Since this is the inaugural episode of Stoicism On Fire it would be natural for you the listener to wonder what this podcast is about. Obviously, it’s about Stoicism, but What is Stoicism on Fire? As the introduction states, this podcast is about Stoicism as a philosophical way of life, which includes a rational form of spirituality. That form of Stoicism has become known as traditional Stoicism in modern times.
Ancient Stoicism: 300 BCE – 200 CE
Many credible sources are available to explore the doctrines of Stoicism. Both of these trusted sources provide accurate explanations of Stoic doctrines and contrast that with modern or contemporary versions of Stoicism:
Neo-Stoicism: 16th and 17th centuries
Modern Stoicism
Has its roots in Lawrence Becker’s book A New Stoicism in 1998 – an attempt to revive Stoicism in a secular form.
Traditional Stoicism
Grew out of Erik Wiegardt’s creation of the New Stoa in 1996. Traditional Stoicism is an attempt to make sense of the ancient Stoic way of life in light of what we have learned about human nature and the cosmos over the last two thousand years while remaining true to the deeply religious nature of Stoicism.
The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King’s College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, “without any gaps.” The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition.
Lectures 60 through 68 address Stoicism; they can be found here:
- 60 – Walking on Eggshells: the Stoics on Logic
- 61 – Nobody’s Perfect: the Stoic on Knowledge
- 62 – We Didn’t Start the Fire: the Stoics on Nature
- 63 – Like a Rolling Stone: Stoic Ethics
- 64 – David Sedley on Stoicism
- 65 – Anger Management: Seneca
- 66 – You Can Chain My Leg: Epictetus
- 67 – The Philosopher King: Marcus Aurelius
- 68 – John Sellars on the Roman Stoics
John Cooper
John Cooper, of Princeton University, also provides a great one-hour long lecture on ‘The Stoic Way of Life’ as part of the 2011 John Locke lecture series produced by University of Oxford. Some key points of interest for traditional Stoics:
@ 6:29 – The coherence of the Stoic philosophical system
@ 6:48 – John Cooper argues:
“In order to understand properly the Stoic way of life and its philosophical basis, we’re going to have to learn a great deal about their metaphysical and physical theory into which, as I have said, their ethical theory is set as the centerpiece of their whole philosophical system.
@ 13:55 – The human relationship to the divine mind
The full lecture can be found here:
A Box of my favorite things
Kevin Patrick Jr wrote a blog post in November of 2015 that has remained quite relevant as the modern Stoic movement grows. He asks,
How many of us have a box of our favorite things which we’ve haphazardly scrawled “STOICISM” across the side? Inside this box of decades’, generations’ worth of baggage, is there much room leftover for the ideas of Epictetus?
Kevin’s post is worth reading; he blogs as Mountain Stoic and this post can be found here:
Pierre Hadot
Maybe more than any other modern philosopher, Pierre Hadot reintroduced moderns to the concept of philosophy as a way of life. His books emphasize the deeply spiritual nature of Stoicism. In his book on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, he wrote in the conclusion:
All the dogmas of Stoicism derive from this existential choice. It is impossible that the universe could produce human rationality, unless the latter were already in some way present within the former.[1]
This existential choice differentiates traditional Stoicism from the modern Stoic varients that deny the existence of the cosmic intelligence the ancient Stoics referred to as universal Reason, logos, or God.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). pp. 308-9
