I’m experimenting with Substack and have started a new podcast. The first episode, an audio recording of my recent Medium article, How to Actually Practice Stoicism, has already proven very popular.
In this episode, I speak with Anthony Magnabosco a founder and the current Executive Director of the nonprofit Street Epistemology International, an educational organization that is committed to addressing dysfunction in public and private discourse by encouraging rationality through civil conversation. Anthony has been involved with Street Epistemology since 2013, and has given dozens of talks and workshops at conferences and events domestically and internationally. Many of his conversations have been uploaded to YouTube and demonstrate how Street Epistemology can be applied to a variety of claims including ones that are spiritual, political, or societal.Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Highlights* What is Street Epistemology?* What have you learned from your experience of using Street Epistemology?* How do you think it relates to the original Socratic Method? * How might it relate to psychotherapy? * Do you think Street Epistemology has any therapeutic potential?* What do you think of variations of Street Epistemology like Hidden Claim or the Spectrum SE we see Peter Boghossian doing?* What do you think the future holds for the method? Links* Street Epistemology website* Anthony Magnabosco YouTubeThank you for reading Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life. This post is public so feel free to share it. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.
What Marcus Aurelius said about healthy emotions in Stoic philosophy
Hello everyone, and welcome to my new Substack newsletter. I just wrote a short article on the Stoicism Subreddit about the three forms of healthy emotion that Marcus Aurelius said should be cultivated. I’ve also written a longer and more detailed Medium article about this topic. I think it’s very important for an understanding of how Stoicism can be incorporated into modern self-help.
Live your whole life through free from all constraint and with utmost joy in your heart… — Meditations, 7.68
I want to write something a little more informal here, from a personal perspective, about how I understand the role of healthy emotions in Stoicism.
Thanks for reading Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
1. Happiness with Yourself
Marcus seems to be clear that the most important source of happiness and contentment for Stoics is the contemplation of their own moral progress and he refers to this often. It stands to reason that possessing what you believe to be the highest good in life would be the greatest source of joy — for Stoics that means our own progress toward virtue. Christian authors later criticized the Stoics for excessive pride as they viewed our fulfilment or salvation as a direct result of our own actions, our freewill, rather than something requiring the grace of God. However, I think many modern readers might agree more with the Stoics.
2. Happiness with Mankind
The virtue of others is not under our direct control but, nevertheless, we should wish for them to achieve fulfilment, “Fate permitting”. This caveat is called the Stoic “reserve clause”. It means we wish for something while simultaneously accepting that it is not up to us. Book One of the Meditations shows Marcus repeatedly contemplating the virtues of his closest family members and favourite tutors.
Marcus actually explains one of his reasons for doing this later in the same text:
When you wish to delight yourself, think of the virtues of those who live with you. For instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth. For nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when they are exhibited in the morals of those who live with us and present themselves in abundance, as far as is possible. Hence we must keep them before us. — Meditations, 7.28
The Stoics believed that one of the best ways to acquire virtue is through the contemplation of those we admire, or having genuine role models. When the wise glimpse the highest good in others, they naturally experience a very profound sense of happiness. It is as though they are contemplating the mirror image of the potential for wisdom and virtue they have within themselves.
3. Happiness with God or Nature
For the Stoics, the key to happiness with the universe as a whole is acceptance of our own external fate, or amor fati. Marcus also emphasizes that by contemplating the transience or absence of certain things, presumably preferred externals such as health, we can cultivate a healthy emotion of gratitude.
Do not think of things that are absent as though they were already at hand, but pick out the [the best] from those that you presently have, and with these before you, reflect on how greatly you would have wished for them if they were not already here. At the same time, however, take good care that you do not fall into the habit of overvaluing them because you are so pleased to have them, so that you would be upset if you no longer had them at some future time. — Meditations, 7.27
Throughout the Meditations, Marcus reminds himself of the transience of material things, and of his own existence. This allows him to experience joy or gratitude toward existence. The Stoics, incidentally, considered appropriate gratitude to be a virtue, classed under the heading of justice.
I think it helps humanize Stoicism when we realize that healthy emotions played an important role in their system of psychology. The Greek philosophy of Stoicism (capitalized) should not be confused with the unemotional coping style we call stoicism (lowercase) today.
The three categories of healthy emotion above correspond with a threefold structure that is found throughout the Meditations. For instance, Marcus lists all three together in this passage:
Different people find their joy in different things; and it is my joy to keep [i] my ruling centre unimpaired, and [ii] not turn my back on any human being or [iii] on anything that befalls the human race, but to look on all things with a kindly eye, and welcome and make use of each according to its worth. —Meditations, 8.43
We should, in other words, train ourselves to welcome our fate, while exhibiting kindness toward others, and living wisely, in accord with virtue.
The conversation I had recently with Ryan Holiday about Stoicism has just been published on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.
People keep asking me how I got into Stoicism. Sometimes I’m asked in interviews. There’s even a guy who trolls me on the Internet making stuff up about my past. Sometimes people who Google my details get random info that’s incorrect. (My daughter thought it was hilarious that if she asked “OK Google: Who is Donald Robertson?” the computer voice would confidently inform her that I am an author, aged seventy.) So this is an attempt to set the record straight. I find it’s easier to write an account like this down in one place so if it comes up again, all I need to do is share the link. It also helps me remember all the specific details! Some of the event dates, etc., might be off by a year or so either way but, basically, this should be about as accurate as it gets. For reference, you can read most of my publication history in my Google Scholar profile.
The Beginning
I was born in Irvine, Scotland, in 1972, and grew up in the nearby town of Ayr. My father passed away when I was about thirteen years old. He didn’t leave much behind except some old books on Freemasonic rituals. I saw they mentioned symbols and ideas from the Old Testament combined with allusions to Hellenistic philosophy. I think I probably saw mention of Plato, Pythagoras, the four cardinal virtues, etc. That was what first sparked my interest in religion and philosophy. For some reason, it made me want to read more about these things.
At that time, books were hard for me to obtain. My mother, a widow, cleaned the houses of schoolteachers, and we didn’t have a lot of money. There weren’t many bookshops. I would scour second-hand shops for hours at the weekends looking for any used books on philosophy that I could find – there were extremely slim pickings available! I loved the Carnegie Library in Ayr, spent a lot of time there, and would often request books on order. One challenge was even knowing the names of books worth ordering in the first place. One day the library were selling off old books, including a huge set of Books in Print, a catalogue of all published books, which I managed to obtain. That allowed me to look up books by specific authors, which I could then try to order from the library or bookstore. This was life before the Internet!
A few years later, my curiosity piqued by some references in the Freemasonic rituals, I started learning to read Hebrew. (I didn’t get far; languages are not my forte.) A church minister lent me some books on the language. I began reading more and more obscure religious texts, including various ones on the Qabbalah – I liked modern esoteric commentators such as Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune, but also primary sources such as Sepher Yetzirah and Sepher Zohar. I read famous Christian mystical texts like the Cloud of Uknowing, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Mystical Theology. At the same time I was also reading the classics of Indian religion, particularly the Hindu Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching, and many other more obscure religious scriptures.
Ayr College
I was kicked out of school when I was sixteen, and eventually ended up at Ayr College, studying computing, where my study of religious and mystical texts intensified even more in my spare time. Later, by the time I was around seventeen, I had also become interested in martial arts (Taekwondo) and hatha yoga and practiced meditation – I read many books on yoga philosophy.
My interest in Hebrew and Christian mysticism eventually led me to Gnosticism. I found a copy of Elaine Pagel’s The Gnostic Gospels (1979) in the bargain bin at a local book store. I then managed to get a copy of the Naj Hammadi Gnostic corpus from Carnegie Library, which I found fascinating. I noticed it contained many references to Neoplatonic philosophy, and even an excerpt from Plato’s Republic! I read many other ancient mystical texts, such as those of the Corpus Hermeticum, which also seemed influenced by Neoplatonism.
That sparked my interest in ancient philosophy. I began reading Plato. I found an old book of excerpts from Plato that I sat in the garden reading one summer. I read Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy and many other introductory books. I then tried to work my way through many of the key texts in the history of philosophy, which was pretty hard going for a teenager with my level of formal education! I read very widely. I particularly liked Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc. (I thought at the time that Schopenhauer was underrated as a philosopher and liked the parallels between his thought and the Indian philosophy I had read.) I also read Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness at this time, and other French existential texts, which I loved. (I only managed to obtain these because of a trip to Glasgow, where I found a trove of philosophy books, from former students, in a second-hand book store.) It was the Gnostic texts and the dialogues of Plato that had the most profound and lasting effect on me, though.
Studying Philosophy at Aberdeen
In 1992, aged nineteen, I went to Aberdeen University to study philosophy. The course at Aberdeen is named “Mental Philosophy” for historical reasons but it’s a standard philosophy degree. Scottish undergraduate degrees like this are four years long, and lead to the award of an MA degree rather than a BA.
By this time, I’d already been reading many of the first year philosophy texts for several years, so I got off to a very good start, and flourished at university. I also took courses in cultural anthropology, psychology, and history of Indian religions, which meant I studied the Bhagavad Gita and Dhammapada in more depth. I joined the Buddhist society, regularly meditated, and went on several Buddhist meditation retreats.
We were fortunate to be able to study quite advanced topics at Aberdeen, and I particularly focused on Kant, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger. However, I also took two courses in classical philosophy: Plato and Aristotle. We mainly focused on the Theaetetus and Nicomachean Ethics, although I read many other Greek philosophical texts at this time. I graduated joint top of my year, in 1996, won the John Laird memorial award for moral philosophy, and obtained a first class MA Hons degree.
Discovering Stoicism
It’s often observed that Stoicism is one of the main schools of ancient philosophy that’s largely ignored in undergraduate philosophy curricula. I loved studying philosophy but I was slightly frustrated that I still hadn’t found a philosophy of life, which I felt comfortable with. I had dabbled with yoga and Buddhism, but somehow they just didn’t click with me sufficiently. With more time now available to choose my own reading, I went back to the Gnostics. I read Hans Jonas’ The Gnostic Religion, which was inspired by Heidegger. I read Freud and Jung, trying for a while to find a way to combine existential philosophy, psychoanalysis, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism.
Around 1996 or 1997, I began training in counselling and integrative psychotherapy. I studied very widely, covering many different models of psychotherapy, including Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Gestalt, REBT, CBT, Carl Rogers, and many more. I was a bit of a geek about the history of psychotherapy, actually, and read many obscure early texts. I became fascinated by the history of hypnotism, and evidence-based clinical hypnosis. (Not “New Age” hypnotherapy but what psychologists such as Hans Eysenck had written about research on hypnotic suggestion.) I later edited the complete writings of James Braid, the Scottish physician who discovered hypnotism, The Discovery of Hypnosis (2009) was therefore my first book. Eventually, I would publish The Practice of Cognitive-Behavioural Hypnotherapy: A Manual for Evidence-Based Clinical Hypnosis (2013), which contains a detailed review of research on clinical hypnosis.
Early meeting of the Society for Philosophy in Practice in Conway Hall, London, with Tim LeBon and Antonia Macaro
Between graduating from Aberdeen and starting my masters degree, I became actively involved in philosophical counselling. I was a committee member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), along with my friend, the psychotherapist and author, Tim LeBon, who is also now involved with Stoicism. I began publishing articles in their journal, with one on ‘Philosophical & Counter-Philosophical Practice’ (1998), and later ‘REBT, Philosophy and Philosophical Counselling’ (2000). I was searching for a better way to combine my interests in philosophy and cognitive therapy.
Around this time, I stumbled across Pierre Hadot’s Plotinus, or The Simplicity of Vision, probably shortly after it was released in 1998. I loved this book and over the next few years I also read Hadot’s others: What is Ancient Philosophy?, Philosophy as a Way of Life, and his book on Marcus Aurelius, The Inner Citadel. Suddenly I realized that Stoicism combined all of my interested and I began immersing myself in reading the ancient Stoics. (That was about a quarter of century ago now, at the time of writing this summary.)
Sheffield University
In 1998, I enrolled part-time on the MA program in Psychoanalytic Studies at Sheffield University’s interdisciplinary Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies. This was really a course comparing academic philosophy and psychotherapy, mainly psychoanalysis. My dissertation was on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism and Freudian psychoanalysis. I also studied a lot of Jacques Lacan at this time, and other postmodern thinkers, which weren’t really to my taste. I graduated with distinction in 2000. I was already starting to question psychoanalysis and losing interest in existentialism by the time the course began. During my time at Sheffield, I became progressively more interested in the relationship between Stoicism and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). By around 2003, I had left behind my interest in psychoanalytic therapy and was completely immersed in Stoicism, reading many more books on the subject.
Why didn’t I do my PhD in philosophy? When I graduated from Aberdeen, everyone assumed I’d go on to have a career in academic philosophy. I didn’t have much money, though, and, to my surprise, despite having a first, I was turned down for funding to do a PhD. I looked hard for an alternative, and found my way on to the integrative program at Sheffield, which seemed to be the best option I could afford at the time. Later, when I was earning more money, I tried to enroll on several PhD programs. Now I had both a 1st class degree in philosophy and a masters with distinction in philosophy and psychotherapy. However, I wanted to write my thesis on Stoic philosophy and CBT, and at that time could not find either a psychotherapy or philosophy department who would agree to supervise me. They told me they didn’t have anyone who knew enough about either subject to act as supervisor. (I could probably solve that problem now but I no longer feel the need to do a PhD.)
Harley Street Psychotherapist
After completing my studies at Sheffield, I carried on training in and practicing psychotherapy and counselling. I worked for about a year as a school counsellor for a youth drugs project in South London. Soon after this, I opened a private psychotherapy clinic in Harley Street, London, where I worked for many years, specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders. I also ran a training school for psychotherapists. I wrote many articles for magazines and journals, and gave many conference presentations, including on Stoicism and psychotherapy. A lot of these publications are not online but one of them, for the largest British counselling journal, the magazine of the BACP, was an introduction to Stoicism for therapists, published in 2005. I called it Stoic Philosophy as Psychotherapy. (Bizarrely, the BACP editor didn’t like Stoicism or CBT and renamed it “Stoicism, a lurking presence”, without my consent.)
Between 2006 and 2010, I was also part of the team responsible for a research project called Coping with Noise, in collaboration with Defra, the UK department for the environment, and the department for health. I designed online CBT based protocols for stress and insomnia and we gathered data on the outcomes, which were published in peer-reviewed journals.
Around 2008, roughly, I went for an interview at one university well-known for psychotherapy, in order to apply for their PhD program in philosophy and psychotherapy. They said they’d accept me on their program but I declined because, to be blunt, the member of staff who interviewed me seemed at the time, and in retrospect, like a real idiot. She made some shockingly inappropriate and unprofessional remarks about other students. She also told me that students are viewed as a nuisance by staff and not to expect much in exchange for my fees, etc. She said she thought CBT was a waste of time and that I should be studying postmodern theory and psychoanalysis instead. I left feeling pretty disillusioned – there was no way I was going to pay these people tuition fees or dedicate years of my life to studying in their establishment!
Frustrated, I suddenly decided that if I couldn’t find anyone to supervise my PhD thesis, I would just write it anyway, and try to get it published. I wrote a proposal for a book called How to Think Like a Roman Emperor in 2009, which I sent to Karnac, a British publisher who specialized in psychotherapy. Karnac rejected the proposal but suggested I resubmit with a title about philosophy and CBT. So I renamed it and it was subsequently published as The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy: Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy (2010). That would have been the basis of my PhD thesis, if I could have found an academic supervisor. Instead, it launched my career as a writer, and is now in its second revised edition, and has been translated into several languages.
Rather than pursue an academic PhD, I continued to train in different models of psychotherapy. I had already been incorporating elements of CBT in my clinical work for many years, and completed a diploma with Prof. Stephen Palmer. I went on to complete an advanced postgraduate diploma in cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy at Kings College, University of London, in 2011.
Around this time, I was also invited by an editor at Hodder, to write a book on CBT, Stoicism, and psychological resilience, called Build your Resilience (2012), for their popular Teach Yourself self-help series. I followed this up with another book for the same series, called Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (2013), which proved very popular and is now in its second revised edition, and available in several foreign languages.
Photoshoot at Conway Hall in London for a 2012 newspaper article on ancient Greek philosophy with Jules Evans and Tim LeBon
Modern Stoicism
A few years after The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy was published, I was invited by Christopher Gill, emeritus professor of Ancient Thought at Exeter University in England, to attend a workshop there on Stoic philosophy and its practical applications, in Oct 2012. (There’s a video of the event on Facebook.)
We formed a multi-disciplinary team of academic philosophers, classicists, psychologists, and cognitive therapists. Our first project was to create an online course called Stoic Week, which subsequently ran every year, and in which an estimated 20k people have now participated. I later developed a more in-depth online course called Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training (SMRT), which we used to collect more robust data on psychological outcomes. Modern Stoicism also organizes an annual conference called Stoicon, which has led to many smaller Stoicon-x events around the world. It is now incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the UK.
Recent Developments
I started studying Stoic philosophy roughly 25 year ago, around 1998, and soon after that began writing articles and giving talks at conferences, etc. From around 2009 onward, when I began writing The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (2010), I started dedicating most of my time to Stoicism. I wrote Build your Resilience (2012) and Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (2013). In June 2013, I emigrated from the UK to Canada, and subsequently became a naturalized Canadian citizen.
In 2018, I visited Athens for the first time, and have returned many times since. I became a full-time writer, when St. Martin’s Press published my book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2019). How to Think Like a Roman Emperor has since been translated into eighteen languages.
I subsequently wrote a graphic novel called Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2021) for St. Martin’s, followed by a prose biography of Marcus Aurelius for Yale University Press’ Ancient Lives series (in press). I obtained my Greek residence permit around 2020 and now divide my time mostly between Canada and Greece. I didn’t get far with Hebrew as a teen but later I picked up some ancient Greek studying at Aberdeen although I’ve now abandoned that to learn modern Greek, which is tricky with a Scottish accent! I’ve got a long way to go but I can read reasonably well and just about manage a short conversation.
In Jan 2022, I founded a nonprofit organization in Greece called The Plato’s Academy Centre, which aims to introduce Greek philosophy to a wider audience and to create a new international conference facility in the vicinity of Akadimia Platonos park in Athens, the original location of Plato’s Academy. You can find out more about the Plato’s Academy Centre from our website. At the moment, that’s the main project that I’m working on, along with other books, and ongoing workshops, public speaking, etc.
As someone else commented, I don’t think the Stoics would see these as distinct. We live in accord with the Logos of the Universe primarily by living in accord with our own logos, or reason.
Sure but can you say a bit more then about what sort of definition you’re looking for? Virtue is excellence of character. For Stoics that means acting consistently in accord with reason, and for practical purposes it’s divided into the cardinal virtues of wisdom, its most general form; justice or social virtue, which is wisdom applied to our relationships; and the two virtues of self mastery, temperance, or overcoming irrational desires; and courage/endurance, or overcoming irrational fears – these latter are required in order for us to live consistently in accord with wisdom and justice. That’s still quite a schematic definition, though. So are you looking for something else? If so, what sort of answer would satisfy you?
Stoicism has experienced a surge in popularity over recent years, especially during the pandemic. It can provide people with a philosophy of life that holds the promise of greater emotional resilience. Today, the original Greek philosophy is known mainly through the works of three famous Stoics from the Roman imperial period: Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. It’s also been popularized by modern authors such as Ryan Holiday and Massimo Pigliucci. I’m the author of several books that compare Stoic advice to techniques used in modern cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). So my focus is on how we can all benefit by applying Stoicism in the modern world.
Many people are unclear about how the philosophy is meant to be lived.
There is already a huge amount of Stoic self-help advice available on the Internet but I still find many people are unclear about how the philosophy is meant to be lived. It’s partly because Stoicism is quite a complex philosophy, with a lot of literature. That can make it confusing for people looking for a place to start applying it in daily life. So let’s keep things as simple and practical as possible in order answer the common question: How do I actually put Stoicism into practice in daily life?
1. The Dichotomy of Control
Epictetus was the most influential Roman Stoic teacher. He never wrote anything but his thoughts were transcribed in four volumes of Discourses by his disciple Arrian, who also published a short summary of his key teachings called the Enchiridion or Stoic Handbook. The Discourses open with a talk called On the things up to us and not up to us. The very first sentence of the Enchiridion emphasizes the same distinction:
Some things are up to us and other things are not. — Enchiridion, 1
In other words, we can see this was the starting point of Epictetus’ teachings on Stoicism. It’s also where we should begin if we want to apply Stoicism today. Epictetus didn’t use this term but people today like to call this the “Dichotomy of Control.”
It might seem like this is just a bland truism. Some things are obviously under our direct control and other things are not. That’s like saying some things are big and other things are small. However, human nature predisposes us to blur this distinction.
For example, as a cognitive therapist, I specialized in treating anxiety disorders. People who suffer from severe psychological problems typically struggle too hard, on the one hand, to control involuntary aspects of their emotion, such as trying to conceal or suppress their shaking hands, and other physiological symptoms of anxiety. They’d be better to accept these sensations and stop trying to fight against them. On the other hand, they tend to neglect aspects of their emotion that are actually voluntary, such as the amount of time they spend consciously ruminating and worrying about future events.
What, then, is to be done? To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens. — Discourses, 1.1
This basic Stoic teaching appears to have inspired The Serenity Prayer made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous and other forms of the 12 Step Program.
God, give me the Serenity To accept the things I cannot change The Courage to change the things I can And the Wisdom to know the difference.
Simply reminding ourselves of this basic distinction and drawing a clearer line between our actions and the events that befall us can help many people to cope better with stressful situations. You can do this simply by asking yourself: “What’s directly under my control in this situation and what isn’t?”
If you have more time, sit down and draw two columns on a piece of paper. Mark one “Not up to me” and the other “Up to me”. Complete the “Not up to me” column first, listing those aspects of a situation causing you stress that are not completely under your control. When you’ve listed the aspects that you worry most about, or that strike you as most important, complete the second column, “Up to me”, listing the aspects that are completely under your control.
It’s the distinction between what you do and what merely happens to you.
Epictetus makes it clear, in the remainder of the passage, that, in a nutshell, the only things truly “up to us” are our own actions. He means our voluntary actions, and he’s including the things we choose to say to others or to ourselves, our voluntary thoughts, under that heading. Our own voluntary thoughts and actions are “up to us” and everything else is, at least in part, “not up to us”. It’s the distinction between what you do and what merely happens to you. The Stoics practiced a form of “mindfulness” called prosoche in Greek, which consists in continually observing our own thoughts and actions. This means learning to pay more attention, not just in stressful situations, but throughout the rest of life. You can begin by observing, whenever possible, the distinction between what you are actively doing and what you are passively experiencing.
This is the most fundamental Stoic psychological strategy for developing emotional resilience. The next strategy is slightly more advanced, and provides the foundation of modern cognitive psychotherapy. The third strategy, though, takes us beyond self-help and psychotherapy, into the realm of ethics. As we’ll see, Stoicism is not just a therapy but a whole philosophy of life and set of moral values.
2. Cognitive Distancing
Ancient Stoic philosophy was the original philosophical inspiration for cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), the leading form of modern evidence-based psychotherapy. Cognitive therapies are based on cognitive models of emotion, which hold that feelings such as anger, fear, and sadness, are actually based upon underlying beliefs. For instance, someone who is afraid will typically believe that something catastrophic is about to happen, and that they won’t be able to cope when it does. They might be mistaken about this in a number of ways, such as over-estimating the probability or severity of the threat, or under-estimating their ability to deal with it. Most people assume that their feelings are separate from their thoughts. However, countless research studies have shown that when people change the relevant beliefs their emotions tend to change as a result.
When the originators of CBT were looking for a way to explain this to clients, they remembered another famous quote from near the start of Epictetus’ Enchiridion.
It is not events that upset us but rather our opinions about them. — Enchiridion, 5
We can tell this doctrine was fundamental to the Stoicism of Epictetus because he frequently talked to his students about it. Marcus Aurelius, who was greatly influenced by Epictetus, also mentions the same idea many times, applying it in a variety of different ways.
As you’ve already seen, Epictetus says we should focus more on our own voluntary thoughts and actions. Building upon that, we are now asked to realize that our thoughts shape our emotions, more than we normally realize. So we should pay close attention, whenever possible, to the interaction between our thoughts, actions and feelings, especially the way that our underlying value judgments, or beliefs about what is important, affect our emotions.
What if you’ve been looking at the world through “catastrophic” lenses?
Aaron T. Beck, one of the pioneers of cognitive therapy, used the following analogy. Imagine that you have a pair of colored glasses, e.g., rose-tinted spectacles, or for our purposes, perhaps, gloomy dark-blue ones. Suppose you’ve been wearing them so long that you don’t even realize anymore and just assume the whole world looks gloomy and blue — as if that’s just the color things are in reality. One day, though, you take the glasses off and look at them instead of looking through them. You now realize that the lenses were blue, not the world. You’ve separated the blueness of the lenses from the external events you were looking at through them. What if you’ve been looking at the world through “catastrophic” lenses? Noticing this means separating or “distancing” your thoughts (or lenses) from the external events to which they refer.
Early cognitive therapists believed it was important for clients to realize how their thoughts and beliefs (“cognitions”) were influencing their feelings. That meant they could potentially view the same events in alternative ways, and experience different emotions. This separation of our thoughts from external events is called “cognitive distancing”. Cognitive distancing was initially thought of as a necessary precursor to cognitive disputation, the process of questioning our own beliefs, by examining the evidence for and against them, and so on.
However, the next generation of cognitive-behavioral therapists discovered that it could help people even if they did not go on to dispute their underlying beliefs. Gaining cognitive distance tends to dilute the intensity of our emotions and it also increases our cognitive flexibility, our ability to view things from different perspectives, which usually leads to better problem-solving and better coping in general. We don’t need to disprove our unhealthy beliefs, in other words, as long as we are able to loosen the grip they have over our minds.
The Stoics already knew this, though — over two thousand years ago! Simply bearing in mind Epictetus’ famous maxim that it’s not things that upset us but rather our opinions about them can be enough to help us create distance between our thoughts and the external events to which they refer. Marcus Aurelius also refers to the “separation” of thoughts and events in this way many times. Epictetus also mentions a related technique, similar to ones found in modern psychotherapy.
Straightway then practice saying to every troubling appearance, “You are just an impression [or thought], and not at all what you claim to represent.” — Enchiridion, 1
In other words, we should address our upsetting thoughts in the second person, as though we’re talking to them, and tell ourselves that they are just thoughts or impressions and not to be confused with external events. For instance, if you lose your job and feel as if something catastrophic has happened to you, you might say: “You are just the thought ‘Something catastrophic has happened!’ and not the event itself.” In modern therapy, we often ask clients to practice saying: “I notice right now that I’m having the thought ‘Something catastrophic has happened!’” Of course, you would substitute whatever thoughts are troubling you at the time.
This was a ongoing practice for ancient Stoics. Indeed, being always mindful of our thoughts in this way, and noticing how they influence our emotions, can help us to gain more cognitive flexibility. Particularly if you sometimes feel overwhelmed by your emotions, it’s a good idea to train yourself to identify the thoughts involved and to practice viewing them as if they were someone else’s thoughts, i.e., from a more objective point of view. Think of it as though you’re stepping away from your upsetting thoughts and viewing them from one side, rather than becoming so immersed in them, that you view reality through them.
3. The Goal of Life
As I mentioned earlier, Stoicism ismorethan just a psychological therapy — it’s also an ethical philosophy. In the ancient world, as today, though, many people were first attracted to the philosophy because it offered them a way of coping with stress and improving their emotional resilience. In a sense, we have to manage our desires and emotions first, before we can reason clearly about the goal of life.
The real core of Stoicism is its ethical teaching that “virtue is the only true good”.
The real core of Stoicism is its ethical teaching that “virtue is the only true good”. The goal of life, according to the Stoics, is for us to achieve our true potential, as rational beings, by living consistently in accord with wisdom and virtue. Marcus Aurelius, for instance, constantly reminds himself to avoid distractions and focus his attention on his real goal, the most important thing in life. For Stoics that’s arete, which is usually translated as “virtue”, but I prefer to describe it as moral wisdom.
The Stoics employed several philosophical arguments to support their doctrine that moral wisdom is the only true good. The most important, though, goes back to Socrates, their main forerunner. In Plato’s dialogue called Euthydemus, Socrates asks his interlocutor to define “good fortune”. (This is a much simplified account of the dialogue.) He is told that wealth, reputation, noble birth, health, good looks, and so on, are obviously what most people consider to constitute good fortune in life. Socrates proceeds, though, to argue that none of these things are inherently good or bad, but rather they’re indifferent or morally neutral.
He begins with the easy example of wealth. Sure, if you give a lot of money to someone wise and virtuous, that seems good, because it allows them to do more wise and virtuous things —having access to more money can give them more influence over their environment. However, what if you give a lot of money to someone foolish and vicious? Won’t it just allow them to do more foolish and vicious things as a result, and to cause more harm in the world? Wealth, in itself, is neither good nor bad, but what matters is the use we make of it, which may be either foolish or wise, vicious or virtuous. Money gives us certain practical advantages but that can allow bad people to do more evil, or good people to do more good. You could say that it is merely a means to an end, rather than something good in itself.
Socrates goes on to say that this applies to all of the external goods that his friend listed. All of them merely give us more power to influence the world, which is used well by the wise, but badly by the foolish. Socrates therefore concludes that the only truly good thing is the wisdom or knowledge that allows us to use external advantages well, and folly or ignorance in this regard is the greatest evil that afflicts mankind.
The Stoics likewise believed that most of our problems are caused by confusing these external advantages with our true goal in life. In modern psychotherapy, one of the leading evidence-based treatments for clinical depression (called “behavioral activation”) is based on a similar idea: that depressed people tend to place too much importance on the outcome of their actions, such as gaining wealth or reputation, and not enough on developing certain character traits they gain fulfilment from, such as being a good friend, or exhibiting courage, etc. When people focus more attention, and more effort on embodying their core values, they tend to become less depressed.
Marcus, for example, frequently asked himself before undertaking an action whether doing it was unnecessary in relation to the supreme goal of life, the goal of attaining moral wisdom.
For the greatest part of what we say and do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself, “Is this one of the unnecessary things?” Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after. — Meditations, 4.24
We’re constantly distracted, throughout life, by things that aren’t really important, and neglect the things we all believe, on reflection, to make life worthwhile. Nobody, lying on their deathbed, has ever said: “I wish I’d spent more time arguing with strangers on social media!” We need to consider very deeply what we want our lives to stand for and then make a conscious effort to keep dedicating our activity, each day, to that goal.
When you’re about to do something that you think might potentially be a distraction or waste of your time: stop and think. Ask yourself: “Will this contribute to my long term happiness and well-being?” Or will it perhaps even lead you in the opposite direction? Strictly speaking, a Stoic would probably ask “Does this action contribute to living in accord with Nature?”
Be content if you shall live the rest of your life in such ways as your nature wills. Observe then what it wills, and let nothing else distract you. For you have had experience of many wanderings without having found happiness anywhere — not in syllogisms, nor in wealth, nor in reputation, nor in pleasure, nor anywhere. Where is it then? In doing what man’s nature requires. — Meditations, 8.1
When the Stoics describe the goal of life as “living in accord with Nature”, that can seem a bit obscure to modern readers. What they mean is in accord with man’s higher nature, as a reasoning animal, i.e., living rationally. We’re told that for Stoics it was synonymous with living wisely and virtuously.
A related technique, described by Galen, Marcus Aurelius’ physician, involves beginning each day by imagining two paths ahead of you — as though you’re standing at a fork in the road. On the left would be your day ahead if you allow yourself to be guided by the unhealthy passions, such as fear and anger, which the Stoics opposed. On the right would be the same series of events if you were to exercise wisdom, fairness, kindness, self-discipline, endurance, or whatever character strengths or virtues reason tells you are worth admiring.
These three exercises are only a small part of ancient Stoicism. However, I think they provide a good basis for Stoic practice today. They’re relatively easy to learn and less confusing than trying to do everything at once. I think the ancient Stoics would recognize them as some of the foundation stones of their whole philosophy of life.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Stoics, though, and the other techniques that can be found in the ancient writings, my books How to Think Like a Roman Emperor and Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius provide many examples. Of course, you’ll also potentially gain a much deeper understanding of the ancient Stoic texts if you spend some time each day practicing these Stoic exercises.
What does it mean to be a great leader? How can leadership help others to succeed? And how should we define success in the modern world? If you’re interested in these questions, this is the online event for you!
When you register you’ll have the option to donate an amount of your choosing (or even nothing).* All proceeds go toward the Plato’s Academy Centre nonprofit. Not available or in a different time zone? Don’t worry as recordings will be provided afterwards if you book your tickets now. Thanks for your support – it helps us to keep running these events in the future. (If you do not wish to make a donation, though, you can use the promo code NODONATION.)
Each speaker will share with you their knowledge and captivating insights into philosophy and leadership, including real life examples, practical advice, and effective strategies.
Speakers
Additional speakers and presentation titles to be confirmed shortly!
Keynote: Justin Stead, CEO of Radley, founder of the Aurelius Foundation (30 min.)
Donald Robertson, author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor and Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, president of Plato’s Academy Centre (20 min)
Kasey Pierce, editor of Verissimus and 365 Ways to be More Stoic
Vitaliy Katsenelson, author of Soul in the Game
Tom Morris, author of The Everyday Patriot and If Aristotle Ran General Motors
Diane Kalen-Sukra,author of Save Your City, and founder of civic leadership academy
Andrew McConnell, author of Get out of My Head
Ivan Biava, Senior Customer Director at Omie, founder of Estoicismo Prático
Tiišetšo Maloma,author of Ubuntu Stoicism
Artemios Miropoulos , author of The Nameless King:15 Stories of Leadership from Ancient Greece
Eugenia Manolidou, founder of Elliniki Agogi
Mick Mulroy, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for the Middle East. Senior Fellow for National Security and Defense Policy with the Middle East Institute, an Analyst for ABC News, and the Lobo Institute’s Co-founder
Anya Leonard, founder of Classical Wisdom Weekly
Dr. Sean Lyon, Professor of Leadership and Management, Department of Management, University of Guelph
NB: Details may be subject to change without prior notification.
Who will be hosting?
Our hosts will be Donald Robertson, the president of the Plato’s Academy Centre, and Anya Leonard, the founder and director of the Classical Wisdom website.
About Plato’s Academy Centre
The Plato’s Academy Centre is a new nonprofit, based in Greece, run by a multidisciplinary team of volunteers from around the world. Our mission is to make ancient Greek philosophy more accessible to a wider international audience and to celebrate the legacy of Plato’s Academy in Athens. Everyone is welcome to join us.
FAQ
Will recordings be available? Yes, everyone who orders a ticket in advance will automatically have access after the event to recordings of all presentations. So don’t worry if you’re unavailable at these times or located in another time zone.
Will it be too academic for me? While many of our speakers are notable academics, the sessions are aimed at a nonacademic audience.
How much does it cost? We’re making it free to register, so it’s available to the widest possible audience, but you’ll have the opportunity to make a donation, amount of your choosing. As a rough guide, tickets for a physical conference like this might normally cost €150. Your generosity helps support our nonprofit’s work and allows us to reach more people through future events. *If you do not wish to donate anything whatsoever, you may contact us directly to apply for a free ticket or simply enter the promo code NODONATION when booking.
Where can I get updates? Follow our Facebook Event page and our Twitter account for updates on this event.
Thanks
We’re grateful to our board of advisors, Orange Grove incubator, Classical Wisdom, and the Aurelius Foundation, for their support in bringing you this event. Special thanks to Phil Yanov, Gabriel Fleming, and Kasey Robertson for their help organizing the event.
We’re delighted to announce that our new graphic novel Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius is currently among Amazon’s top-rated books in the Ancient Roman History category, with an average rating of 4.8 stars from nearly 100 reviewers.
On its release, Verissimus was chosen as an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best History Book.
See our publisher, MacMillan’s website for more information and links to other booksellers. Verissimus is available in both hardback and ebook format from all good bookstores.
I am delighted to announce that I will be running my elearning course How to Live Like Socrates, which lasts four weeks, starting on Sunday 4th September. Enroll now if you want to join us! I will be delivering the webinars live from Athens, the birthplace of Socrates!
This is the first time I’ve run the course in over two years. It used to run 2-3 times per year but I’ve been busy writings books. I am currently working on a new book about Socrates. So some of that original material will find itself into the course this time around!
