What Is Stoicism? | Hacker News Reader

What Is Stoicism?

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25 points0xmattf16 comments

It's interesting that the main thinkers listed are all Roman. They're definitely the best known, but Stoicism was a Greek philosophy first and foremost, and Cleanthes, Chrysippus, etc. were more significant than any of the Romans.

Stoicism had a lot going for it, but it was also full of a lot of crazy nonsense - there's a reason you've never met a Stoic who was fully on board with Stoic natural philosophy or "physics." The logic eventually made a comeback (via Frege, possibly due to plagiarism!), and the virtue ethics got absorbed into Christian moral philosophy by about the 13th century (by way of neo-platonists who influenced Dominican philosopher theologians like Aquinas). It's not surprising that it ran out of steam.

Yeah, because, as you said, those are the most widely-known. There's not much literature existing beyond them.

However, I did mention Zeno...

I'll probably write an update to at least mention the others. That's a good point, thank you.

The 13th century seems like a late stoic tributary to focus on — some stoicism seems present in the gospels.

The Stoics are explicitly mentioned in Acts of the Apostles, but I think a better way to think about it is that the framework of "Virtue" as "Conforming to your Nature" is a very useful one for understanding the gospels, as was developed extensively starting in the mid 1200s.

Stoicism is an ancient (yet timeless) philosophy from the Greek and Roman era. Basically, Stoics cultivate the basic virtues of Courage, Wisdom, Temperance and Justice, which lead to lasting happiness, success, love and all good things in life. “The man who has virtue is in need of nothing whatever for the purpose of living well.”

Famous stoics include the philosopher Seneca and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius

This reads like google home speaks

Reed Seneca/Aurelius/Epictet, dot't read a modern shite.

This is a competent introduction to Stoicism; it successfully debunks the most common myth, that Stoics are emotionless robots. However, the text presents a somewhat "sanitized" version of the philosophy; it focuses heavily on the "self-help" aspects (resilience, mindset) while glossing over the more rigid physical aspects of Stoic theory, such as their materialist view of the universe.

Personally I find Stoicism still pretty depressing and boring, and much prefer the philosophy of Epicurus, who valued enjoyment, frugality and the minimization of suffering.

I’m about 1/2 way through reading “How to be a stoic”, so far its a good introduction.

I haven't read that, but I bet it's good. Massimo has been writing on the subject since I learned what Stoicism was.

If you're interested, feel free to sign up to Stoa Central. Really, I would love to have some intelligent people to have discussions with.

In a sense that book is more about selfhelp, and misses some parts of Stoicism.

An interesting book which is more complete but still readable is Stoic Notes written by Rymke Wiersma, translated in English here: https://modernstoicism.com/a-free-book-stoic-notes-by-rymke-...

So far it reads as a light introduction and sales pitch, which is fine.

Honestly, most modern books on Stoicism read like that; I tend to avoid them altogether. Although I will say that Donald Robertson has done a great job with the two books I've read of his (Stoicism and the Art of Happiness, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor).

The best modern book, in my opinion, is Pierre Hadot's The Inner Citadel. It's primarily about Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, but does a really good deep-dive into Stoicism (and frequently mentions other Stoics).

Stoicism often gets conflated with apathy, which to some extent is a fair interpretation. But it’s not being indifferent to everything - rather, only to the things that disrupt your psychological stasis.

Then Silicon Valley ran with the idea and made it about tone-deafness. So now it’s almost fashionable to be intentionally cruel and tone-deaf, and then chalk it up to Stoicism.

I think I pulled this out of Epictetus

"In between the action and reaction is myself".

And took that as one of the fundamentals of Stoicism.

I liked the intro -- thanks!

Marcus Aurelius !

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