, the pneuma condensed, producing the terrestrial elements of earth, water, and air at the center of a spherical universe but continuing to pervade the heavens as life-giving fire. The planets were regarded as the natural creatures of this celestial region: they burned fuel provided by transporting terrestrial elements into the heavens. When this process had exhausted the finite supply of terrestrial elements, the cosmos returned to its primordial state and the entire cycle repeated. Within this cosmos individual entities, including human beings, were defined by the portion of the universal pneuma that animated them, and they played roles in the history of the cosmos completely controlled by the logos.

For the Stoics, ethical action accorded with the steadily unfolding plan of the cosmos. But the cosmos frequently unfolded in ways that were painful or frustrating to human beings. The Stoics believed that control over nature was illusory except for the contents of the human mind. Practically, they taught the cultivation of apatheia, a state of mind permitting the tranquil disregard of suffering, and autarcheia, or self-sufficiency. Equally indifferent to wealth and poverty, fame and disrepute, Stoic sages were rendered immune to the vicissitudes of human life. Drawing all three aspects of philosophy together, they were expected to carry out their ethical duty, following the physical plan of the cosmos as revealed by logic, regardless of personal cost.

The Renaissance Revival of Stoic Ethical and Political Doctrines

Although Roman authors like Cicero and Seneca examined all aspects of Stoic doctrine, later writers, for example Epictetus (fl. 90–115 C.E.) and Marcus Aurelius (emperor of Rome, 161–180), were primarily interested in the ethical teachings. Their works were known in various forms throughout the Middle Ages but received new attention when humanist philological skills were applied to newly available Greek texts during the Renaissance, and the recovery of Diogenes Laertius provided new information on both Stoic doctrines and the biographies of the founders. Early modern interest in Stoicism developed from an initial phase, in which Stoic ideas were combined eclectically with other doctrines, until writers like Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) attempted to renovate the Stoic doctrines as a distinct school. Parallel to this later stage, Stoic physical ideas were briefly important in debates on the nature of the heavens and planetary motion.

Throughout this period Stoic doctrines entered humanist literature, although they were limited and conditioned by the authors' Christian opinions. Petrarch (1304–1374) advocated an essentially Stoic scheme for the subjugation of the passions in De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae (Remedies against good and ill fortune) and became the first of many Renaissance writers to borrow Stoic providential design arguments to prove the existence of God. Politian (Angelo Ambrogini; 1454–1494) translated Epictetus's Enchiridion (Handbook) into Latin; Politian's translation appeared in 1497, and the work was published in Greek in 1528. François Rabelais's Pantagruel stories appeared between 1532 and 1564. Later books in the series presented central characters who exemplified the virtues of Stoic sages and a Stoic worldview identifying God and nature as a single, all-pervasive creative principle. However, Desiderius Erasmus and later Michel de Montaigne denied that a Stoic sage could achieve happiness without divine assistance, while Philipp Melanchthon criticized the Stoic ambition to achieve by human reason what can only be achieved with God's assistance, although he freely used the same Stoic proofs of God's existence that had attracted Petrarch.

The most important reviver of Stoic doctrines was Lipsius, who taught at Louvain. In 1584 he published De Constantia (On constancy), the title indicating a form of apatheia that would help its readers cope with the religious and civil strife of their times. Lipsius attempted to collate the surviving fragments of Stoic doctrine in ancient literature in his Manuductionis ad Stoicam Philosophiam (1604; Guide to Stoic philosophy). In his Physiologiae Stoicorum (1604; Physiology of the Stoics) he attempted to reconcile Stoicism with Christian doctrine. At about the same time, translations of Epictetus appeared in France, England, and Spain.

The Revival of Stoic Physics

Stoic physical ideas reappeared later than Stoic ethics. A renewed interest in Pliny revived the doctrine that the substance of the heavens was a fluid through which the planets moved themselves. An early endorsement came from Jacob Ziegler (1531). The Parisian mathematician Ioannes Pena (Jean de la Pène; 1528–1558) derived the same idea from Cicero. Pena explained the apparent failure to observe the bending of light rays as they entered the atmosphere from the ether above by denying that there was any sharp boundary between the earth and the heavens, which were occupied by Stoic vital air. Writing in 1586, the German astronomer Christoph Rothmann borrowed Pena's arguments to explain why comets were able to move freely in regions that should have been impenetrable ether according to Aristotle. Rothmann corresponded with the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), who saw these ideas as the solution to a central problem facing the cosmology he favored, in which the sun went round a central earth, but the planets went round the sun. In this system the spheres supporting the sun and Mars interpenetrated in ways forbidden for the Aristotelian celestial substance. Brahe adopted a fluid heavens and redefined the celestial spheres as geometrical boundaries in it (1588). Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) adopted the latter view in a sustained defense of heliocentrism (1596), although he later rejected the Stoic view that the planets moved themselves and was led thereby to introduce a force, emanating from the sun, to do the same work.

Early in the seventeenth century, the revival of atomism and the appearance of the mechanical philosophy limited the development of exclusively Stoic physical ideas, although they remained influential in alchemy and chemistry throughout Isaac Newton's lifetime. But Stoic ethical doctrines held a continuing appeal, as shown by the favorable treatment of Stoicism in Ralph Cudworth, new editions of Epictetus, and Thomas Stanley's 1655–1662 history of philosophy, which allots more space to Stoicism and its rival Epicureanism than to the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Brahe, Tycho De Mundi Aetherei Recentioribus Phaenomenis. Uraniburg, 1588.

Cudworth, Ralph. The True Intellectual System of the World. Bristol, U.K., 1995. Originally published London, 1678.

Epictetus. The Handbook of Epictetus. Translated by Nicholas P. White. Indianapolis, 1983.

Kepler, Ioannes. The Secret of the Universe=Mysterium Cosmographicum. Translated by A. M. Duncan. New York, 1981. Translation of the 1621 edition, containing the complete text of the first edition (Tübingen, 1596).

Lipsius, Justus. Manuductionis ad Stoicam Philosophiam. Antwerp, 1604.

——. Physiologiae Stoicorum Libri Tres. Antwerp, 1604.

——. Two Bookes of Constancie. Edited by Rudolf Kirk. New Brunswick, N.J., 1939. A new version of Sir John Stradling's 1594 translation of De Constantia.

Marcus Aurelius. The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of the Meditations. Translated by C. Scot Hicks and David V. Hicks. New York, 2002.

Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Translated by Burton Raffel. New York, 1991.

Stanley, Thomas. A History of Philosophy. 3 vols. New York, 1978. Originally published London, 1655–1662.

Ziegler, Jacob. Iacobi Ziegleri, Landavi, Bavari, In C. Plinii De Natvrali Historia Librum Secundum Commentarius. Basel, 1531.

Secondary Sources

Barbour, Reid. English Epicures and Stoics: Ancient Legacies in Early Stuart Culture. Amherst, Mass., 1998.

Barker, Peter. "Stoic contributions to early modern science." In Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought. Edited by Margaret J. Osler. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1991.

Chew, Audrey. Stoicism in Renaissance English Literature: An Introduction. New York, 1988.

Monsarrat, Giles. Light from the Porch: Stoicism and English Renaissance Literature. Paris, 1984.

Oestreich, Gerhard. Neostoicism and the Early Modern State. Edited by Brigitta Oestreich and H.G. Koenigsberger. Translated by David Mc Lintock. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1982.

Shifflett, Andrew Eric. Stoicism, Politics, and Literature in the Age of Milton: War and Peace Reconciled. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1998.

Zanta, Léontine. La renaissance du stoïcisme au XVIe siècle. Paris, 1914.

—PETER BARKER

 
Wikipedia: Stoicism

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy, founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early third century BC. It proved to be a popular and durable philosophy, with a following throughout Greece and the Roman Empire from its founding until all the schools of philosophy were ordered closed by the Christian emperor Justinian I in the year AD 529 because of their pagan character[1]. The core doctrine of Stoicism concerns cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that virtue is to maintain a will that is in accord with nature.

In the life of the individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man's life depends only upon himself. He may become poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires.[2]

Basic tenets

Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason. A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual’s spiritual well-being: "Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature."[2] This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy",[3] and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all alike are sons of God."[4]

Stoicism's prime directives are virtue, reason, and natural law. Stoics believe that, by mastering passions and emotions, it is possible to find equilibrium in oneself and in the world. Greek philosophers such as Zeno and Cleanthes, and later Roman thinkers such as Seneca the Younger, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, are associated with Stoicism. Stoic philosophy is often contrasted with Epicureanism.

The Stoic ethic espouses a deterministic perspective, in regards to those who lack Stoic virtue; Cleanthes once opined that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes."[2] A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy."[3] For positing a "completely autonomous" individual will, and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic single whole", Stoicism has at times been perceived as unclear or self-contradictory.[5]

Stoicism became the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Greco-Roman Empire,[6] to the point where, in the words of Gilbert Murray, "nearly all the successors of Alexander [...] professed themselves Stoics."[7]

History

Zeno of Citium
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Zeno of Citium

Stoicism first appeared in Athens in the Hellenistic period around 301 BC and was introduced by Zeno of Citium. He taught in the famous Stoa Poikile (the painted porch) from which his philosophy got its name. Central to his teachings was the law of morality being the same as nature. During its initial phase, Stoicism was generally seen as a back-to-nature movement critical of superstitions and taboos. The philosophical detachment also encompassed pain and misfortune, good or bad experiences, as well as life or death. Zeno often challenged prohibitions, traditions and customs. Another tenet was the emphasis placed on love for all other beings.

His ideas developed from those of the Cynics, whose founding father, Antisthenes, had been a disciple of Socrates. Zeno's most influential follower was Chrysippus, who was responsible for the molding of what we now call Stoicism.

The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, consisting of formal logic, materialistic physics and naturalistic ethics. Of these, they emphasized ethics as the main focus of human knowledge, though their logical theories were to be of more interest for many later philosophers. Later Roman Stoics focused on promoting a life in harmony within the universe, over which one has no direct control. Modern philosophy, contrary to original Stoicism, often associates Stoicism with determinism, as opposed to the Arminian doctrine of free will.

Stoic ethics and virtues

The ancient Stoics are often misunderstood because the terms they used pertained to different concepts in the past than they do today. The word stoic has come to mean unemotional or indifferent to pain, because Stoic ethics taught freedom from passion by following reason. But the Stoics did not seek to extinguish emotions, only to avoid emotional troubles by developing clear judgment and inner calm through diligent practice of logic, reflection, and concentration.

Borrowing from the Cynics, the foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in the state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control. Stoic ethics stressed the rule: "Follow where reason leads." One must therefore strive to be free of the passions, bearing in mind that the ancient meaning of passion was "anguish" or "suffering"[8], that is, "passively" reacting to external events — somewhat different to the modern use of the word. A distinction was made between pathos (plural patheia) which is normally translated as "passion", propathos or instinctive reaction (e.g. turning pale and trembling when confronted by physical danger) and eupathos, which is the mark of the Stoic sage (sophos). The eupatheia are feelings resulting from correct judgment in the same way as the passions result from incorrect judgment.

The idea was to be free of suffering through apatheia (απαθεια) (Greek) or apathy, where apathy was understood in the ancient sense — being objective or having "clear judgment" — rather than simple indifference, as apathy implies today. The Stoic concepts of passion and apatheia may be considered as analogous to the Buddhist noble truths: all life has suffering (Dukkha), suffering is rooted in passion and desire (Samudaya), meditation and virtue can free one from suffering (Nirodha and Marga). It is also analogous to the concepts in Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, which stresses rising above the dualities such as pleasure-pain, win-lose, to perform one's duties.

For the Stoics, reason meant not only using logic, but also understanding the processes of nature — the logos, or universal reason, inherent in all things. Living according to reason and virtue, they held, is to live in harmony with the divine order of the universe, in recognition of the common reason and essential value of all people. The four cardinal virtues of the Stoic philosophy are wisdom (Sophia), courage (Andreia), justice (Dikaiosyne), and temperance (Sophrosyne), a classification derived from the teachings of Plato.

Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of ignorance. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason. Likewise, if they are unhappy, it is because they have forgotten how nature actually functions. The solution to evil and unhappiness then, is the practice of Stoic philosophy — to examine one's own judgments and behaviour and determine where they have diverged from the universal reason of nature.

The doctrine of "things indifferent"

In philosophical terms, things which are indifferent are outside the application of moral law, that is without tendency to either promote or obstruct moral ends. Actions neither required nor forbidden by the moral law, or which do not affect morality, are called morally indifferent. The doctrine of things indifferent (ἀδιάφορα, adiaphora) arose in the Stoic school as a corollary of its diametric opposition of virtue and vice ( καθήκοντα kathekon and ἁμαρτήματα hamartemata, respectively "convenient actions," or actions in accordance with nature, and mistakes). As a result of this dichotomy, a large class of objects were left unassigned and thus regarded as indifferent.

Eventually three sub-classes of "things indifferent" developed: things to be preferred because they assisted life according to nature; things to be avoided because they hindered it; and things indifferent in the narrower sense.

The principle of ἀδιάφορα was also common to the Cynics and Sceptics. The conception of things indifferent is, according to Kant, extra-moral. The doctrine of things indifferent was revived during the Renaissance by Philip Melanchthon.

Spiritual exercise

Marcus Aurelius
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Marcus Aurelius

Philosophy for a Stoic is not just a set of beliefs or ethical claims, it is a way of life involving constant practice and training (or askesis, see ascetic). Stoic philosophical and spiritual practices included logic, Socratic dialogue and self-dialogue, contemplation of death, training attention to remain in the present moment (similar to some forms of Eastern meditation), daily reflection on everyday problems and possible solutions, hypomnemata, and so on. Philosophy for a Stoic is an active process of constant practice and self-reminder.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius defines several such practices. For example, in Book II, part 1:

"Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together..."

Brotherhood

A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism. All people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should, according to the Stoics, live in brotherly love and readily help one another. In Discourses, Epictetus comments on man's relationship with the world: "Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy." This sentiment echoes that of Socrates, who said "I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

They held that external differences such as rank and wealth are of no importance in social relationships. Thus, before the rise of Christianity, Stoics advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human beings. Stoicism became the most influential school of the Greco–Roman world, and produced a number of remarkable writers and personalities, such as Cato the Younger and Epictetus.

In particular, they were noted for their urging of clemency toward slaves. Seneca exhorted, "Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies."

Stoicism's Encounter with Christianity

Although Stoicism was considered by many early Fathers of the Church to be a part of the philosophical paganism of the ancient world, many of its elements were held in high esteem; in particular, the Stoic concept of natural law, which became a major part of the Roman Catholic and early American doctrines of secular public morality.[citation needed] The central Stoic idea of logos had an encounter with early Orthodox Christianity through Arius and his supporters. The ecumenical rejection of this belief was evidenced and deemed heretical at the Council at Nicea. The Stoic definition of virtue as the conformance of the will to the rational order of the world has parallels with traditional Christian morality.[citation needed] Stoicism influenced Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, which was highly influential in the Middle Ages in its promotion of Christian morality via secular philosophy.[citation needed]

For example, the Serenity Prayer:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Modern usage

The word "stoic" now commonly refers to someone indifferent to pain, pleasure, grief, or joy. The modern usage as "person who represses feelings or endures patiently" is first cited in 1579 as a noun, and 1596 as an adjective.[9] In contrast to the term "epicurean", the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Stoicism notes, "the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins."[10]

Quotations

Below is a selection of quotations by major stoic philosophers illustrating major stoic beliefs :

Epictetus:

  • "Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one's desires, but by the removal of desire."
  • "Where is the good? In the will. Where is the evil? In the will. Where is neither of them? In those things which are independent of the will."
  • "Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them."
  • "If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
  • "I am formed by nature for my own good: I am not formed for my own evil."
  • "Permit nothing to cleave to you that is not your own; nothing to grow to you that may give you agony when it is torn away."
  • "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."
  • "God is best worshipped in the shrine of the heart by the desire to know and obey him."

Marcus Aurelius:

  • "Get rid of the judgement, get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself."
  • "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
  • "Everything is right for me, which is right for you, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which comes in due time for you. Everything is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature. From you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return."
  • "If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you were bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, but satisfied to live now according to nature, speaking heroic truth in every word which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man able to prevent this."
  • "How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!"
  • "Outward things cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree; nor have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul; but the soul turns and moves itself alone."
  • "Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also"
  • "Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited."

Seneca the Younger:

  • "The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live."
  • "That which Fortune has not given, she cannot take away."
  • "Let Nature deal with matter, which is her own, as she pleases; let us be cheerful and brave in the face of everything, reflecting that it is nothing of our own that perishes."
  • "Virtue is nothing else than right reason."

See also

Stoic philosophers

See also: Category:Stoic philosophers

Books

Primary Sources

  • A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
  • Harvard University Press Epictetus Discourses Books 1 and 2, Loeb Classical Library Nr. 131, June 1925.
  • Harvard University Press Epictetus Discourses Books 3 and 4, Loeb Classical Library Nr. 218, June 1928.
  • Gill C. Epictetus, The Discourses, Everyman 1995.
  • Long, George Enchiridion by Epictetus, Prometheus Books, Reprint Edition, January 1955.
  • Long George Discourses of Epictetus, Kessinger Publishing, January 2004.
  • Moses, Hadas (ed.), Essential Works of Stoicism (1961: Bantam)
  • Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (transl. Robin Campbell), Letters from a Stoic: Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium (2004) ISBN 0-14-044210-3
  • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, translated by Maxwell Staniforth; ISBN 0-14-044140-9, or translated by Gregory Hays; ISBN 0-679-64260-9.
  • Oates Whitney Jenning The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius, Random House, 9th printing 1940.

Studies

  • Bakalis Nikolaos, Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing, May 2005, ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
  • Lawrence C. Becker, A New Stoicism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998) ISBN 0-691-01660-7
  • Tad Brennan, The Stoic Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; paperback 2006)
  • Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, (Blackwell, 1995) ISBN 0-631-18033-8
  • Brad Inwood, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to The Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
  • A. A. Long, Stoic Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1996; repr. University of California Press, 2001) ISBN 0-520-22974-6
  • Vlassis G. Rassias, "Theois Syzen. Eisagoge ston Stoicismo", Athens, 2001, ISBN 960-7748-25-5
  • John Sellars, Stoicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) ISBN 1-84465-053-7
  • William O. Stephens, Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom (London: Continuum, 2007) ISBN 0-8264-9608-3
  • Steven Strange (ed.), Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004) ISBN 0-521-82709-4

References

  1. ^ http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-8585/Western-philosophy the end of Stoicism
  2. ^ a b c Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. p. 254
  3. ^ a b Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. p. 264
  4. ^ Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. p. 253
  5. ^ Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. p. 266
  6. ^ H.D. Amos and A.G.P. Lang, "These Were the Greeks"
  7. ^ Gilbert Murray, The Stoic Philosophy (1915), p.25. In Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (1946).
  8. ^ http://www.bartleby.com/61/87/P0098700.html
  9. ^ Harper, Douglas (November 2001). Online Etymology Dictionary - Stoic. Retrieved on September 2, 2006.
  10. ^ Baltzly, Dirk (2004-12-13). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Stoicism. Retrieved on September 2, 2006.

External links

Stoicism
Stoic philosophers
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Works Dialogues of Seneca · Discourses (Epictetus) · Enchiridion (Epictetus) · Epistles of Seneca · Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)
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