Stoic News

By Dave Kelly

Friday, January 30, 2004

Buddhist Retreat by John Horgan

"Four years ago, I joined a Buddhist meditation class and began talking to (and reading books by) intellectuals sympathetic to Buddhism. Eventually, and regretfully, I concluded that Buddhism is not much more rational than the Catholicism I lapsed from in my youth; Buddhism's moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with science—or, more generally, with modern humanistic values."

Friday, January 16, 2004

A. C. Lloyd : "Emotion and Decision in Stoic Psychology" In
John M. Rist (ed.): The Stoics


"The Stoa gave a place to images earlier in the epistemic process: they were to be involved in sense perception itself. Moreover, neither process could proceed from a mere "judgment" to belief or to action without an act of assent. (This is familiar from Augustine to Descartes and Malebranche, none of whom learned it from Plato or Aristotle.) Stoics were willing to treat images themselves as objects of assent, so that the distinction of image (representation) and judgment tended to dissolve."

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

PTypes - Habit in Epictetus' Discourses

"Every habit and faculty is maintained and increased by the corresponding actions: the habit of walking by walking, the habit of running by running....For it is impossible for habits and faculties, some of them not to be produced, when they did not exist before, and others not be increased and strengthened by corresponding acts."

Moral Character: Hexis, Habitus and 'Habit' by Joseph Malikail

"References are frequent to Arstotle's emphasis on habit in discussions of moral development. However, the connotation of the term is emaciatingly more limited in scope than the conceptually kindred terms Aristotle used. The historical or cultural factors leading to the change are briefly described. The paper is mainly an attempt to analyze the content of the two terms: Hexis and Disposition and their distinct significance in Aristotle's moral psychology. Past and contemporary thinkers are drawn on to clarify or endorse Aristotle's ideas as well as to suggest their relevance to moral education."