Occasional reflections on the wisdom of Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers with Prof. Massimo Pigliucci. Complete index by author and source at https://massimopigliucci.org/stoic-podcast/. (cover art by Marek Škrabák; original music by Ian Jolin-Rasmussen). Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/support
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Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 1 day 23 hours 40 minutes
episode 425: 425. Ethics and human nature
Philosophers have debated for millennia the nature of ethics. Is it arbitrary? Or are there universal moral laws that we can apprehend through reason? Neither, say the Stoics. Theirs is a thoroughly naturalistic philosophy.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 424: 424. What the virtues are for
Desires have to be reined in, fear to be suppressed, proper actions to be arranged, debts to be paid; we therefore include self-restraint, bravery, prudence, and justice among the virtues – assigning to each quality its special function.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/support423. The difference may be subtle
There are, as you know, vices which are next-door to virtues. Carelessness looks like ease, and rashness like bravery.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 422: 422. Of friendship, dogs, and meat thrown in the middle
No doubt you have seen dogs playing with, and fawning before, each other, and thought, ‘Nothing could be friendlier.’ But just throw some meat in the middle, and then you’ll know what friendship amounts to.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 421: 421. The analogy between physical and mental health
The Stoics understood what bodily health is, and from that they deduced the existence of a certain mental health also. They knew about bodily strength, and from that they inferred the existence of mental sturdiness.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 420: 420. Nothing is good which can be put to wrong use by any person
The Stoics regard nothing as good which can be put to wrong use by any person. And we can all see for ourselves to what wrong uses many people put their riches, their high position, or their physical powers.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 419: 419. The difference separating Aristotelians, Stoics, and Cynics
Externals — such as money, possessions, and the like — are how we exercise our virtue, which cannot be expressed in a vacuum. And one of the four cardinal virtues is temperance.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 418: 418. Where's your stopping point?
He who has much, desires more – a proof that he has not yet acquired enough; but he who has enough has attained that which never fell to the rich man’s lot – a stopping-point.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/supportepisode 417: 417. Three disciplines to live a better life
In order to live a meaningful life (ethics) we need to reason well about things (logic), and we need to have a good grasp of how the world works (science). How are your logic and science, then?
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/support416. A starving man despises nothing
We take a lot of things for granted, when life is going well for us. But — fools that we are — we really appreciate what we had only once we’ve lost it. That's why the Stoics devised a series of exercises in mild self-deprivation.
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stoicmeditations/support