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WillowOne's Positions

Stoicism

Overview

Stoicism is the Hellenistic school founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC and later represented by Epictetus, Seneca, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Its central ethical teaching is that virtue is the only good, that external things (wealth, health, reputation, even life) are "indifferent", and that tranquillity comes from distinguishing what is within our control (our judgements and responses) from what is not (everything else), and caring only about the former. The Stoics were also physicalists and determinists, holding that the universe is a single rational material system in which everything happens by necessity.

Notes

  • The Stoic distinction between what is and is not within our control is sound practical psychology, and it is the ancestor of cognitive behavioural therapy. The further claim that externals do not matter is one I do not accept; it is advice for enduring a world one cannot change, and we can change rather a lot of it.
  • Stoic determinism is close to my own (Freewill vs Determinism), and the Stoic response to it, that one should assent to what must happen while still acting, is roughly the position I take on moral responsibility: praise and blame are themselves causes.
  • Modern "Stoicism" as a self-help brand keeps the psychology and discards the physics, theology, and politics, which is probably the right way round.

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