ANT215H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Eudaimonia, Moral Evil, Pierre Hadot
LECTURE 6: EXERCISES IN STOICISM
Background to Stoicism and Philosophy
• Socrates did not belong to or initiate a philosophical school.
• At this point in time there were sophists who taught for a fee (as Socrates
discusses in the Apology) but these people did not belong to schools. There were no
schools.
• All philosophical activity was concentrated in Athens:
• Plato (the Academy),
• Aristotle (the Lyceum),
• Epicurus (the Garden),*
• Zeno (the Stoa)*
• **examination of both self and others. Also, Stoicism included a plan for living a
good life and also a philosophical doctrine
• Focuses on the self; what can an individual do to cultivate virtues that will result
in eudaimonia
• Other ways:
• society (utopia) i.e. Tamera
• social relations
• lifting the veil of illusion that prevents a true understanding of reality
• the reason we don’t have a good life is because we are misinformed of
what the real world is like
Stoicism: the underlying idea is one must reform the self in order to bring about the
aimed at way of living
• 2 famous scholars (French philosophers):
• Michel Foucault
• Concerned with the specific ways in which one relatees to oneself; the self’s
relation to itself
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• Persons directed significant effort to this
• Ethical practice is a self-reforming activity
• 4 dimensions of the self’s relation to itself (what, why, how):
1) the substance toward which one’s ethical labours are directed (e.g. pleasure, flesh
and desire, feelings),
2) the mode of subjectivation by which one is related to the rules one must follow
(e.g. duty to God, aesthetic choice etc.)
3) the techniques used to carry out the work on the self
4) the telos or ends which one hopes to achieve or, as Foucault (1997c: 265) puts it,
“
the kind of being to which we aspire.
”
• Pierre Hadot
• Described spiritual exercises as the means by which to achieve a complete
reversal of our usual ways of looking at things
• Included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of
life i.e. meditation, self-mastery, etc.
• The world “spiritual” aims to capture how these practices are aimed in the
religious traditions
• Stoic exercises is built around the practice of self-reflective thinking and practice
• Stoic school founded by Zeno of Citium who taught in the portico called the Stoa
Poikile
• Zeno seen as leading people by example and thus rewarded with the construction
of a tomb for him at the city’s expense
• Molded citizens into political leaders
• They learned not only to govern others but to govern themselves through this
philosophical training
• The Stoics required their students to keep the school's essential dogmas present in
their minds at all times through constant practices of memorization. (i.e. mantra)
• The goal was to gather the fundamental dogmas together in condensed form. A
condensed nucleus, sometimes reduced to one brief saying, which could thus have
both persuasive force and mnemonic efficacy
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
There were no schools: all philosophical activity was concentrated in athens: Also, stoicism included a plan for living a good life and also a philosophical doctrine. Stoicism: the underlying idea is one must reform the self in order to bring about the aimed at way of living: 2 famous scholars (french philosophers), michel foucault. Concerned with the specific ways in which one relatees to oneself; the self"s relation to itself. The kind of being to which we aspire. : pierre hadot. Described spiritual exercises as the means by which to achieve a complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things. Included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student"s larger way of life i. e. meditation, self-mastery, etc. Poikile: zeno seen as leading people by example and thus rewarded with the construction of a tomb for him at the city"s expense. Stoicism as a way of life: based on upon one fundamental principle, epictetus begins the the enchiridion.
