The question of how to live has been necessary for every culture, religion and society in history. How should we tackle life’s challenges? What’s the best way to behave and conduct ourselves toward others? And how should we face up to the ultimate challenge: our own demise?

Stoicism, a philosophy developed in the ancient world, has a lot to tell us about how we can live today. Stoic philosophers were interested in the practicalities of living a good, virtuous life, from how to foreground your friendships to dealing with daily frustrations.

Stoicism offers a practical and sensible guide to tackling life’s problems and challenges.

Throughout history, religious leaders, scientists and philosophers have tried to answer the question: how can we live a good life? How should we deal with life’s problems, treat our friends and neighbors, react to adversity and prepare for death?

One philosophy that can provide some answers is Stoicism, so called because its first followers met beneath the Stoa Poikile, meaning “painted porch,” in ancient Athens.

Stoicism started in Athens around 300 BCE. It thrived, and in 155 BCE spread to Rome when key Stoic philosophers were sent there as ambassadors. It developed in Rome to such an extent that Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor in the second century CE, was himself a Stoic philosopher.

Stoicism, however, is often misunderstood. When we say someone is stoical, we imply they are rather passive, tolerating what comes to them without question or emotion.

But in reality, Stoicism is not at all passive, and it is not about suppressing emotion. It is about what we can do to lead a good life. It concerns itself with three disciplines. Firstly, that of desire, or what we should and should not aim for; secondly, action, or how we should behave; and thirdly, assent – how we should react to situations.

This might sound a little theoretical. But for the ancient Stoics, their philosophy was explicitly practical.

Marcus Aurelius, the emperor-philosopher, wrote his most famous work, Meditations, as a personal guide for his own self-improvement.

One of the most influential of the Stoic philosophers, and a thinker who will often be our guide here, was Epictetus. A freed former Roman slave with a crippled leg, Epictetus became a teacher of philosophy in the first century. His thinking is recorded in the work called Enchiridion, meaning “Handbook,” which gives us a clue about his practical outlook. As we will see, Epictetus’ dis

I have not read any of his books yet but plan to make one of his the next listen on audible, which one would you recommend i read?

This is not an ad. I was checking out The Great Courses plus on Hulu and saw this new course being featured (titled in the post) . I immediately thought of this sub and wanted to share this information with you people. It seems you can watch it for free if you select the 7-day trial. If you have Hulu or otherwise can find this channel, this course may be useful to you, especially if you're new to practicing this philosophy.

Sorry if I broke any posting rules (not really) but I thought this was worthwhile enough to share.

Hi!

I'd be grateful for a small clarification from anyone here who is familiar with the work of this author.

I've been interested in Stoicism for several years now and have read a fair bit of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and Cicero over the years.

I recently came across Massimo Pigliucci's books and thought it would be a good refresher course to try one of his exercise books, but then I discovered there were many versions of his exercise book with slightly different titles:

A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control: 52 Week by Week Lessons

The Stoic Guide to A Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living

Live Like a Stoic: 52 Exercises for Cultivating a Good Life

A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living

Are these all the same book with different covers/titles? I haven't been able to find enough information from Amazon reviews to conclude on whether these versions have significant differences in content.

One thing I was able to notice is that the two books with 53 exercises were published in 2020 and the two books with 52 exercises in 2019. So I guess he updated the book in 2020. But I've sometimes encountered books in which the update was not actually an improvement. So I wouldn't automatically choose the latest revised edition of a book to read.

So my question is: are there any significant differences among these multiple versions, and if so, which one would you recommend?

Thanks!

Really interesting conversation on human cultural evolution: https://letter.wiki/conversation/34

"This is also the general point of my letter. The entire conceptual toolkit that has proven itself for the study of genetic evolution is equally relevant to the study of human cultural evolution. This enterprise is not more difficult than the study of genetic evolution and in many respects it can be easier."

Copied from a blog post here .

Pigliucci and his co-author Greg Lopez are offering free stoicism lessons/discussions on Zoom while everyone is stuck inside. On April 11 he talked about the stoic exercises described below. The next session is on Tuesday, 14 April at 5pm Eastern, and the topic will be "Should we believe in the Stoic God?" You can RSVP and get the zoom link on massimopigliucci.com .

Anyway, here are his 9 exercises, categorized as Daily, Weekly, and Occasional (every few weeks):

Stoicism is a practical philosophy. Which means that, although there is a theory behind it (otherwise, it wouldn't be a philosophy!), the most important part is how you do it. I am often asked exactly what it means "to be" a Stoic, or, more specifically, how I personally practice. Below is a list of the exercises I regularly engage in, each with an accompanying quote from a Stoic source and a brief commentary about how to operationalize the idea. For many more exercises (52, in fact), see the forthcoming "A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control—52 Week-by-Week Lessons," which I co-wrote with my friend Greg Lopez.

Daily exercises

1. Reflection on Stoic passages

The wise man, indeed, overcomes Fortune by his virtue, but many who profess wisdom are sometimes frightened by the most unsubstantial threats. And at this stage it is a mistake on our part to make the same demands upon the wise man and upon the learner. I still exhort myself to do that which I recommend; but my exhortations are not yet followed. And even if this were the case, I should not have these principles so ready for practice, or so well trained, that they would rush to my assistance in every crisis. Just as wool takes up certain colours at once, while there are others which it will not absorb unless it is soaked and steeped in them many times; so other systems of doctrine can be immediately applied by men's minds after once being accepted, but this system of which I speak, unless it has gone deep and has sunk in for a long time, and has not merely coloured but thoroughly permeated the soul, does not fulfill any of its promises. (Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 71.30-33)

Here Seneca is telling us that we need to constantly bring to mind the principles of our philosophy, in order to, gradually, over time, internalize them and make them second nature to us. One way

Check out this video of the recent webinar I did talking to Massimo Pigliucci about Stoicism.

Hello, I have a question about this particular philosopher. I've recently stumbled upon Massimo Pigliucci's name on this sub, as I'm looking to study Stoicism by myself, and I found out his blog about 21st century Stoicism. I searched for him on Wikipedia that he seems to have an analytic background, mostly revolving around phil of science, and actual scientific degrees, which is a big plus for me as an analytic guy.

Nonetheless, I was wondering if his work about Stoicism is worth reading, or if it is just some self help stuff with little care to the philosophical implications that I would be interested in seeing argued for (for instance, accepting stoic virtue ethics). I ask this with no disrespect or "skepticism" about Massimo, especially since he has so many PhDs and seems to be an actual professor at university; I ask since he has a lot of material on the matter, and as I'm also preparing a nasty Logic exam for my Master course I really have to choose the "free time" reading carefully.

https://aeon.co/essays/consciousness-is-neither-a-spooky-mystery-nor-an-illusory-belief

"Here is where the fundamental divide in philosophy of mind occurs, between ‘dualists’ and ‘illusionists’. Both camps agree that there is more to consciousness than the access aspect and, moreover, that phenomenal consciousness seems to have nonphysical properties (the ‘what is it like’ thing). From there, one can go in two very different directions: the scientific horn of the dilemma, attempting to explain how science might provide us with a satisfactory account of phenomenal consciousness, as Frankish does; or the antiscientific horn, claiming that phenomenal consciousness is squarely outside the domain of competence of science, as David Chalmers has been arguing for most of his career, for instance in his book The Conscious Mind (1996).

By embracing the antiscientific position, Chalmers & co are forced to go dualist. Dualism is the notion that physical and mental phenomena are somehow irreconcilable, two different kinds of beasts, so to speak. Classically, dualism concerns substances: according to René Descartes, the body is made of physical stuff (in Latin, res extensa), while the mind is made of mental stuff (in Latin, res cogitans). Nowadays, thanks to our advances in both physics and biology, nobody takes substance dualism seriously anymore. The alternative is something called property dualism, which acknowledges that everything – body and mind – is made of the same basic stuff (quarks and so forth), but that this stuff somehow (notice the vagueness here) changes when things get organised into brains and special properties appear that are nowhere else to be found in the material world. (For more on the difference between property and substance dualism, see Scott Calef’s definition.)

The ‘illusionists’, by contrast, take the scientific route, accepting physicalism (or materialism, or some other similar ‘ism’), meaning that they think – with modern science – not only that everything is made of the same basic kind of stuff, but that there are no special barriers separating physical from mental phenomena. However, since these people a

You can view it here.

Just wanted to know how good his books are and which ones should I read?