Stoicism
Notes on Art of Living and general books around Stoicism
What’s attractive to me about Stoicism is the application of philosophy to life. First of all, the notion that we have a soul, that we want to be pure, or that we pursue virtue and try and justify why is worth questioning. Is it social conditioning that this is the case? If so, it’s some general social conditioning over vast timescales which is essentially the same thing as ‘inherently human’ or even an ‘objective truth’.
- Philosophical principles aren’t there to be merely learned, your soul should be shaped by them.
- This is done through digestion and habituation.
- A period of learning what the core tenets are followed by repeated spiritual exercises to incorporate them into your being.
Ethics
- What is good for the Stoics is whatever the rational soul desires. As to what this is, how variable it is, I’m not too sure.
Physics
- The cosmos, for the Stoics is the large organism of a kind. From it’s generation (generative principle) it’s causes are predetermined.
- This notion is present in Meditations as Marcus tries to integrate himself with this cosmos,
Freeing oneself of this limited first person perspective will free one from the emotional turmoil that comes with it.
- In the same way, when something is seen as food ‘for me’ or ‘bad for me’ elevating oneself to this position allows it’s evaluation outside of this first person perspective.
Art of Living
Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject matter. For just as wood is the material of the carpenter, bronze that of the statuary, so each individual’s own life is the material of the art of living.
- Epictetus
Seller’s describes the aim of his book ‘The Art of Living’ es exploring “the possibility of a conception of philosophy in which philosophical ideas are primarily expressed in behaviour, a conception in which understanding is developed not for its own sake but rather in order to transform one’s way of life, a conception of philosophy that would make biography not merely incidentally relevant but rather of central importance to philosophy”.
- Socrates forms this basis or template for philosophy could have been viewed to those after his time. That it’s aform of mastery over one’s soul. What interesting is how resonant this becomes. There is a faculty of our nature that agrees with virtue. Maybe, from a social perspective it’s important to have temperance.
- Highlighted in this book is the notion of the different kinds of arts. Particularly the art of medicine where you’re goal isn’t to always succeed but be in pursuit of accomplishment. I think this is something the Stoics or at least popular culture Stoicism would agree with.