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A handy-dandy guide to what to take and what to leave from Stoic philosophy
So you want to be a Stoic. Join a large worldwide community of people who increasingly have been doing just that over the past decade or so. Or at the very least keep up with the latest in ancient and modern Stoicism before you plunge head first into the philosophy. I have embraced Stoicism, initially as a short term experiment in self exploration and growth, for about seven years now. I still practice it, read the Stoic authors, and very much admire their system. But I am currently in a transitionary phase to somewhere else. I’m not sure what the point of arrival, if any, will be, but several years of intense study of Stoicism have taught me that there are some good things and some not so good things about that most famous Hellenistic philosophy. This is a handy-dandy guide to such pros and cons. Who knows, it may save you some time!
I. Basic tenets
Ia. Philosophy as the art of living
As Epictetus wrote:
“Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person’s own life.” (Discourses 1.15.2)
This is a very good way to conceive of the scope of philosophy, or at least of practice philosophy. However, the notion is not original with Stoicism and actually derives from Socrates.
Ib. Stoicism as a system
One of the strong appeals of Stoicism is that it offers a unified view of the world, founded on three pillars: logical reasoning, a monistic metaphysics (i.e., based on the notion that everything is made of the same stuff: matter), and a naturalistic ethics (i.e., an ethics based on an understanding of human nature).
I think the three components — referred to respectively as logic, physics, and ethics — are indeed necessary to figure out how to live a good life, though some of the specifics articulated by the ancient Stoics are no longer tenable (more on this below). Which means that if we truly take Stoicism to be a tight, internally coherent system, we are in trouble because it risks being too rigid.
