Massimo Pigliucci's Blog, page 23

From ancient to new Stoicism: VI—Steven Gambardella’s new modern Stoicism

Steven Gambardella, image from https://medium.com/@stevengambardella/about.

Stoicism famously got started around 301 BCE, when Zeno of Citium, a former Phoenician merchant, began to teach at the Stoa Poikile, or Painted Porch, in Athens. We have examined the basics of ancient Stoicism in three essays in this series, dedicated respectively to Stoic physics (i.e., science and metaphysics), logic, and ethics.

A good amount of time has passed since Zeno, and both science and philosophy have made progr...

Love, kindness, … and Stoicism?

Love (upper left), kindness (upper right), and Stoicism (bottom).

Darin wrote: I’m a subscriber at Figs in Winter, and am looking forward to the discussions about New Stoicism. When I mention Stoicism to people as a life philosophy and a way to deal with difficult, or indeed any points in life, I eventually get questions like ‘what about love, or kindness as central tenets, and helpful solutions to life’s ills?’ They feel like Stoicism is sterile and not addressing some central need. I feel like ...

Suggested Readings

Woman with wax tablets and stylus (so-called "Sappho"), Naples Archeological Museum

The quest for scientific certainty is futile. I don’t floss. This makes me, as my dentists always seem to imply, a naughty boy, a disgusting human willing to walk around with bits of food stuck between my teeth. Of all the dreaded parts of any dentist visit, the worst is receiving a condescending lecture on the merits of flossing. Then I found a secret weapon: a 2019 research review by Cochrane, an independent net...

From ancient to new Stoicism: V—Piotr Stankiewicz’s Reformed Stoicism

Piotr Stankiewicz, image from piotrstankiewicz.pl.

This series of essays is meant to provide, as the subtitle says, a conceptual map of where Stoic philosophy came from and where it may be going. So far, we have looked in depth at the three fields of inquiry defining ancient Stoicism: science-metaphysics [1], logic, and ethics. We have then examined what I think remains so far the most comprehensive, if somewhat challenging to follow, attempt at modernizing Stoicism: the one articulated by Larry ...

Profiles in skepticism: Sextus Empiricus

The mysterious Sextus Empiricus, image from Wikimedia.

Ancient skepticism was the root of a long tradition of critical thinking that eventually led to the maturing thought of Medieval, Renaissance, and finally modern and contemporary authors, ranging from John of Salisbury (1110-1180) to Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), from René Descartes (1596-1650) to Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), from David Hume (1711-1776) to Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and so on.

In this six-part series, of which the pres...

Suggested Readings

Woman with wax tablets and stylus (so-called "Sappho"), Naples Archeological Museum

What does it mean to ‘interpret’ Quantum Mechanics? When I wear my hat as a philosopher of science (partially distinct from my other hat as an evolutionary biologist), I eventually run into a scientist (I could name names, but I won’t) who smugly tells me that philosophy obviously doesn’t make progress. The evidence? Philosophers disagree on all sorts of things and there is no emerging consensus—unlike in science,...

From ancient to new Stoicism: IV—Becker’s update

Larry Becker

How do we update ancient Stoicism so that it becomes a viable philosophy for the 21st century and beyond? We start, as we did in this ongoing series, with a solid understanding of ancient Stoicism: if we don’t know the starting point we can hardly chart the way forward. Now that we have a grasp of ancient Stoic physics (i.e., science), logic, and ethics, we can begin to tackle four explicit attempts, made by different authors, to come up with a modern rendition of Stoic philosophy.

We...

Stoicism and beauty

A beautiful sculpture, Michelangelo’s Pietà (left); a beautiful moral act, helping people in need (right).

Stoicon is the annual international conference gathering people interested in Stoicism. “Gathering” is no longer exact, perhaps, since after Covid-19 we don’t meet in person anymore, but rather through the confine of a Zoom screen. No matter, this year’s theme was the relationship between Stoicism and beauty.

Friends and colleagues gave talks on “The Stoic theory of beauty” (Aistė Čelkytė), “...

Video chat: Peter Adamson on Ancient and Hellenistic philosophy

Peter Adamson

Here comes the third 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.

This time I talk to Peter Adamson, a philosopher and intellectual historian who holds two academic positions: professor of philosophy in late antiquity and in the Islamic world at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; and professor of ancient and medieval philosophy at King's College London.

Peter hosts...

From ancient to new Stoicism: III—Stoic ethics

Ethics, image from clipart-library.com.

Let us continue our exploration of what a possible Stoicism for the 21st century and beyond might look like by finishing first to survey its ancient forerunner. So far we’ve looked at Stoic physics and logic, it is now time to turn to the crucial topic of ethics, which is supposed to be the fruit of studying the other two fields of inquiry. What we want is to arrive at an understanding of how we can live a life worth living (ethics), and in order to do so, ...