Massimo Pigliucci's Blog, page 17

Practice like a Stoic: 7, Take a very broad perspective

The Andromeda galaxy, image from Wikimedia, under CC license.

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosoph...

Special issue: Dan Dennett

Dan before a talk at Northwestern University, flickr.com/photos/kevinreed/, under CC license.

A couple of days ago Dan Dennett passed away. He was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th and early 21st century, an original thinker, and certainly someone who didn’t shy from controversy.

I met Dan many years ago, and though we didn’t necessarily see eye to eye on evolution (he was a harsh critic of evolutionary biology Stephen Jay Gould, I wasn’t), he was never anything but kind to me. ...

Cicero on the fact that the dead don’t need anything

“But should we grant them even this, that people are by death deprived of good things; would it follow that the dead are therefore in need of the good things of life, and are miserable on that account? …

Can those who do not exist be in need of anything? To be in need of has a melancholy sound, because it in effect amounts to this — they had, but they have not; they regret, they look back upon, they want.

Such are, I suppose, the distresses of one who is in need of. Are they deprived of eyes? to b...

Why the Greco-Romans?

Life in Ancient Rome, image from pedro-mundodebabel.blogspot.com, under CC license.

Why on earth did I end up devoting so much time of my life to the ancient Greco-Romans? Some would say that this was the predictable endpoint of a trend. After all, my first academic career was in science (evolutionary biology), which is “obviously” useful. Then I moved to philosophy, the equally obvious epitome of a useless field, they say. But at least I was doing philosophy of science, which didn’t remove me to...

Practice like a Stoic: 6, Premeditation of future adversity

DALL-E generated graphic

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for d...

Aristotle on who can be happy

“It is to be expected, then, that we do not say that either a cow or a horse or any other animal is at all happy, for none of them are able to share in such an activity.

It is because of this too that a child is not happy either: he is not yet apt to do such things, on account of his age. …

As we said, both complete virtue and a complete life are required: many reversals and all manner of fortune arise in the course of life, and it is possible for someone who is particularly thriving to encounter ...

Video chat: Don Robertson on Marcus Aurelius

Welcome to the seventh of an occasional series of video chats with authors and translators who have written about the philosophy, culture, and history of the Greco-Roman tradition.

In this episode I talk to , one of the most popular and thoughtful contemporary writers about Stoicism. Don is a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist and trainer. He is one of the founding members of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit, and the founder and president of the Plato’s Academy Centre nonprofit in At...

Practice like a Stoic: 5, Strengthen yourself through minor physical hardship

Image from daily-ink.davidtruss.com, under CC license.

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical ba...

Epicurus on determinism and free will

“The good Epicurean believes that certain events occur deterministically, that others are chance events, and that still others are in our own hands.

He sees also that necessity cannot be held morally responsible and that chance is an unpredictable thing, but that what is in our own hands, since it has no master, is naturally associated with blameworthiness and the opposite.

Actually it would be better to subscribe to the popular mythology than to become a slave by accepting the determinism of the ...

Here are a few things I learned

Jazz B, the club in São Paulo where Massimo celebrated his 60th birthday, photo by the Author.

A few weeks ago I turned 60. One of those entirely arbitrary hallmarks in a human life that nevertheless, despite ourselves, make you look up and pay attention. To celebrate the occasion, my lovely daughter and wife organized a sumptuous dinner in a nice restaurant in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), where we were staying for a brief vacation. And the celebrations went on a few days later, by way of spending a...