I read this a long time ago and I can't recommend it enough. It does a good job of introducing the concepts of stoicism and defending the philosophy from our modern assumptions of the word. A very good read.
The word 'stoicism' has kind of a bad rap, but I find it a very peaceful and comforting philosophy, and one I actively try to model my life against. Like most life philosophies it's not something that comes naturally or immediately; rather it's something to keep in the back of one's mind and actively strive towards over the course of years.
Those interested can also read Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, and the Enchiridion, by Epictetus. Both are very short. Be careful with the translation you get of Meditations: if the first few paragraphs seem excruciatingly baroque, then you got a bad one--drop it and find a better translation.
Be careful with the translation you get of Meditations: if the first few paragraphs seem excruciatingly baroque, then you got a bad one--drop it and find a better translation.
I downloaded the one that's free off of iBooks and it was impossible to read. Could you recommend a better translation?
I recently read the Gregory Hays translation [1] and thought it was great. Meditations was Marcus Aurelius's "notes to self" and the Hays edition captures this informal nature. It makes for an easy and delightful read.
It's my favorite book of the Bible but I always found it the opposite of comforting. If you disregard the bits at the end about the duty of man to keep God's commandments, it seems in parts to basically describe nihilism.
When reading chapters 1 and 2, the author focuses heavily on the "nothingness" (hvl - wisp of air) of all human endeavors. But I think it's significant that he does not loose hope altogether:
"There is nothing better for a man [than] that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor."
So the philosophy of Ecclesiastes is almost hedonistic (and views god more as blind fate than a benevolent force or being).
This is my game changer read, excited to see it here. Everything from dealing with my father's death to that black emptiness I've fought my entire life, I've read this book a few times now. It has a lot in common with Cognitive Therapy but doesn't require filling out mood journals (does anybody actually manage to do that?)
It serves as an excellent intro to Seneca's Letter's from a Stoic, which is another great book to revisit over the years.
Ditto everyone else's comments. This is a really good book. Readers should be aware that Irvine's goal of "persistent tranquility" isn't really what the Stoics had in mind; their objective was much more radical, in the same way that TED-talk "mindfulness" is a parboiled version of a much more radical Buddhism.
But still, a good intro.
There are other good Stoicism books, and anyone who's been through cognitive behavioral therapy will find Irvine's book a bit of a refresher course. Anyone have any comments about
"Philosophy for Life" or "Stocism and the Art of Happiness"?
This is a great introduction to Stoicism for the modern world. The author takes quite a few of the concepts and updates them through a 21st century philosophic viewpoint (mainly through the use of more rigorous logic behind the scenes).
The best update comes with how one should deal with things one can and cannot effect. He updates this from two to three: things you have no effect on whatsoever, things you have some effect on, and things you have total control of. Earthquakes are one on example of the first - no idea of when they are coming and one just has to do her best to deal with it. The second involves dealing with other people: one can control what one says and does to another, but no control over how that person reacts. Third, one has control over oneself.
There are a few ideas in there that I think don't pass modern studies of sociology/psychology - the chapter on relationships , in particular - but otherwise a very compelling read.
I really dislike his transformation of the dichotomy into a trichotomy. It takes a simple, deep insight and muddies it. The middle category is just a subset of "things not completely in our control", all of which we should be indifferent to.
That aside, I found Irvine to be a great introduction to Stoicism, even if he misses some of the depth and grace of Epictectus. I think I would have had a much harder time getting into the Roman stoics if I hadn't started with this book.
Those concepts are in the '7 habits of highly successful people' - but introduced as the circle of influence and the circle of concern. The idea promoted is that stress will result when you try and deal with things outside of your circle of influence, and you have to keep operating within that circle.
Obviously, very few pop-self-help books like 7 habits contain genuinely new ideas, and the concept is borrowed from much older ideas. Nonetheless I think it was helpful to me when I first read it. It has a message of both keeping perspective and also reducing useless stress, but at the same time telling you that the only way to take action is to increase the amount of influence you have.
Philosophy, Stoicism, Buddhism are helpful in dealing with reality, adversity, mortality etc. But to deal with people you still need positive thinking, love, the Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey etc. self-help canon. A yin and yang dichotomy, not mutually exclusive, but complementary.
> How could these people be of such high caliber yet believe such vastly different things?
I guess a Greek philosopher (Socrates or Plato) would say that it's because things like Truth, Justice and Virtue do exist independently and universally. They are not attached to people's religion, human laws, etc.
In ancient Greek tragedies you can find themes that deal with this sort of questions[1] and if you look into Plato[1] you'll find incredibly thorough analysis on various topics such as knowledge, religion, laws, justice, slavery, etc. Considering the fact that Gods in Ancient Greece were beyond our definition of religion today, they were all over the place, in every-day life, that's astonishing.
I was born Christian and Greece is the only modern theocratic European state, but I also reckon that religion and philosophy play well together only if you allow doubt into the equation. Otherwise you better stick with the beliefs/answers of your religion - whatever that religion might be - and stay the hell out of philosophers of such caliber or your mind is going to explode.
Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read. It was interesting to realize that the Stoic philosophy was something I had relatively independently come to on my own, so reading this book taught me more about it while also confirming some previous ideas I had floating around.
I recommend this to everyone no matter what their ideologies consist of.
"Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason, which leads to the conclusion of kindness." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoic_ethics_and_virt...
That's often not why people are unkind. People can be unkind because of specific systems we can name, like racism. How does this philosophy (with "justice" as one of the four tenants) propose a person approaches power structures?
Isn't racism just ignorance of the fact that others are just like us?
I don't really see why this particular example contradicts what the Stoics believed.
We could say that racism as an idea rose out of the need for the self-preservation of one's kin, by rejecting those who do not look like us out of a belief that they are somehow inferior.
Yet, nature teaches us that we're all basically made the same and that mixing our DNA with other groups actually strengthen our kin's chances of survival.
Looks to me that racism arose out of an 'ignorance of the reason in nature', and we ended up believing something that is the opposite of what we should strive for.
Thanks for posting this. I'm working through some career changes and this reminded me to focus on the process, instead of the result, because I have no control over the result, only my attitude and efforts.
This is a really good book. I think it was promoted on one of the big financial independence blogs a year or two ago and I enjoyed reading it a lot. Makes you think a lot.
I started reading a little about stoicism after seeing it on Mr. Money Mustache a year or so ago. That might be what you're thinking of.
Like a lot of other people, the philosophy was something I had been practicing in a raw form for a while, but seeing it codified makes it much easier to really put it to use.
>Medieval Christian scholars were faced with a dilemma: their religious beliefs required them to believe that the soul was saved through a relationship with Jesus, yet going through the newly discovered Greek and Roman writings it was obvious to them that great men of virtue and honor were alive many centuries before Jesus lived. How could these people be of such high caliber yet believe such vastly different things?
If they were faced with a dilemma than they were certainly fools. Don't Christians believe that God created the world and thus was present long before Jesus was born? Did they think that virtue and honor did not exist (or were not even possible) before the birth of Christ? What about Noah, Job, Moses, David, Joseph, Daniel, The nations of Israel and Judah, ETC. of the old testament. These were scholars and had not read of these people or did not think that great men who were believers in God could influence those outside of their religion in a positive way? Did they not read when king Darius of Babylon make the God of Daniel the Official God of the land?
The original statement was worded in a slightly misleading way. Medieval Christians weren't confused about virtuous people before Jesus. As you point out, they knew the Old Testament. What they were confused about was the idea of the "virtuous pagan."
The Bible was certainly written before the medieval period. The Biblical canon was pretty much set by the late 4th century. And all of the books included in the canon had been complete before that point.
The word 'stoicism' has kind of a bad rap, but I find it a very peaceful and comforting philosophy, and one I actively try to model my life against. Like most life philosophies it's not something that comes naturally or immediately; rather it's something to keep in the back of one's mind and actively strive towards over the course of years.
Those interested can also read Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, and the Enchiridion, by Epictetus. Both are very short. Be careful with the translation you get of Meditations: if the first few paragraphs seem excruciatingly baroque, then you got a bad one--drop it and find a better translation.