Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Stoicism

  • Play to Win . . .

    . . . but with complete detachment from the outcome.  So I tell myself, while playing chess, for example, but not only in such competitions, but in all the affairs of life. Be like the lotus leaf that floats on the water but does not become wet! (Bhagavad Gita 5:10) But does the self-admonition refer…

  • Epictetus and His World

    "A Substack devoted to exploring the historical context of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus."  By Erlend MacGillivray. Looks interesting. An entry of mine: The Uselessness of Stoicism in the Face of Death

  • Can You Get Through the Next Hour?

    The Stoic method of division. At Substack.

  • Downplay Both

    If you downplay your wins, downplay your losses. The pain of defeat is worse than the pleasure of victory is good. But you have the power  to regard them as equal. In some measure the pain of loss can be lessened. The Stoic therapy is no cure, but it is a palliative. If our predicament…

  • Louis Lavelle on the Stoic Wisdom

    Substack latest. I am a lover of the Stoics. Why waste time on New Age hucksters when one can read Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius? But while the Stoics can take us a good stretch down the road to wisdom, they cannot bring us to the end — a fact long appreciated by first-rate minds.…

  • Can Rigorous Philosophy be Therapeutic?

    Is philosophical analysis relevant to life as she is lived?  Richard Sorabji: Stoic cognitive therapy consists of a package which is in part a philosophical analysis of what the emotions are and in part a battery of cognitive devices for attacking those aspects of emotion which the philosophical analysis suggests can be attacked. The devices…

  • Stoic Advice

    KNOW IN ADVANCE that people will respond to you in the most diverse ways, favorably, with hostility, indifferently, in every way. Do not be surprised or much affected. Take as much of it as you can with equanimity. Observe their antics  with detachment.  Observe as well your emotional responses.  Treat feelings and emotions as they…

  • The Uselessness of Stoicism in the Face of Death

    Substack latest.

  • Augustine Against the Stoics

    Today, August 28th, is the Feast of St. Augustine on the Catholic calendar.  In honor of the Bishop of Hippo I pull a quotation from his magisterial City of God, Book XIX, Chapter 4: And I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers can presume to say that these are no ills,…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Philosophical Justification for a Drink or Two

    From time to time  it is perhaps appropriate that we should relax a little the bonds that tether us to the straight and narrow.  A fitting apologia for a bit of indulgence and even overindulgence  is found in Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind, XVII, 8-9, tr. Basore: At times we ought to reach even the point…

  • Stoicism Nolens Volens

    One innocent of Epictetus and Seneca may yet become a Stoic of sorts just by living, and the more so the longer he lives.

  • Courage Under Fire

    Putting Epictetus to the Test by James Bond Stockdale

  • The Uselessness of Stoicism in the Face of Death

    Josef Pieper, Death and Immortality (Herder and Herder, 1969), p.101: But the profound discord and hidden infirmity, with which the Stoic doctrine was already infected at its root in classical times, is nowhere revealed so baldly as in its attitude toward death. There is nothing surprising about this. The maxim not to let our hearts…

  • Unnecessary Conversation Avoided

    Whether it is haiku or not, it is 17 syllables, and a good addition to the Stoic's armamentarium: Avoid the near occasionOf unnecessary conversation. Avoiding the near occasion is not always practicable or even reasonable, but pointless conversation itself is best avoided if one values one's peace of mind.  For according to an aphorism of…

  • Between the Inhuman and the Unphilosophical

    It is inhuman to care not at all about the praise of one's fellows, but unphilosophical to care much.