Stoic Week 2014- Day 2: Marcus Tullius Cicero's Stoic Paradoxes
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- My Listenable Course: Basics of Stoic Philosophy and Practice - listenable.io/...
Stoicism Week 2014 runs from the 24th to the 30th of November. Each day during Stoic Week, I'm planning on producing and releasing a video.
In this video, I discuss a classic text by a Roman thinker who was not entirely won over to Stoicism, but who found there to be many valuable aspects, insights, and doctrines to it -- Marcus Tullius Cicero.
In the Stoic Paradoxes, Cicero sets out six paradoxical doctrines of classic Stoicism, and then argues the case on each of their behalfs.
The Stoicism Today blog (from the University of Exeter): blogs.exeter.ac...
About Stoicism Week: blogs.exeter.ac...
The "Stoicism for Everyday Living" online course: modernstoicism....
An encyclopedia article on Stoicism to which I contributed, which viewers might find useful: www.academia.e...
for Day 2 of Stoic Week -- a bit late (uploading took forever -- something wonky with Google/RUclips yesterday), but better late than never, eh?
thank you.
what if we are never satisfied with how much we have learned and practised?
is this disorder? A tacit confession of the absence of autarky?
Then -- provided we actually have access to the "good stuff" -- we get to live a good life. If we do it in a community of inquiry, with friends, even better.
this reminds me of dharma from the Bhagavad gita. Action renounced from consequences...
both Plato and the Hindus would advocate a caste system, and Plato's caste system is numerically one in both the polis and the individual. But I digress, this is about the stoics, and most specifically, Cicero.
No homo but I love cicero. I wish I could listen to him talk and teach. May the gods feed him honey.
Even though I’ve never attended one of your classes, I am now one of your students. You have a great lecture voice and since you speak with an interest in the material, it is easy and fun to learn from you. We’ll see about the retaining part, but I can’t be held responsible for a flawed hard drive.
Glad the videos are useful for you!
Now I have a reference point for the lack of full community we tend to have to live through as a country Philosophy should be required in high school.
I'm having a great time watching your classes! You have a very nice way to explain things. Thanks!
You're very welcome!
well-principaled happiness is not based on deciding to be made happy over thing x because there is the least chance of thing x being destroyed, ie you should not say i will not be made happy by material goods because they might become stolen or damaged.. you have to figure out what is good which is not just based on how long it can stay preserved in the state it is in which it being in you find to be good, because i could equally say other irrational things like therefore what is evil must be what does not say the same or last long - but that is a description of orgasm - so everything about pleasure is evil?? the ideal good stays good for all time and can only be in the state that makes it good and must be (exist), and still that is not every attribute of what makes something good or the ideal good..
Why does everyone, today, say that 'rhetoric is the art of persuasion' when Quintilian said, "Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric is the Philosophy of Virtue and Eloquence"?
Quintilian said the path to becoming the perfect man, of whom he said Cicero was the closest to that ideal, is to follow this 'Philosophy', by emulating Cicero to start with.
When did this change, historically? When did being virtuous and eloquent fall out of favor? Was it directly replaced by Locke and the pursuit of happiness for the great unwashed masses? Is it just easier to control oafish fools slavishly pursuing external happiness than eloquent sages freely pursuing internal virtue?
Was this change directly correlated to the Christian doctrine being forced down everyone's throats through the time of the inquisition or did it start earlier with Constantine? Does it predate him even?
I am not averse to reading, however, as Seneca said, "Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed." Please direct me to some sources if you possibly can, or barring that, give me your opinion on when the change took place.
Everyone doesn't. There's multiple characterizations of rhetoric.
Not really centrally important here. . .
Slavestorms look at some of Demosthenes stuff who i would say is quite honourable and virtuous in defence of democracy. Demosthenes vastly influenced the likes of cicero
Is it wrong to see Cicero´s philosophical work as a lecture of a good professor? His works are rather easy to understand and his practical point of view is quite interesting, but not really world changing, right (that´s what some people told me)? I read at the moment de re publica, because my Greek is at the moment worse then just bad and I really appreciate it for its readability!
Well, it's a sort of "textbook" commonplace that Cicero is not really original or a first rate philosopher. Very few serious readers of Cicero (including myself) see it that way.
He is indeed quite clear, and he does a great job translating Greek ideas into a Roman idiom and culture. But he does make some original contributions of his own here and there.
Hi Greg. I liked very much your comments on #6 Being Rich as a Sage and the value of money and virtue.
I found it practical and easy to understand.
Glad it was useful for you
Thanks for the video! I'm trying to recommit myself to thinking about this sort of thing but I'm too busy (insane premedical student) to do a serious study of books themselves anymore--do you know of any channels similar to yours that produce content I can think about while walking about? I've tried to use audiobooks of philosophy but I find most of them too dense to easily digest in my free time between work
Well, there's a good podcast -- the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. You might give that a listen
courage is good? hmmm, if we define courage as being willing to act and acting with the intention to achieve some good whilst risking the possibility of experiencing some bad - well what if the good that you are going to achieve is less good than the bad you risk yourself running into and the bad that might happen is many multiple more times likely to happen than the good - then is courage good, would it be good to be courageous when in some sense you acting in a way that is more likely to bring about a greater bad than a lesser good? and yet you said courage was a virtue, so there can come into play some circumstances as a result of the rewards and risks available that would make having courage a bad thing??
+dorian lake Courage is a disposition for virtue ethics. You can define it however you like, but don't expect your definition to align then with what others mean by the term
LOL No4 money example sounds like Donald Trump :)
Ilko Germanov Perhaps. . . or really any other person focused on amassing wealth without limits
...and ignoring moral on every level. Ignoring law. We have loads of people like that in Bulgaria. Great video though. I am very interested in all things stoic. Thank you!
You're very welcome
Thanks for the videos. The most needed philosophy in 21. century.
You're welcome
are you secretly penn of penn and teller, the resemblance is uncanny, i keep expecting you to make something disappear... ^^, XD
thanks for the lectures btw i don't mean to seem ungrateful i just cant get over the resembelence
if you could make "being" disappear that would be amazing!
+MrChaoplexity I've gotten that quite a few times in other comments
These are excellent. btw..having reached 60 years I have eliminated "happiness" as a goal and am quite content with replacing it with "tranquility."
Glad you enjoy them. Well. . . tranquility. . . I suppose we might think of that as how the Stoics conceive of "happiness"
I love this one. It's a wonderful riposte to pop philosophy that assumes that all ideas can be simplified without losing something in the process.
All is not what it seems, Arjuna.
:-)
+Anekantavad Well, perhaps the issue with simplification is something like this: at least some of the things philosophers have said can be selectively simplified - either for a particular situation (i.e. leaving out what would just complicate that situation), or for a more general presentation.
But, to be able to do so well would require at least two things -- the first is a full understanding of what one is simplifying, really, e.g. understanding Aristotle or Epictetus, or. . . -- the other would be something more along the lines of rhetoric, a developed skill for reaching the audience one likely has to present matters to. . . .
Is the word 'dementum' actually used in paradox 4 or anywhere else in the book? I don't have the book but I've been searching for this word online and can't find any history on it so I'm curious. Thanks for all the great videos, super job.
+Abysmal Lord Here you go - a Perseus project search on "dementius" - that will get you started - www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?target=la&all_words=dementius&phrase=&any_words=&exclude_words=&documents=
Cicero needs to be studied more.
Indeed
Thank you so much for these videos. They are truly a treasure!
+Amanda Lewis You're welcome! I'm shooting some new ones for this Stoic Week
Many days I can empathize completely with Cicero. My favorite Latin. My favorite quotes. His mind lives on today. I really dig Cicero in every way he is the shit!
Crazy his form of Latin was taught for like 1000 years?
His (and other classical writers' )form of Latin was resuscitated during the Renaissance, so no, not 1000 years. He is well worth the read, though
@@GregoryBSadler
Curses wrong again! Oh what a burden to be human, wrong most of the time but, never so much I should give up.
I thank you for the Cicero Vid!
Excellent presentation
+Bean Thanks!
Thank you
+James V Tullius You're welcome