The Stoic Magazine Library

This is a condensed extract from Massimo Pigliucci’s excellent personal tribute to Larry Becker in patreon.com/footnotes to Plato. 

What does a regular, everyday Stoic actually do, every day? Rather than write a theoretical essay on this, I figured it may be helpful to take a closer look at one example of Stoic practice, my own.

Modern dating 

As Stoics, we are supposed to engage in anything, not just dating, in as virtuous a manner as we can muster. But we are talking about this strange 21st century, so let’s be specific. 

Dear Future Members of the Cosmopolis, You may or may not have heard of Stoicism. In case you haven't, I'm leaving this message for you, so that you may consider taking advantage of the immense benefits of this ancient philosophy of life.

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.