For millennia, the question, “How do you build the best world that is possible to build?” has been central to the majority of history’s wisdom traditions. Human beings have been considering this issue for most of our history. When you are buried, what of your soul will infiltrate the very fabric of the world? That you are going to die - so what ought you do with your days that remain?
#Aurelius querious how to
If we look deeply at Stoicism, the result should not only be a state of mourning for its removal from a significant span of history, but we should also recognize that we have a profound source of wisdom on how to live as human beings - we have before us something that can speak to the wholesome trajectory that many traditions have been speaking to throughout the human journey. Therefore, you ought to live accordingly. The Stoics also commonly used the word ‘Cosmopolitan’ to define themselves, not in the sense of the modern magazine, but by its literal definition - you are a citizen of the universe. You have a responsibility to familiarize other people’s concerns as if they were your own - it is a portrait of interdependency, that their health (everyone and everything) will reflect your own health. How do we become the best version of ourselves so that we might build the best world possible? They used the word ‘Oikeiosis’ which portrays the world as a house of which you are a member. Stoicism is primarily concerned with how we ought to live our lives. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian closed the school of Stoicism in 529.Īs someone who adheres to Christianity, this is disappointing to me - partly because I find almost nothing in Stoicism that is not incorporated in at least some part of Christian tradition, but also because Stoicism has much to offer in the larger existential and ethical metanarrative of what it means to be a human being. Though this philosophy has made a comeback in modernism, it was when the Roman Empire instituted Christianity as the state religion under Constantine around 312 CE that Stoicism began its decline. We have Christianity to blame for Stoicism’s descent.
While those are all worthwhile topics of exploration, I want to focus on what may possibly be the core emphasis of Stoicism - virtue and wisdom - that emerges from one of the most common teachings you will see paraphrased in a variety of ways: That virtue is the only human good.Īnd, in conjunction, how do you pursue virtue?
The understanding of what you can and cannot control (which was popularized by Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer”),Īn emphasis on non-desire (specifically what they called preferred and dis-preferred indifferents),Īnd even an unpopular opinion on suicide. Among them are:Įmotional restraint (though some interpretations of “being stoic” by being emotionally absent aren’t fully accurate), Stoicism is known for several contributions and ideas on the world stage. That is one of the central questions to the philosophy of Stoicism - which technically began around 300 BCE with Zeno who followed Crates in Athens and is commonly known from the likes of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. How do you build the best world that is possible to build?
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