Stoic Ethics
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James Daltrey on Virtue & the use of Indifferents
By Keith Myers First of all, “indifferent” does not mean “indifference”. How can a sculptor learn to sculpt in the absence of marble? Externals are the stuff upon which virtue works. No externals, no virtue. Virtue is knowledge of the use of externals, and experience is important. You will never know how to drive a Continue reading
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Epictetus: Discourse 1.1: On What is Eph’Hemin.
There is eternal confusion over the meaning of the first chapter of the Enchiridion. What is missed is that that the Enchiridion is the Cliff Notes to a larger text, the Discourses of Epictetus compiled by his student Arrian. I have a fuller explanation of the discussion in this article:Some things are what? What does Continue reading
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Stoic Cosmology and Ethics
The Stoics had a naturalistic ethics based on an understanding of behaviors that can be identified as appropriate to any animal, in the specific case of humans, as social creatures endowed with language and language based reason, we are innately equipped with the potential to identify what is beneficial in the world, and what is… Continue reading
