Occasional reflections on the wisdom of Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. More at https://figsinwinter.blog. Please consider supporting Stoic Meditations. (cover art by Marek Škrabák; original music by Ian Jolin-Rasmussen, www.jolinras.info). Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support
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Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 1 day 10 hours 54 minutes
On the rationality of grief
Why exactly to we grieve when loved ones are gone? Is it about them, about us? Does it depend on what we think will happen to them after death?
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportTwo possibilities for the afterlife
How, then, can you, or why do you, assert that you think that death is an evil, when it either makes us happy, in the case of the soul continuing to exist, or, at all events, not unhappy, in the case of our becoming destitute of all sensation?
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support797. On the nature of the soul
Cicero mentions a number of accounts of the nature of the soul, explaining that the Stoic take is that the soul is a physical attribute responsible for our faculty of judgment. And it perishes with us.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportNature's bargain
Nature has presented us with this bargain: either not being born at all, or being born a mortal. Everything else is the fantasy of priests bent on scaring and controlling us, as Epicurus put it.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportThe symmetry argument
We seem to be awfully bothered by the fact that we will one day no longer exist. And yet, we didn't suffer from the equally true fact that for a long time we didn't exist.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support794. Are you so silly as to believe in Cerberus and Sisyphus?
Cicero disputes with his friend about whether we should be afraid of the afterlife, and concludes that we will not exist, and therefore we will not be feeling anything. It is superstition that generates fears of death.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportOn true friendship
Just prove to me that you are trustworthy, high-minded and reliable, and that your intentions are benign, and you’ll find that I won’t even wait for you to open your heart to me, I’ll be the first to implore you to lend an ear to my own affairs.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportGet better today, not tomorrow
As it is, you say, 'I will fix my attention tomorrow': which means, let me tell you, 'Today I will be shameless, inopportune, abject: others shall have power to vex me: today I will harbor anger and envy.'
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support791. You are not perfect, so what?
Is it possible to escape error altogether? No, it is impossible: but it is possible to set one's mind continuously on avoiding error.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportJust pay attention, will you?
Now if such postponement of attention is profitable, it would be still more profitable to abandon it altogether: but if it is not profitable, why do you not keep up your attention continuously?
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support