Draft of chapter 3 of Philosophy as a Way of Life Primer (with M. Ure, for 2020), addressing the Stoics, that school which above all we tend to associate with philosophy as a manner of living tout court. Part 1 addresses the Stoic conception of wisdom, as both knowledge of things human and divine, and an art (techne) of living. Part 2 addresses the Stoics; Socratic lineage: dialectic, the emotions, and the sufficiency of virtue. Part 3 looks at Musonius and Seneca, focusing in the former on his conception of the place of exercises in philosophy, and in the latter, on his consolations. Part 4 looks at Epictetus, the Roman Socrates (and the Roman Diogenes) and his conception of the disciplines of philosophical practice; Part 5 looks at Marcus Aurelius's Meditations as hypomnemata with an especial focus on the place of physics in Marcus' conception of the philosophical art of living.
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A History of Habit: From Aristotle to Bourdieu
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The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Kelly Arenson)
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This chapter examines Michel Foucault's notion of cultivation of the self by focusing on an example of an ancient practice contributing to that goal, namely the attitude of attention or mindfulness proposed by the Roman Stoics Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. It contrasts this Stoic attitude with modern versions of mindfulness, showing that both the object of attention and the goal of the process are different. It argues that the primary object of attention for Roman Stoic mindfulness was one's philosophical principles. The goal of this practice was virtuous action based upon those principles. It was a technique aimed at ethical self-transformation, unlike its modern counterpart, which is primarily aimed at overcoming distress.
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The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy
An overview of the Stoic philosophers and the main elements of their system. A chronological presentation of brief biographies of the Stoics with the most notable contributions of each individual is followed by a sketch of their philosophical system divided into the branches of logic, physics, and ethics. Logic includes topics in rhetoric, dialectic, and epistemology. Physics is the account of physical reality, including ontology, cosmology, and theology. The synopsis of ethics includes the Stoics’ version of naturalism, the doctrine of oikeiōsis, the virtues, emotions, the sage, moral progress, and cosmopolitanism.
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This conference paper (Singapore 2013) ventures a preliminary comparison between Stoicism and Buddhism, based on recent work on the former tradition situating it as a lived philosophy. Part I proposes that there are remarkable parallels between the Stoics’ descriptions of the causes of unhappiness with the Buddhist enumeration of the three kleśas of attachment, aversion, and ignorance. Part II examines the parallels between the Buddhist conception of the 'ethical substance' we are working on when we undertake meditative practice and the Stoic accounts of the pathē. Part III examines the way that, in Buddhist and in Roman Stoic texts, existential practices are clearly recommended (often in the imperative) as means to cultivate what the Buddhist tradition calls 'mindful attention' to the present moment, the transience of particular things, and non-attachment or “reservation” (hypexairēsis) concerning such 'externals' or ‘indifferents’. Our concluding remarks reflect on the work done, its limits, and prospects for further comparative work on the two traditions in this vein.
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From Stoicism to Platonism ed Troels Engberg Pedersen
A reassessment of how Musonius Rufus fits into the development of philosophy in the first century AD, raising the question of how authentically Stoic he actually was.
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