The Stoic Magazine Library

We label people on the basis of very little information. We’re prejudiced. Oh, he’s a teacher. Oh, she’s a woman. Oh, look at those shoes he’s wearing. We judge others constantly. We find flaws in others as if it’s a game. It’s not really that we always want to judge them. It happens automatically, these judgments pop up almost magically in our minds.

Stoic Thoughts for Every Day of the Month.

The history of the relationship between Stoicism and Christianity is rich and complex. My focus here is on comparing and contrasting the two frameworks on two central points: ethics, especially interpersonal ethics, and the question of the grounding of ethical principles.

Many years ago, when I first studied philosophy as a student, there were two books that I came across on my own that really caught my attention: the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and On the Nature of Things by Lucretius. They seemed to share something in common, I thought at the time, especially when compared to the ancient philosophers I was studying, which was primarily Plato. Both Marcus and Lucretius offered naturalistic accounts of the physical world and saw human beings as tiny parts within an ever-changing Nature.

Stripped of cultural and metaphysical differences and boiled down to bare essentials, Stoicism and Buddhism can seem strikingly similar. While those important differences should not be denied, it can be useful to focus on the common perspectives, which we can borrow whether or not we agree with the wider philosophies. In this article I will highlight the main points that both schools want us to truly get and put into action.

Biblical Judaism—arguably the world’s oldest monotheistic religion— preceded the development of Stoicism by well over a thousand years. In comparing and contrasting Talmudic Judaism with Stoicism, we can analyze two quite different frames of reference: (1) metaphysics and theology; and (2) ethics, psychology, and character.

People often ask me whether there’s any relationship between Stoic philosophy and Islam. The writings of arab Muslim scholar Al-Kindi may provide the best example of a more direct link between Islam and Stoicism.

Confucianism, like Stoicism, urges us to practice a set of virtues. In Stoicism the four cardinal virtues (practical wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance) are highly interdependent, basically four different aspects of the same underlying virtue (wisdom in the broad sense). Confucians, by contrast, rank their virtues according to their scope and importance. The two most crucial virtues in Confucianism are benevolence and righteousness.

Thoughtful processing of what is happening to you and through you.

Humility – the journey to eudaimonia is a long and arduous path and you won’t always take the right path.

Excellence – in thoughts, actions, and attitude, the only things you have full control over.

In my previous pieces I outlined the concept and introductory tenets of reformed Stoicism. They might have seemed a bit abstract, so today the time comes for some specific applications.

The storming of the United States Capitol with its mob violence and wanton destruction on January 6 sadly showcased the power of “The Big Lie” in action. “The Big Lie,” perpetrated by Hitler, Goebbles, and others during WWII is the notion that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it and act on it.

This morning, I met my bank’s branch manager as I was taking a walk. I asked him how he was doing: he sighed and said that times were really hard. The effects of the COVID-19 crisis are starting to affect his clients, entrepreneurs in the area of Paris I live in.

Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours. But watch yourself, that you don’t value these things to the point of being troubled if you should lose them.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.27

As trivial as abstaining or reducing the amount of animal products you eat during the month of January might seem to some people, exploring how a contemporary Stoic might eat is not a trivial philosophical exercise.

How can Stoic philosophy help us understand what it means to be free? It’s a question that has preoccupied Stoics both ancient and modern.