For those of us who live our lives in the real world, there is one branch of philosophy created just for us: Stoicism. A brief synopsis and definition on this particular school of Hellenistic philosophy: Stoicism was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC, but was famously practiced by … Continued
Robert Wright is an award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of Nonzero, The Moral Animal, and The Evolution of God, which was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has taught in the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania and the religion department at Princeton University. Wright draws … Continued
Of all the problems facing humanity, which should we focus on solving first? How can we do the most good for the world? How can we make the best use of our time here, for others, but for ourselves too? Those are some of the questions that drives everything WIll MacAskill does. Will is the … Continued
This is a guest post by Ward Farnsworth. Ward is the dean of the University of Texas School of Law, as well as the author of a new book, The Practicing Stoic. After our well-received interview with Ward, we wanted him to clear up in more depth how Stoicism is often misunderstood. *** My new … Continued
There’s an inconsistency that sneaks into our relationship with time. There never seems to be enough of it in the day. We’ll get to it later, we say. Maybe we say yes to too many things, maybe there’s comfort in pushing things to later, or maybe we’re just unaware that our priorities are misplaced. The … Continued
That the works of the original Stoics survive still today is truly remarkable. That you can walk into a Barnes & Noble today, wander to the philosophy section, and grab a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Discourses by Epictetus, or Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, and that hundreds and thousands of people have … Continued
Death. It terrorizes. It paralyzes. If it doesn’t keep us up at night, it wakes us up. It is so certain to come for all of us but when and what follows is so uncertain. We know what we have here and knowing is comforting. Not knowing what awaits there, in death, has tortured minds … Continued
The National Football League, like all professional sports, is all about the quantifiable, right? Winning trumps everything, so franchises fill rosters with players whose stats jump off the page. They draft the college quarterback who threw the most touchdowns, the running back who won the Heisman Trophy, the wide receiver who runs the fastest 40-yard … Continued
The name Gaius Musonius Rufus may not sound familiar, but the work of “the foremost stoic of his day,” as Roman historian Tacitus prefers referring to him, will. Musonius’s influence in Stoicism was and is substantial. Equally so is the praise spoken in his name by those who were well familiar with it. Origen, himself … Continued
Memento Mori is a Latin term that translates to “remember that you will die,” and has been illustrated in numerous works of art. While the expression may sound somber, the point of Memento Mori is to serve as a reminder of our mortality so as to make best use of the time we have now. … Continued