Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes | Equality of Good and Bad Things | Philosophy Core Concepts

[@glenw1740]

Lots of questions after this. It makes me wonder if Cicero knew of many truly virtuous people.

[@GregoryBSadler]

None of us do, if we're being honest about it, and not naively pretending people are more virtuous than they are

[@rowanbinney7812]

I wonder what the Stoics like Cicero said about people's nature changing.

[@GregoryBSadler]

They'd say people's "nature" doesn't change. Plenty of other things about them - e.g. how that nature is expressed - can change. Perhaps you mean something different by "nature", like "dispositions"

[@VinayKhari]

its really useful keep the good work its very satisfying missed my class on stoic in india ..but philosophy doesnt change whereever it is taught as text core is central..!!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes - that's one of the good things about it - its universality across times and cultures

[@DarkFire515]

Do Cicero's views not contradict the stoic notion that nobody is in fact a perfect sage and that real (as opposed to theoretical) humans are in fact engaged in a process of improvement with regards to being virtuous? I wonder if Cicero's inflexible views here may have been influenced by the fact that he had saved the republic from the catiline conspiracy and therefore decided that some pontification was in order? Certainly the views of the _parents patride_ seem to be at odds with the realities of human nature in this case.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Cicero's not being inflexible. And Stoics aren't in agreement about whether there are or aren't actual sages

[@DarkFire515]

@@GregoryBSadler Fair enough. Need to watch the video again (and read the book again) after a couple of coffees.

[@canis760]

I always feel like there is this heavy overlap between Aristotle and the stoics when it comes to ethics (though, at least from what I've read, they seem to differ drastically on metaphysics). Have you done a video comparing/contrasting them? Also thanks for all these videos! I recommend you to everyone I tutor.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I don't tend to do compare/contrast videos - too busy creating masses of other content that's needed. If you want to commission me to create one on that, I'm happy to discuss it. Now, as to the question about overlap between the Stoics and Aristotelians - yes, there's definitely some. The question of how much overlap there is, is a controversial topic Cicero actually brings up a good bit in other works.