Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

If there is any value in the arcane reconstructions of the ancient school for the modern thinker intrigued by Stoicism, it lies in this grand, integrative vision of a good human life, guided by the relentless and unsentimental use of reason in a quest for the best available understanding of the orderly world around us.

The intellectual attraction of ancient Stoicism as we’ve come to understand it in modern academic study lies above all in its integration, in its vision of a way of life rooted in the use of reason to navigate life and fulfil our nature as human beings, in the context of the best available understanding of our place in the world.

remember how the Stoics explain human action. Our decisions are all caused, but each is caused by two factors: external considerations and one’s own character.

We live on a small planet circling a small star situated in a rather ordinary seeming galaxy, just one among billions. How could using our reason to live according to this understanding of nature have anything to do with Stoicism?

An impression (phantasia) is the basic unit of mental activity for Stoics, but the term itself goes back to Plato, who used it to refer to the way things look to us,

The overriding value of virtue and vice when compared with indifferents is the most important message of Stoic ethics.

To the extent that Stoic logic played a supporting role in the ancient school we should be able to replace it with modern theories and practices of reasoning—as indeed many modern Stoics in practice do.

only virtue can be counted on to benefit unconditionally and only vice counts as harmful in all possible circumstances.

An omniscient observer could certainly have predicted how the deliberation would end, but Cicero himself could not; he didn’t have the kind of thorough self-knowledge that would have led him to predict his own behaviour