My Interest in Stoic Philosophy - Philosophical Developments and Commitments

[@TravelingPhilosopher]

Stoicism has really inspired me and has been a part of my own personal development. This distinction between what we can control and what we cannot, this idea that we can choose our response really helped me during a period of my life where I was not in a good place emotionally and mentally.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Believe it or not, the distinction between what is up to us and what isn't is first made by Aristotle and the Aristotelians, and shows up quite late in Stoicism with Epictetus

[@AshInTrees]

Thank you for answering my question yesterday in your 100k livestream. This video covers my question perfectly. One of the many benefits of having a massive bank of solid content.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Indeed. Makes teaching a lot easier for me as well

[@Brian136]

stoic philosophy is the end result of a long journey that followed many paths into the mists of time. today's goal is to be happy and involved in my own life and the stoic philosophy with its center being the mindset of the self and how it deals with the things that we don't control vs the things we have control over makes daily life at least for me something real to the extent that I have to interact with others before I decide what to do or what to leave alone that will make my life better today") thanks doc even updates are fun with you ")

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome

[@vintagewatchguy]

Thanks for this video! You mention that other writers beside Hadot have talked about "philosophy as a way of life". Can you include a list of recommended books and/or authors who also talk about the issue? What I liked about Hadot was his very clear description of the practices of the ancient schools of thought, particularly those of the Stoics and Epicureans. Some that I remember- Living in the Present. Meditating on one's own death. The View From Above. Vigilance and Mindfulness. I admit I've been influenced by Hadot.... do the other authors spend much time detailing the specific practices of the Stoics?

[@GregoryBSadler]

It's such a commonplace - the notion that philosophy is practical, and has to be lived in order to be fully understood - that I wouldn't know where to start. I mean, that's there in a lot of ancient and medieval, and even a good bit of modern philosophy. It's a major theme in Hegel's work. It's perhaps THE main theme of Maurice Blondel's work. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, James, Shestov, Scheler, Marcel, Arendt. . . one could go on and on. . . If I had to pick one contemporary person and one text to read, though, I'd suggest checking out MacIntyre's After Virtue When you read around among the early-mid-20th century historians of philosophy, you'll also find them raising these themes pretty frequently. Check out, for example, Henri Gouhier's works. Hadot came across as something radical and new mainly in places where academic philosophy had become divorced from thinking through practical implications of philosophy, what philosophy might look like when lived out. And, that's great for them to get introduced to that idea. But it turns out to just be what one might call a widespread secret

[@MrWhite-bm9np]

Hello Dr. Sadler, I've been watching quite a few of your videos concerning stoicism. You have a lot of great content and sound insight, it's nice having a practical guide in you on this journey. Anywho, I've heard you talk about your interest on anger a few times and got me to remembering somethin that could prove useful. There's a youtube video " Joe and Charlie's big book study, working the 4th step" it's helped me to work through a thing or two, and it could bring value to your life as well. As a subscriber I enjoy your approach into practical philosophy and continue to search your content. Thanks and happy 4th 🇺🇸

[@GregoryBSadler]

Thanks for thinking of me. I don't typically make time to watch other's videos, and I've got the anger research well in hand

[@canis760]

It's really funny you mention that about anger. It is/was one of the primary things that kept me mostly separated from them was that I tend to have an aversion to systems which uniformly reject things in that way. Ironically (or maybe not), after years of studying philosophy on my own time (when I first started in college, I almost switched my major from physics and math to philosophy, I had become so passionate about it) I found myself falling in with the Aristotelian tradition, heavily influenced by people like Descartes and Leibniz as well. I wonder if you think it would be useful to maybe do a video with compare/contrast about the stoic system compared to the relevant Aristotelian thoughts. That all said, I am deeply grateful for all this work you do! You saw my other post where I talked about how useful it is for helping people who end up becoming interested in philosophy, and you don't want them listening to some nut job, but having access to an actual authority on the texts. On a more personal level, your videos on existentialism and most specifically Gabriel Marcel had a much larger impact on me that I thought a video on youtube could. It really transformed how I viewed certain philosophical questions. I am currently going through more of Gabriel Marcels work (right now Man against Mass Society). And I don't know how else to say it without being too forward, but encouraging a Christian (Catholic) faith as well. Thanks again! It really does mean a lot. At least to me.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Comparison videos would be an interesting project. At present, I don't have the time to do that and also keep up with my current projects

[@SusobhonMorrisonHouseMusic69]

i am not a philosophy major..but i came to stoicism from nietzsche and then his criticism about stoics then nihilism then existentialism and at the end came to stoicism and stick to it ..i am slowly becoming more of a classic stoic maybe because i prefer epictetus to both seneca and marcus aurelius...maybe my life experiences made me like that...i can resonate more with the words of epictetus than seneca..discourses , enchiridion are great..everytime i felt something bad or anything that distracts me from doing the things i should do...i go to stoicism to understand what stoics has to say about my situation..and what to do with it..Anyway..thank you.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome! I have to say that while I like Seneca and Marcus quite a bit, I like Epictetus more

[@danieljackson3619]

Very interesting! Perhaps you'll find my story the same. It all started when I was about 13 years old, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns aired on TV. I quite enjoyed the character Oz, as he was cool, calm, and collected, rarely exhibiting anything resembling emotion, but instead being guided by reason. His aloof demeanor may fool you, but he's actually quite a caring person. All were things I saw in myself and wanted to develop. At one point, another character described Oz as Stoic, and promptly looked it up online. I remember someone told me when I was around 13 how mature I was, and my reply was "I highly value Stoicism", surely a premonition of things to come. Unfortunately, whichever website I looked Stoicism up on mislead me a bit, and I held happiness to be for fools, a view that would take me years to get over. Jump forward to when I was about 17, on one of my outings where I'd walk around outside and philosophize. My life had been getting me down, but it all changed when I fully realized that, while I cannot control the world around me, I can control my reaction to it; things don't have to make me sad or angry. Shortly afterwards, I went to the city's main library, and browsed the philosophy section, and found The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I was amazed how my thoughts overwhelmingly aligned with his. Now, like you, I'm not an orthodox Stoic. I'm not a materialist, and I do believe we have free will. Like Marcus and yourself, I'm philosophically eclectic. As we all know, Stoicism holds to determinism, and advises that you learn to accept things as they are, as you cannot change them. This however leads to an obvious contradiction; if they world is deterministic including our thoughts and actions, we don't have a choice in the matter, fate has already decided whether we'll be Stoics or not. Perhaps you'll repudiate that somehow, but if that error truly does exist, I think the Stoics were smart enough to not fall into the sort of determinism they are often identified with. It seems more plausible that the Stoics were really trying to get at what I realized, which is that while you can influence others, you cannot control them, or anything else outside of you for that matter, you can only control yourself. I find that quite liberating, the realization I'm not a puppet on a string. Another key Stoic teaching of course is that things commonly held to be good (wealth, fame, friendship, sex, family, etc), are ultimately matters of indifference, even if some are preferred. Those things are all to some extent outside your control and can be taken away, while yourself is the one thing you always have (as long as you're alive and rational), and all you need is yourself to be virtuous, and virtue is all that is required to be happy. You and your behavior are what makes you truly happy, and it's something that can't be taken away by someone else, making yourself the most reliable means to be happy. Stoicism considered emotions to be a psychological sickness of sorts, which is quite similar to St. Thomas Aquinas's view that any act that doesn't proceed from reason is sinful. Anyway, Stoicism is awesome, and while I don't embrace all of its orthodox doctrines, I wish it were practiced more. P.S I'm nearly 20 and trying to decide where I want to go for university to get a philosophy degree - can anyone tell me where Dr. Sadler teaches? I'm sure I'd love to have him as my professor.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, on the free will issue, Stoics are compatibilists - meaning that they do hold that there is a determinism, and that we do also have (some) freedom of choice. And, when it comes down to it, I'd say I'm a compatibilist myself. I teach online, for my own company now, ReasonIO, and occasionally for other institutions. So, everywhere and nowhere, as the saying goes!

[@danieljackson3619]

Gregory B. Sadler Thanks for clearing up the issue of Stoic "determinism", I hadn't had the time to look much into it, nor did I advance much past Aurelius (dribs and drabs from Seneca and Epictetus, but not enough to count. Aurelius is too eclectic to take as a good representative of Stoicism). I kept hearing Stoicism described as deterministic, but that blatant contradiction I brought up earlier is so obvious I was sure the Stoics would've realized it too and had some answer, so compatibilism seems more appropriate. Arguably more interesting than the Stoic take on it - at least to me anyway - is the divide between Intellectualism and Voluntarism. Have you made any videos on Aquinas taking the former position and Scotus taking the latter? Intellectualism is a good explanation for the Christian belief that people will not sin in heaven - not that their free will is taken away, but that they so intimately know the truth that in a sense they cannot go against it, which to an extent you see on earth when people refuse to violate their conscience. Interestingly, that validates the Socratic/Platonic opinion (especially because Aquinas inclined more to Aristotelianism) that people only do wrong out of ignorance; sure, they know they shouldn't do a thing, that it's wrong, but I'd contest no-one fully knows how much harm their wrongdoing will cause (because of unforseen consequences, how sin is such an offence against an infinitely good God, etc). I used to reject the Socratic/Platonic view of why people do bad when I was younger because it seemed so obviously false; plenty of people around me did what they knew to be wrong, and I did what I knew to be wrong. On top of that, as a Catholic I accepted church teaching on mortal sin, and for a sin to be mortal the person must know the action is sinful. In time however, I came to realize that Socrates and Plato weren't idiots who'd miss such an obvious objection; surely they were aware of it, took it into account, and judged their theory to still be viable (again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, my knowledge of Platonism is minimal). I'm not treating them as infallible or appealing to authority, but I get sick of people who aren't well versed in philosophy thinking they've refuted the opinions of the brightest philosophers ever by objections a teenager would think of. This all stems from New Atheist, anti-theists writing anti-religious polemical books, and acting as if they've destroyed the likes of Aquinas, that the great Scholastic theologians would be defeated by the juvenile arguments that most teens struggling with their faith go through. I hope your online teaching is going well and will continue to, it would be a shame if finances held you back from producing such fantastic videos. I'm eager to take a class with you when I get the chance!

[@GregoryBSadler]

"Intellectualism and Voluntarism. Have you made any videos on Aquinas taking the former position and Scotus taking the latter?" - I have not. "I get sick of people who aren't well versed in philosophy thinking they've refuted the opinions of the brightest philosophers ever by objections a teenager would think of." - I'm entirely with you there. "This all stems from New Atheist, anti-theists writing anti-religious polemical books, and acting as if they've destroyed the likes of Aquinas." - it goes back way further than that, I'd say. "I'm eager to take a class with you when I get the chance!" - well, you'll want to check out our ReasonIO site. We'll be updating that information though - looks like we're moving away from the Moodle platform and towards using Teachable for all of our online class hosting (except the mini-classes, which are pretty basic, with e.g. Curious)

[@danieljackson3619]

Gregory B. Sadler "It goes back further than that, I'd say." I was careless how I worded that all. I meant that my reaction of "how stupid do you think they were?" and trying to interpret it in a way that would be true was a reaction against the New Atheists I've come across who either denigrate philosophy wholesale while praising science, or who treat theologians and theists as if they're total idiots. But yes, you're right - the New Atheists use quite old arguments. The problem of evil from Epicurus, faith vs reason from Averroes, the omnipotence paradox from theistic philosophers who were trying to determine the nature of God's omnipotence, not prove he didn't possess it, the divine foreknowledge vs freedom of the will from the ancient Greeks (Boethius dealt with it in the 6th century, and said Cicero had known of it too); I haven't heard many original arguments from the New Atheists. Ah, it's nice to be able to talk to someone who's knowledgeable about philosophy, none of my peers are. I did however get a younger friend interested in philosophy, so far I've had him read the Analects of Confucius, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, as well as some Sufi writings and other miscellaneous things.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes - those New Atheists strike me as sort of a redux of the 19th century types, who did, in fact, us some of those yet older arguments that you're bringing up

[@TheOSullivanFactor]

Great video! I'd be interested in hearing what some of the other schools of thought had to say about the Stoics; the only time I've run into other references are with Nietzsche and he seems to mischaracterize them pretty hard.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, you'll want to read around in ancient philosophy then. Cicero has a lot to say about them. So does Galen and Plutarch. And then, you'll also find early Christian thinkers like Lactantius discussing them. And satirists like Lucian making fun of them. Among the moderns, you want to look at Montaigne, Pascal, Hume, and Hegel for some interesting discussions

[@TheOSullivanFactor]

Just wanted to come back and thank you for this post; On your recommendation I've since read some of Montaigne's Essais and Pascal's Pensees which were both fantastic, as well as Cicero's On Duties, which I think is the Stoic text that did the most for me after the Discourses. Cheers.

[@vinkelsier8513]

I had to read Marcus Aurelius Meditations at Marian College in Indiana, I have been interested ever since which is why I walkways request him from you, I finished reading Epictetus works, I still like Meditations better, maybe just cause it was first for me I'm not sure, just moves me Everytime I read it

[@GregoryBSadler]

It's good stuff, that's for certain. And when I can find the time, I'll likely do something similar to what I did recently with the Epictetus' Enchiridion commentary videos with Marcus Aurelius

[@dutchg6020]

Dr. Sadler, I've heard you mention Hadot and his "Philosophy as a Way of Life" before, and in similar terms--i.e., as thought Hadot were making claims to complete originality or, as you say, a "radically new conception" with his notions about the practice of philosophy. I've not really gotten that impression from the book. I always thought that he was simply elucidating an idea that may have been common knowledge throughout history and discussed by plenty of philosophers (he in fact mentions Hegel and others in just that light) but that perhaps could stand to be re-introduced to a modern audience. As a relative newcomer to philosophy, I think Hadot accomplishes that goal pretty well, particularly in terms of the Hellenistic schools, and especially Stoicism. I'm not well read in philosophy generally, though, so I don't know if the other writers you mention--Blondel, Gilson, Hegel, Kierkegaard--cover similar territory. Thank you, as always, for all your work. I continue to learn a lot from your videos.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Hadot doesn't make claims to absolute originality. Nor do I say he did. In fact, as a piece I'm writing for Orexis Dianoetike shows, he emerges from a French milieu in which "philosophy as a way of life" (though not often called by those exact words) is already a well-worked idea in part of the French philosophical scene. It's most of the people who bring up Hadot, who talk as if "philosophy as a way of life" is a revolutionary new idea.

[@dutchg6020]

I getcha now. Thanks for the clarification.

[@MrMarktrumble]

I read Descartes Meditations in grade ten. What followed shortly there after were: Marcus Aurelius, the Bhagavad gita, the Penguin Upanishads, and the Tao te ching. A fellow (Gary Furhman,who was an english teacher. One must honour ones most influential teachers.) with whom I would talk to and who would give me ideas gave me a copy of the gita with the writing inside the cover "Be a warrior and kill desire". Reflecting now, I think that exhortation was quite apt. While failing miserably, I have always admired stalwart men of peace, who have good fighting ability. I had to adapt to earn a living, but I always wondered if it would be more brave and a better life to live a solitary, ascetic and nomadic life.I always thought that good character and a good head was the best means to happiness: but the real questions were : what is good? What is a good life? Stoic cosmopolitanism= globalization? Thank you.

[@GregoryBSadler]

How did you end up reading the Meditations in 10th grade?

[@MrMarktrumble]

Gary Furhman was an English teacher in my highschool. I wrote poetry, and he edited the school "literary book". I saw at the back of his room free books to borrow. I borrowed Descartes Discourse on Method, as well as Meditations at the same time as taking math class. The deductive method was so attractive, as well as how I interpreted the Cogito. I also borrowed C.C. Chang's book "the practise of Zen". Eventually he invited me to his house, and he had walls of books, and played Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. I thought..."wow"...the world is so much bigger and unknown than what was in my working class household. Mom and grandma were good at scrabble, but mom almost only read biographies. MY stepfather read nothing at all besides the Canadian Tire catalog. I am going to learn this new world, and I am going to have knowledge both comprehensive and penetratingly insightful. I am going to know the hardest, most profound things and this is going to make my character profound and make me effective in life. This project did not come to pass as I imagined it. I Learned that people by far value entertainment, money and ease than, that my degrees were almost valueless ( except to me) and that I had to adapt if I was going to work and eat.IN the end, working for a living may have helped to get rid of some superstitious aspects of my thinking, as well as other benefits.

[@MrMarktrumble]

Moved out of the house at age 19 to Toronto, and worked in factories: next big book Augustine's Confessions.

[@myronjobra]

where are you now?

[@marcn4452]

I would like to know more about your disagreements with stoicism.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I’ve talked about that at great length in many places

[@liverbrains]

7:59 Same... "As experience widens and hope changes, we find more "truth" in the "falsehoods" we denounced, and perhaps more falsehood in our youth's eternal truths... Philosophy is a function of age. Nevertheless..." -Will Durant TSoP

[@GregoryBSadler]

Not a fan of his rather sloppy history of philosophy work, I'm afraid, though I did like him decades back in undergrad days

[@liverbrains]

@@GregoryBSadler Will Durant is also largely a function of age

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@liverbrains Zero idea what that's supposed to mean

[@liverbrains]

@@GregoryBSadler kind of how a lot of stuff I read as a youth didn't make sense to me until later, TSoP was like a revelation to me in my youth, but later I found it exclusionary, among other things. Like what he said about philosophy but it worked the other way. NM, sometimes I laugh at my own jokes

[@michaelhebert7338]

Very interesting presentation thank you

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@steidelable]

After reading Marcus Aurelius, Nietzsche and Plato as a teenager, I read quite a few books on rhetoric and the speeches of Cicero. Somehow, I "forgot" Stoicism while reading through Derrida, Existentialists, Ricoeur, Deleuze, Heidegger, and many others. But this year, 15 years after first reading Cicero, I am returning to the Stoics in my BA dissertation. It pleases me to see that you have made a few videos on Stoicism, because "serious" current work on Stoicism is really hard to find in a seemingly endless sea of exploitative, reductionistic and lazy self-help-style books on the subject.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, somewhere close to 100 videos kzbin.info/aero/PL4gvlOxpKKIjJCphkLAhl-enapF9Tp1C6

[@dillanhill4439]

I am very interested in stoic living but I don't want to just adopt the ideas of the past stoics without understanding the rhetoric behind the argument. As en example this is the sort of stuff I'm looking for. By observing humans we can see that they are social animals therefore to flourish we should be civic minded and help others. The gods are good therefore they will not put any more pressure on us than we can handle. If they do then they are not good, but they are, so they wont. Humans are mortal. I am a human. Therefore if these two statement are true then I am mortal. This is the kind of thinking that I think they wanted us to engage in. It is how they discovered right and wrong, good and bad and why they consider themselves a Socratic philosophy. This kind of rational argument seems to be missing from modern stoicism. I know that Marcus was against rhetoric for himself but he probably lived in a world full of it. Since the schools got shut down 2,000 years ago we have lost this way of arriving at morality and some things has changed such as atheism which puts holes in some arguments and needs to be addressed. Hope someone can lead me to a book or podcast related to this subject Thanks

[@ignaciosandino7879]

Which books should I read as a start to stoicism? I am an beginner in the stoic school

[@GregoryBSadler]

There's nothing like actually starting with the primary texts for seeing what the key thinkers said

[@eogh]

I find many of the techniques in Stoicism to be great, I have read the Discourses and the Handbook, about 40% of Seneca's letters (some of the headings in the letters turned me off because they seemed irrelevant to me) and have two copies of the Meditations. My main issue as to why I would not or rather can not call myself a Stoic is the concept of Virtue as the "sole" good or as the only thing that is intrinsically good. Virtue is certainly useful and I do believe trying to live a Virtuous life is a good goal however it being the sole good, to me (a non philosopher 23 year old Irish man) is wrong. Virtue to my understanding is characterized as having a "good" character, specifically developing Wisdom and all other Virtues that stem from Wisdom. I understand the possible benefits of developing Virtue, from not making to stupid decisions that damage you and the illusive concept of Eudimonia (which to my understanding modern philosophers translate as human flourishing). However according to Stoicism, one can never reach a state of being a Virtuous person, Seneca said the Virtuous person is a rare as a Phoenix, so I have to ask if it is the sole good and the vast majority of people can never become truly virtuous, it is a pointless goal. What I do love from Stoicism are the concepts of our Nature (rational are social beings, specifically using our rational minds to benefit other peoples) and the dichotomy of control brings so much peace of mind to me. For now I think Pleasure is the sole good (but I am more than willing to be proved otherwise). My reasons being is that everyone tries to get Pleasure and avoid pain naturally. I often hear the critic about the pleasure machine and I can't refute it, I do not have the argumentative skills but I do know, since finding Stoicism and in turn finding about Hedonism and Epicurus to be specific, I often question if I am in a pleasure machine because my mental states have been so good. I still suffer from anxiety at times of course and anger does get the better of me but I use the Virtue of Wisdom to avoid choices that would put me in that mindset.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I think if you keep on reading in and about the Stoics, you'll discover that quite a few of the objections you raise are already dealt with. For example, what you're calling the "concepts of our nature" are already involved in what the virtues encompass.

[@myronjobra]

at what age did u start college?

[@GregoryBSadler]

21, I think