The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

I will offer here my general view that many critics of Stoicism treat it uncharitably. They seize on the most extreme things the Stoics said but don’t account for ways in which those points were offset or qualified elsewhere. Or they judge the whole philosophy by its least appealing adherents or features or moments. That’s too bad, not because it is unfair to the Stoics (they don’t care), but because it distracts from all that they said that was better. But the criticisms still stick. Many of those who have a view about Stoicism base it on what they have heard, and what they have heard is calumny. Or they associate Stoicism with some single idea that seemed memorable when they heard it, probably because it was jarring. If you study the subject and talk about it with others who haven’t, you quickly will see for yourself. Opinions about Stoicism outrun knowledge of it by a hundred to one.

we get attached to things beyond our control, and this brings us misery; we are oblivious to features of our thinking that we can control and that, if managed better, would bring us peace.

Seeing the world clearly, understanding life rightly, and being free from the fictions that drive most people crazy – this they regard as the good life.

We always feel as though we react to things in the world; in fact we react to things in ourselves. And sometimes changing ourselves will be more effective and sensible than trying to change the world.