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Stoicism: The First Self Help Philosophy is Still The Best
Join us as we dive deep into the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy of Stoicism. We explore its origins with key figures like Zeno of Citium, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Learn how Stoicism's principles—focusing on inner virtue, emotional resilience, and harmony with the natural order—remain relevant in the modern world. We discuss how Stoicism differentiates from and complements our own philosophies, such as Pragmatism and Technopuritanism. Get insights on practical applications of Stoic principles and their metaphysical underpinnings, challenging irrational beliefs, and tackling real-life decisions with wisdom, courage, justice, and self-control.
[00:00:00]
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to be talking about stoicism. We are going to be doing an overview of the philosophy of stoicism, investigating how it relates to the modern world, and where it differentiates from our own philosophy and belief system which I see as, as we go into stoicism, you're going to see that they are highly related to each other.
And if Anything you could see our larger philosophy as just building on the Stoic philosophy. Really? Wow. To why we are doing this YouTube told us to. We've been trying to figure out how to grow the channel and YouTube was like, your audience would like to hear about Stoicism. And so I'm like, well, dang, let's go into it.
Stoicism is an ancient Greco Roman philosophy that originated in the 3rd century BCE with Zeno of Citium and and was further developed by thinkers such as Cleonisis, Chrysosophus, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. [00:01:00] I can't pronounce the word. Seneca, Epictetus. Common thing on the show. Okay.
Simone Collins: Marcus Aurelius.
Okay.
Malcolm Collins: At its core, Stoicism is not just a theoretical system of thought, it is very much a practical philosophy aimed at cultivating inner virtue, emotional resilience, and harmony with the broader natural order. Stoics understood philosophy as a way of life, something to be enacted in one's day to day conduct.
Okay. Rather than treated as an abstract intellectual pastime, which is something I really appreciate about the stoic philosophy as we get into it, is that it's very much designed around sort of guiding actions instead of something to just talk about idly like this is good or this is good and I think in a way that can make it better for daily life than other philosophies because the stoic philosophy is going to help you make a day to day decisions much more than the more abstract philosophical frameworks you might interact with.
[00:02:00] But unlike let's say a modern You know, there's like modern self help is sort of, ideologies that are sort of meant to help you live a healthier life. Stoicism covers a lot more than that. So it has its own sort of metaphysical framework. So, Stoics believes that the universe is an orderly, rational whole.
Often referred to as the logos, human beings as rational creatures share in this order and have the capacity to live in alignment with it. The stoic ideal is to understand nature's laws, accepting what is beyond our control and live according to reason and virtue. So Huge part of stoicism is accept the things you cannot change.
And they think that a lot of the negatives in an individual's life comes from not accepting the things you cannot change. However, this is part of their metaphysical understanding of reality rather than just like life advice. So to drill on that a bit further, They held that the universe is governed by the Logos, the rational principle, [00:03:00] and human beings as rational agents have the capacity to align themselves with it.
To do this, one must use reason to see belong personal biases, fears, or desires. Stoics believed in a concept called Okiosis, the idea that individuals have natural tithes and obligations extending outwards,
Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago