Michael
Jun 1st 2010, 08:53 PM
What can the Stoics do for us?
Antonia Macaro investigates the alleged usefulness of Stoic philosophy for life today.
The Stoics are not short of fans these days. Their ideas frequently pop up in self-help and popular psychology books, as well as in all sorts of mainstream publications, such as the Guardian, Prospect and Psychologies. This is not too surprising: especially the later texts by Roman Stoics – Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius – burst with wonderfully apt advice about how to live. Far from the abstractions of some moral philosophy, which often give little assistance on how to lead a good life, Stoic authors wrote perceptively about daily concerns, and this is how they gained lasting relevance.
Yet, if you started delving into Stoic literature, you might find some of the advice repugnant, even shocking. In Epictetus, for instance, you would find this exhortation: “If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.” As for Marcus Aurelius, you would be told that sex should be thought of as “something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.” So is Stoicism really a life-affirming philosophy that can truly help us to live better lives in the modern world or a fiercely radical perspective, intriguing but too remote and demanding to have any real relevance to our daily conduct? Or both?
Article-TPM (http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1209)
This is an excellent article on the late-Roman philosophy of stoicism. I think the above quoted paragraph captures one of the essential ideas of the stoics - the distancing of the self from the physical/emotional demands of others.
Though, one should keep in mind that some of these ideas arose in the context of a reaction against 'epicurianism' or 'hedonism' which some might say dominated the late Republican/early-Empire period.
All that being said, given the 'sterility' of our modern technology obsessed societies, it wouldn't surprise me to see a return of stoicism and/or the rise of pseudo-stoicism.
I must admit myself that I'm naturally inclined towards stoicism, though I've never adopted it as a guiding principle in any way.
Antonia Macaro investigates the alleged usefulness of Stoic philosophy for life today.
The Stoics are not short of fans these days. Their ideas frequently pop up in self-help and popular psychology books, as well as in all sorts of mainstream publications, such as the Guardian, Prospect and Psychologies. This is not too surprising: especially the later texts by Roman Stoics – Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius – burst with wonderfully apt advice about how to live. Far from the abstractions of some moral philosophy, which often give little assistance on how to lead a good life, Stoic authors wrote perceptively about daily concerns, and this is how they gained lasting relevance.
Yet, if you started delving into Stoic literature, you might find some of the advice repugnant, even shocking. In Epictetus, for instance, you would find this exhortation: “If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.” As for Marcus Aurelius, you would be told that sex should be thought of as “something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.” So is Stoicism really a life-affirming philosophy that can truly help us to live better lives in the modern world or a fiercely radical perspective, intriguing but too remote and demanding to have any real relevance to our daily conduct? Or both?
Article-TPM (http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1209)
This is an excellent article on the late-Roman philosophy of stoicism. I think the above quoted paragraph captures one of the essential ideas of the stoics - the distancing of the self from the physical/emotional demands of others.
Though, one should keep in mind that some of these ideas arose in the context of a reaction against 'epicurianism' or 'hedonism' which some might say dominated the late Republican/early-Empire period.
All that being said, given the 'sterility' of our modern technology obsessed societies, it wouldn't surprise me to see a return of stoicism and/or the rise of pseudo-stoicism.
I must admit myself that I'm naturally inclined towards stoicism, though I've never adopted it as a guiding principle in any way.