Keep calm and get your stoic on many people today are heeding the advice.
Matthew Sharpe, Deakin University
From Cynicism to Stoicism
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, to paraphrase Monty Python. 2,110 more words
Tags » Pierre Hadot
What appears tends to disappear
Φύσις δε… kαθ’ Ηραkλειτον… kρύπτεσθαι φιλεΐ
Phúsis de… kath’ Erakleiton… krúptesthai phileî
(Qtd in Themistius, Orations 5.69b, DK B123)
153 more wordsThe story I am about to tell therefore begins symbolically at Ephesus, in Asia Minor, around 500 BCE, on the day when tradition reports that Heraclitus, one of the most ancient thinkers of Greece, deposited the book, probably without a title, in which he had summarized all his knowledge, in the temple of the celebrated Artemis of Ephesus.1…
The Philosopher's Training Regime
Periodically, I come across an essay reporting that experts are not especially good when compared to lay people at overcoming the cognitive biases they should be adept at perceiving and transforming—for example, psychologists aren’t better at identifying their own complexes, ethicists don’t make more ethical choices, philosophers of mind don’t better understand their own habits, behavior, and intentions, and so on. 1,329 more words
Daily Stoic Exercises for Beginners
From reading the Stoics we notice their emphasis on spiritual “training” to strengthen the character and enable one to endure difficulties with equanimity. What exactly did they mean by this training, also referred to as spiritual exercises? 2,162 more words
Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision by Pierre Hadot
Plotinus has popped up a few times recently in my current reading (and listening). He was a bit part of The Climax of Rome by Michael Grant… 279 more words
It would, moreover, be interesting to psychologize some historical psychologists.
From Pierre Hadot’s The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (pg 257, translation of La Citadelle Intérieure. Introduction aux Pensées de Marc Aurèle). Hadot in his writing – and even more so in the little I’ve read of his personal side – was typically as gentle and easygoing as befits a former priest turned scholar of Greek and Roman philosophy as lived philosophy. 151 more words
