Academic literature on the topic 'Philosophy of stoicism'

My dissertation focuses on the moral philosophy of Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza in the context of the revival of Stoicism within the seventeenth century. There are many misinterpretations about early modern ethical theories due to a lack of proper awareness of Stoicism in the early modern period. My project rectifies this by highlighting understated Stoic themes in these early modern texts that offer new clarity to their morality. Although these three philosophers hold very different metaphysical commitments, each embraces a different aspect of Stoicism, letting it influence but not define his work. By addressing the Stoic themes on the morality of these three authors, I also hope to help better capture the intellectual climate of the time by bringing Stoic themes into the foreground. Stoicism is a Hellenistic philosophy that considered the passions a sickness of the intellect and the source of all human suffering; they believed the cure was virtue, which was obtained through replacing irrational passions with rational beliefs. Stoicism had a revival in the Renaissance ushering in a wave of Neostoic authors who play an important role in shaping the intellectual landscape of the following centuries. My first two chapters discuss Descartes, who wrote a “provisional morality” early in his public life, only (as I show) to ignore the subject of ethics until near his death. In my first chapter I argue that, though many present-day scholars misread Descartes’ first ethics as part of his final ethics, this earliest “provisional morality” mimics Neostoic Skeptics such as Montaigne and is provisional because his method of doubt is also provisional. In my second chapter I show that Descartes’ late, and more developed, moral theory attempts to synthesize a variety of ancient, and seemingly contradictory, ethical traditions: Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Aristotelianism. In many ways Descartes embraces Stoic morality, but as a mechanist he does not view passions as an intellectual sickness; rather they are a physiological event, an amoral instrument that can be used to help control one’s irrational desires. I further defend my thesis externally by showing that this is the reading supported by Descartes’ contemporaries including critics such as Leibniz and early Cartesians such as Antoine Le Grand and Pierre-Sylvain Régis My third chapter discusses Pascal, who embraces Stoicism differently. Pascal offers Stoicism as the first tier of a binary ethics: modeled after Augustine’s city of God and city of man, it is an alternative moral code for those who are ignorant of the good and true happiness. Finally, in my fourth chapter, I discuss two common misinterpretations of Spinoza’s ethics: one of them neglects the Stoic influence on his thought while the other embraces it too strongly, portraying him as an unadulterated Stoic. Although there are ways that he is more Stoic than Descartes and Pascal, such as in his panpsychism and monism, this does not extend to his morality. Rather than accepting either of the two readings, I highlight anti- Stoic themes that are also present. I conclude that if the discussion is contained to his morality, Spinoza is no more Stoic than the other Neostoics I discuss in previous chapters.

Творчість В. Шекспіра ввібрала в себе основні тенденції англійської літератури доби Ренесансу, одна з яких полягала у відродженні античної філософії. Вона мала значний вплив на твори великого драматурга, зокрема на його трагедію "Гамлет". Багато вчених, таких як О. О. Анікст, В. П. Комарова, погоджуються з наявністю ідей філософії стоїцизму в творі. Але, чи був головний герой стоїком – питання суперечливе і вчені не дають однозначної відповіді на нього. Причиною цього є повнота, багатосторонність та суперечливість характеру Гамлета.

La volonté : peu de termes reviennent dans des débats aussi nombreux et aussi divers ; peu se prêtent à un aussi large éventail de registres, de l’ordinaire au sacré. Mon travail voudrait introduire à la notion de volonté chez Cicéron, et aux nouveaux champs sémantiques ouverts par lui pour la postérité. Le rôle accordé à lui jusqu’ici dans les généalogies de la volonté a été au mieux mineur. Mais les archives numériques confirment un fait curieux : tout le corpus latin antérieur à Cicéron contient environ 25 occurrences de voluntas ou de ses formes déclinées. Dans le seul corpus cicéronien, le mot apparaît 644 fois. Sa théologie pense l’univers en tant qu’il est déterminé par la mens ac voluntas des dieux, et fait passer le progrès de l’âme par la contemplation de la volonté divine. La voluntas est centrale dans sa réflexion sur l’émotion et la responsabilité en contexte judiciaire. Dans ses traités philosophiques, il adapte l’éthique stoïcienne et fait de la volonté le siège de la progression morale. En outre, c’est Cicéron et non Lucrèce qui a le premier examiné la liberté du vouloir humain : lorsqu’il entreprit, à trente-six ans, l’accusation de Verrès, puis dans le De fato, où sa défense de la libera voluntas mobilise le Portique et l’Académie contre le Jardin. Enfin, Cicéron invente la volonté du peuple telle que nous la connaissons. Le plus grand orateur romain, pionnier de la pensée politique de langue latine, fait de la voluntas populi la force agissante d’une république souveraine. Son idée de la volonté populaire contient d’ailleurs en germe les problèmes de représentativité des élites que nos démocraties électorales cherchent encore à résoudre<br>The will : few words feature in so many distinct debates, nor range so vastly from the simple to the sacred. This thesis is intended to provide a thorough study of the notion of will in Cicero, and of the new semantic pathways he opens for posterity. The role attributed to him in genealogies of the will has been relatively minor. But digital archives confirm a curious fact: all extant Latin texts prior to his lifetime yield around two dozen occurrences of voluntas and its cognates. In the texts we have, Cicero uses the word 644 times. His theology examines the character of the world determined by the mens ac voluntas of the gods, and the improvement of the soul in the contemplation of divine will. Voluntas propels and inspires Cicero’s study of emotion in criminal liability. In the Tusculan Disputations and De officiis, he adapts Stoic ethics to propose the will as locus of moral progress. Further, it was Cicero, not Lucretius as some have argued, who first considered the “freedom” of human will – as a 36-year-old prosecutor, and then in the De fato, where his argument for libera voluntas marshals the Stoa and Academy to repudiate the Epicureans. Finally, Cicero invents “the will of the people” as we know it. Rome’s greatest orator and the pioneer of political thought in Latin, he makes voluntas populi the catalyzing force of a sovereign republic. So too does he sow problems of elite “trusteeship” into his notion of popular will, problems which electoral democracies still struggle to resolve

This play demonstrates an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy in practice. The main character experiences loss and confusion, however, through this struggle arrives at a discovery of profound truth. If you've ever wondered how to live your life in the best way possible, the main character believes he's found the answer.

This thesis examines Epictetus' view on Cynic philosophy, as it is being expressed in chapter 22 of the third book of Diatribai ("The Discourses"). The chapter has traditionally been seen as an idealized and deceitful portrait of the Cynic, and has been questioned as an intended justification of stoics and Cynics in the overall view on the history of philosophy. This thesis, however, attempts a different approach on the matter, based upon a thorough discussion regarding the field of research, as well as on different ways to read and understand the text at hand, in order to seek out a view that goes beyond the traditional distinction between practice and theory. The thesis thus challenges the view where the philosophy of Epictetus is seen as an instrumental practice of stoic theory, isolated to the field of ethics.   The reading of the chapter focuses mainly on the philosophical purpose of the text and its intended practice, and finds that much of the stoic ascetic practice is not only taught through instructions, but also performed in the lecture and Epictetus' way of speaking. Epictetus' portrait of the philosophical Cynic is thus understood, not only as an extreme end that serves as an ascetic role-model, but also as a basic archetype of what it actually means to practice a philosophical way of thinking, that is of central importance to Epictetus philosophy. This sheds a new light on both the traditional distinction between stoic theory and practice, and on much of the research performed on the field of stoicism this far, as well as on that of Cynicism.

Comment les Stoïciens concilient-ils l’exigence d’une piété intérieure, reposant sur l’obéissance à un dieu rationnel avec la défense des rites traditionnels ? Après avoir étudié les oscillations constantes chez les Stoïciens grecs entre la légitimation et la condamnation des cultes civils, nous montrons que les Stoïciens impériaux, Cornutus, Perse, Épictète et Marc- Aurèle, prolongent le débat sur la relation entre philosophie et religion sous une perspective différente, en l’acclimatant au contexte politico-religieux de la Rome impériale et en l’adaptant à la nature du destinataire et aux stratégies persuasives de chaque œuvre<br>How can the stoics reconcile the research of rational piety based on moral perfection with the legitimization of the ritualism and traditional representation of pagan gods? After studying the constant oscillation between the legitimization and condemnation of traditional rites in ancient stoicism, we demonstrate that the roman stoics, Cornutus, Persius, Epictectus and Marcus Aurelius, address the same question, but with two essential specifics : adapting it to the political-religious context of Imperial Rome and paying particular attention to their readers as to the pedagogic strategist to grant its moral conversion