Stoicism only became popular in Greek philosophy after they lost to Alexander the Great.
It was not the glorious philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, that talked about what a society should do. Stoicism only talked about how to cope.
How Stoicism can help us
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Re: How Stoicism can help us
#92Stoicism only became popular in Greek philosophy after they lost to Alexander the Great. It was not the glorious philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, that talked about what a society should do. Stoicism only talked about how to cope.
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Re: How Stoicism can help us
#93> In your book, you also write about the importance of following your own values — and that Stoicism is a personal choice. > therapists today are increasingly encouraging clients to identify their true inner values and do things that serve those more fully. The big problem here is that most people don’t know what those values are. It's important to remember that the Stoics did not encourage us to follow our own indiv…
Couldn't agree with you more. This "life hack" diluted and "self help" version of Stoicism is horrendous.
I'm not sure what you're talking about, but there is an unfortunate abundant of rhetoric that flows like this: "we should improve something somewhat" that gets derailed with "no, you should become stoic instead".
Re: How Stoicism can help us
#94Stoicism only became popular in Greek philosophy after they lost to Alexander the Great. It was not the glorious philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, that talked about what a society should do. Stoicism only talked about how to cope.
> Stoicism only talked about how to cope.
I may be reading your comment incorrectly but when you say “[they] only became popular”, “[they] only talked about [...]” that sounds a bit pejorative. Isn’t it as important to talk about how to cope with a situation than what an ideal society should do? To me they both seem to be things to talk about, one isn’t more important than the other. To be honest I’m not familiar enough to know if that’s something we got from stoicism but that seems to be a great addition to our thinking toolkit.
Re: How Stoicism can help us
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not odds with philosophy adoption at all. In fact, nature of these (imagined) miners problems can make it harder to adopt philosophy that would make it harder to seek solutions to very real problems they have. If you endure pain with no display, your pain is taken less seriously after all and at some point, you need that doctor to understand it is real. And at other point you already need to stop working or f…
Generally, if you are male, no one is going to look on you with much sympathy if you express that you are in pain. Pity and contempt are the more likely outcomes. Stoicism is a tool that helps it to be a little easier to suck it up and drive on and do your job.
You do get a doctor to have a look at your hand or back. You can get pain relief medication. Stoicism is not philosophy for people at breaking point nor thos with real problems that needs to be solved actively. You as tech worker think about how others looks at you and consider social status. Poor miner needs fix for back that is hurting enough to prevent him to fully perform which puts him at risk to be even poorer.
My poit is that civil rights nor security regulations nor anything like that happened because people were stoic.
Moreover, places with those sucky-destroy-you miner jobs tend to, well, not be stoic. They have host of social problems, alcoholism, drugs, physical fights etc. These people are not signing to stoicism as philosophy. They are drawning and reacting to that.
Re: How Stoicism can help us
#96How is Stoicism different to everyday psychological dissociation covered up with a nice-sounding philosophy?
Re: How Stoicism can help us
#97Re: How Stoicism can help us
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you read Seneca's letters? I can't think of anything more straightforward and applicable. Live simply, don't value external things, have principles and stand behind them, think in term of "long term happiness" not "short term joys", be nice to your fellow humans, being rich in material things is nice but not sufficient while having virtues, knowledge and a strong community is necessary. It really isn't rocket sc…
Of course I did. I even tried to follow some things to the extreme. E.G: one letter advice to have "poverty days" so that you never get afraid of being poor. So I went to sleep in the street from time to time. But most of the content is not that straight forward. Take for example: "Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day's task, and you will not ne…
Well these advices are thousands of years old so obviously you can't take it as a step by step guide for the 21st century. The principles behind them are usually simple to understand but hard to practice if you don't self reflect and actively try to better your life.
> Yeah. How do you do that ?
Look at your life, everyone is wasting time, maybe you're fine with it or maybe you feel like shit every evening when you look back at your day and notice that you could have done much more / spend your time doing something better.
Want to start a business but watch 3 hours of netflix a day ? Maybe something is wrong. Spend all your life in a job you don't like because it pays well ? Are you sure you value money that much ? Are you always thinking about the next weekend, vacations, retirement to rationalise doing tasks you don't value ?
Imagine being 60 and looking back at your life, did these X000 hours/year of netflix / video games / whatever bettered my life ? Or did they made my shitty life slightly more tolerable by occupying my mind outside of work ? Did I have a plan or did I just went through whatever life through at me without thinking about it?
> You can also tell a fat guy to eat less calories. Great. Now what ?
Telling him is not enough, it has to come from the fat guy himself. Once he truly want to lose weight he'll find a way (unless he has some medical conditions preventing it). It's the same with life, you can read every single book about how to be happy and successful, if you don't truly want it and invest serious time and efforts in it it's not much better than reading fiction.
> That's why I prefer philosophy when it comes with a method.
That's all good too, but I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually feel the urge to take your life in your own hands and follow less strict regimen at some point. Meditation or psychedelic drugs are a good example, at first you want a very safe and guided thing and once you kind of know what you're doing you experiment. You can spend 10k to spend a week in a monastery or on top of a mountain in underwear, if you come back and fall in the same patterns as before you just blew 10k for vacations.
> that otherwise get completely uncorrelated from one's life.
Or maybe our current way of living is so convoluted and disconnected from our origins that we lost the ability to understand the most basic principles.
Re: How Stoicism can help us
#99One of my favorite passages from the Meditations is Marcus' observation that Stoicism has value regardless of one's theology and metaphysics: Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind Providence, or a confusion without a purpose and without a director. If then there is an invincible necessity, why do you resist? But if there is a Providence that allows itself to be propitiated, make yourself w…
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Re: How Stoicism can help us
#100I myself prefer transcendentalism. I need to be surrounded by more positive emotions. I read this text, "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson - modern translation, at least at once a year: http://www.youmeworks.com/self_reliance_translated.html Great discussion in this topic btw.
Another thanks for this. Powerful stuff. I looked up transcendentalism, and found this definition: “an idealistic philosophical and social movement which developed in New England around 1836 in reaction to rationalism.” I found this origin curious because Emerson’s ideas don’t seem to conflict with rationalism; in fact, a transcendental mindset seems like an entirely rational belief system to adopt if one wants to li…
Rationalism in philosphy means more than being rational: it is the belief that you can deduce true knowledge about the world by mere thinking ("apriori synthetic" knowledge).
Imagine you are Einstein, and you have derived relativity from a few axiom, if you are still interested in experimental verification of your theory then you are an empiricist. If you say: I know for sure I'm right no need for experiments at all - you are a rationalist.
Modern science is mostly empiricist, maybe hardcore austrian economists are rationalists (for them economy is derived from praxeology, experimental verification is not possible and not needed)