Stoic News

By Dave Kelly

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Stoicism and clinical depression

"Chronic stress may arise when, for example, there is a loss of a loved one (spouse, son, etc.), when the person cannot find a job, when a person feels that there is nothing useful they can do, when a person moves to a place or city they dislike intensely and feel they can't get out of it, during sustained military conflict or imprisonment, and similar situations."

Monday, August 23, 2004

A Stoic approach to dealing with manipulators

"I'm currently studying the problem of dealing with manipulative people. Harriet Braiker, in her book Who's_Pulling_Your_Strings?, takes a very Stoic approach to this problem, which everyone faces at times in their personal relations."

Monday, August 16, 2004

Injustice and Harm

"The Stoic, when treated unjustly, recognises no harm to themselves, for the injustice causes harm to the agent" (Keith Seddon).

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

A Stoic meditation

"Like Buddhists, Stoics also have a meditation technique, or exercise, which has as its goal peace of mind and rationality. Elen Buzare has written a paper, "Stoic Spiritual Exercises" which includes a representation of this meditation technique, which Pierre Hadot calls the fundamental spiritual exercise of Stoicism."

Monday, August 09, 2004

Epictetus [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

"The key to transforming oneself into the Stoic sophos (wise person) is to learn what is ‘in one’s power’, and this is ‘the correct use of impressions’ (phantasiai), which in outline involves not judging as good or bad anything that appears to one."