Intro Philosophy

What are some good introductory readings for someone getting into philosophy? Particularity stoicism.
I already have an introductory textbook, currently reading through 'Meditations'..

The best Stoicism book is the Discourses of Epictetus.

Seneca has some nice books too, but he was sometimes soft on vice and sometimes defended his greed.

Cicero in some ways could count, but he was not a Stoic.

meditations is a meme book, only famous due to its written by an emperor (le philosopher king meme)

If you took a course on philosophy you would never read it
If you took a course on ancient philosophy you would probably get a brief mention of it
If you took a course on stoicism most of the course would be devoted to other works (cicero, epictetus, seneca etc) which are arguably much better works than that

I have nothing against Marcus but I think he is memed to an extreme, call me a hipster but I wish his work was less famous

The big three stoics are Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. Then Cicero. One thing to note is that most ancient life philosophies in practice differ literally. Stoic life philosophy has some more developed and explicit texts which makes it easier to get into.

>Cicero in some ways could count, but he was not a Stoic.

He studied all the schools, and took parts of all of them. He accepted Stoic ethics and view on life, and felt that Romans should adopt these views. He didn't accept stoic metaphysics, and critqiued some of their concepts. As such, Cicero's Stoicism is more accessible. Epictetus' The Discourses is similar, in that Lucius Flavius Arrianus cut out all the physics, logic, and esoteric teachings of the stoics, and focused only on Epictetus' moral teachings.

and to answer your question, read epictetus
but personally I like seneca the most, his work on shortness of life is my favorite ancient writing.

The Meditations is a perfectly fine book. It's filled with tons of get motivational speeches, and perspectives on the human condition. It isn't terribly bogged down by abstract philosophizing or terminology. As such, it's highly accessible to people.

There are a few other works that I would add to these as "essentials":

>Epictetus - The Discourses, - The Handbook

>Seneca - Moral Letters

Some of the other essays by Seneca are at least as if not more important than the letters)

>Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

>Cicero - On Aging, On Duties and Stoic Paradoxes by

Plus the Stoicism sections of On Ends, On Fate, and On the Nature of the Gods, plus maybe Tusculan Disputations.

>The lectures of Musonius Rufus

Less essential, but still important:

>Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.

Boethius was not a Stoic, but most (but not all) of the ideas here are the same as in Stoic philosophy.

>Xenophon's Memorabilia and Apology of Socrates

This is reportedly what inspired Zeno to study philosophy in the first place.

>Plato's dialogues

Some present ideas that the Platonists shared with Stoics, and others strongly conflict.

There are some anthologies already that you might be interested in, but all have problems.

>The Essential Works of Stoicism edited by Moses Hadas

Includes the Meditations, the Enchiridion, Seneca's On Tranquility, and the chapter on Zeno from Diogenes Laertius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent philosophers. This is a small paper back, nicely done, but out of print.

>The Stoic's Bible

Contains abridgements of dozens of different works of interest to Stoics (but many not Stoic). The selections are interesting, but I find his abridgement problematic, and (more trivially) the layout and font choice is ugly and sometimes hard to read.

I wonder though, how popular would that book be if written by say Seneca or Cicero (assuming they will write such a thing) one will never know
or maybe a work by seneca would be much more popular had it written by marcus

Probably not as popular. But that's not the issue. His status as Emperor, gives some prestige to the work and stoicism as a whole. Being accessible is great, because stoicism is meant to be a lived philosophy. Often after people say they've read it, I recommend The Discourses as a follow up. The two make a nice 1-2 combo.

As a work, I consider it almost like a prayer book. You can pick one out at random to read to yourself before bed, or to start a discussion among people.

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If you want an intro to stoicism don't read Epictetus, Aurelius or Seneca first or perhaps at all since you don't actually need them. Without prior understanding of the way Greeks thought, a number of Greek terms and what they mean (since translations invariable destroy the distinctions between the old word and the new, hence why good translations leave the key terms untranslated or are rigorous about the translated word and use a key), and an understanding of what virtue ethics is you will probably misunderstand 90% of what you read with the other 10% being only kinda right.
It also doesn't help that between Seneca, Epictetus and Aurelius none of them give us the things to make sense of what they have written. Ethics needs to sit inside a consistent world of epistemology, metaphysics and logic to make sense. None of them wrote on these subjects which is another reason you should read an introduction to stoicism first.
To be honest I would say that any modern book written by a PhD whose focus was on virtue ethics or on the Greeks would do you justice as an introduction.

>stoicism
>cicero
user, you were doing so well.

>The big three stoics are Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca
>Then Cicero
REEEEEEEEEE

It's true that Cicero is not a strict Stoic, but somehow this idea got around that he shouldn't be studied for stoicism. Cicero did not believe in the metaphysics of stoics, but believed their values and ethics were what Romans should adopt, so he tried to popularize stoicism. Most people who study stoicism however, aren't interesting in the esoteric metaphysics anyways, so it's no real loss. Most people end up having the same views on Stoicism as Cicero.

He critques and rejects certain elements of stoicism, and his stoicism is distilled to an ethics and view on how to live your life. It's functionally not different than The Discourses by Epictetus, which is itself distilled to just ethics by Flavius Arrianus.

Also key to note, is that Cicero had access to stoic texts from Zeno and others that are now lost. Meaning his summaries and quotations of stoic texts are one of the major sources of them.

>Cato Maior de Senectute

Stoic approach to aging and death. Literally says "Whatever befalls in accordance with Nature should be accounted good.".

>Paradoxa Stoicorum

Explaining several stoic phrases taht seem paradoxical, like "Virtue is the only good"

>Tusculanae Disputationes

Attempting to popularize stoic philosophy

>Dialogues

On Ends, On Fate, On the Natue of the Gods, all have Stoic views contrasted with others.

>De Divinatione

Stoics, and many others in Rome, believed that the Gods can give us signs through various means (birds, dreams, etc). Cicero disputes that. Most people studying stoicism aren't going to start looking up at birds for signs, so it's not like his critique here is a major departure from what current stoics actually practice.

I disagree.
Epictetus' style of Ethics does not need Stoic physics. It is compatible with the physics of pretty much every Ancient school of ethics, including the Epicureanism he disliked.

>Epictetus' style of Ethics does not need Stoic physics.

My feeling is that Epictetus taught Logic, physics, and ethics, along with studying stoic texts. However, Arrianus felt that the ethics were the most useful, so he converted his ethics lecture notes into The Discourses and The Handbook, likely trimming down any physics and terminology he felt wasn't needed. As such, Epictetus was likely then not any kind of a break from mainline stoic thinking, just that we have a text that focuses solely on their ethics.

He probably taught Stoics logic and Stoics physics too, and probably believed in it. But the ethics he taught didn't need the other parts of Stoicism (of course, it needs to be logical). It is independent.

Stoicism as practiced by numales who read Meditations once and think Aurelius is a model Stoic is shit. Every time I see someone start talking about being a "Stoic" and citing Marcus I'm reminded that even something so seemingly esoteric as Stoicism attracts more dilettantes and pretenders than actual practitioners.

Regardless, anyone who is serious about practicing Stoicism will eventually encounter Theravada Buddhism and realize that it's very similar but superior in every way.

"Stoicism" is very popular among Chads who want to pretend to be philosophers and numales who want to pretend to be emotionless hardasses. The numale stereotype, the liberal atheist who thinks he's really smart and always wants to impress people with how educated and worldly he is, will almost always cite Stoicism as his personal philosophy. He imagines that this provides him with a moral structure without the need to rely on religion (showing how little Stoic writing he's actually read) and he knows that the average person will know absolutely nothing about it, so that even his minimal knowledge will seem impressive.

I see this a lot and it's almost always the same kind of guys doing it. You can basically tell whether someone has a brain or is just a retarded dilettante based on which Stoics they mention by name. If someone cites Epictetus, they're probably ok. If someone cites Aurelius, there's an extremely high likelihood that they're a numale poser. That's just the facts, boys.

Like the first fucking page of Meditations is Aurelius mentioning how thankful he is to the friend who loaned him a copy of Epictetus' discourses. Come on man, apply yourself.

Stoicism is a practical philosophy and Epictetus' discourses are intended to explain it so that readers can understand it in both theory and practice. It's intended to teach you.

Aurelius' writings are, again his own personal diary intended primarily to aid him in keeping certain things in mind which he had already learned. It offers very little in the way of explanation because, again, he was writing it for his own personal use. It's interesting from a historical and biographical standpoint but virtually useless from a philosophical one. More importantly, it offers absolutely nothing new. This is not necessarily a criticism, because it wasn't intended to. It is just Marcus writing down things he wants to remember from his readings of philosophy.

It's like we have a novel and a guy who wrote a book report on it and you're here saying that you don't see the difference between the two and that you actually prefer the book report to the original work. It's sad.

>Buddhism
>superior in every way
You had me up until there user

Buddhists came up with this shit hundreds of years before Greeks, and they did it better too.

beautiful eyes.

Cicero was a kike laywer.

Seneca is more accessible. You should start with him, and then Epictetus. The Meditations were more so a vade mecum than a work meant to help others. Donald Robertson also has a few good podcasts.
Stoicism is a rough journey if you want to embark on it. It requires a more thorough and scholarly analysis than simply reading one author or another. You need to understand why Epictetus professes the philosophy that he does.
That being said, look up "The Therapy of Desire" by Martha Nussbaum. Her chapters on Stoicism are helpful. Or, for a source antiquated but also helpful, Arius Didymus' "Stoic Ethics".

Not to purposely shitup the discussion but wasn't Aurelious a literal cuck?

>but wasn't Aurelious a literal cuck?

As in, he watched people have sex with his wife?

Hard to know, really. Romans had the habit of calling whoever they dislike "promiscuous". And they surely didn't like Aurelius' wife.

Is he right?

>meditations is a meme book
>If you took a course on philosophy you would never read it

meditations did its job perfectly because it was written for the common man.

Stoic Leet Pro here

Meditations was the personal diary of Marcus Aurelius, one of the Five Good Emperors. If you read Plato's Republic (which you should, because it details the Four Cardinal Virtues, and lays down some of the bedrock of Stoicism) you'll nut because Marcus is THE Philosopher King.

I'm reading the Discourses and Selected Writings of Epictetus. This was written by a student who recorded everything he could if his Stoic sage teacher said. This is arguably the Real Shit of Stoicism.

>Stoic Leet Pro here

huh?

The Discourses is a good overview of Stoic ethics, without being bogged down in any kind of terminology or metaphysics. We may be missing a Discourse or two, so reading The Handbook, is essential, as there's a few tips in there that Epictetus doesn't cover in our surviving Discourses.

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