The Meditations

I've suffered from depression and severe anxiety my entire life. I've tried every drug I could get my hands--anything to bring me to a different state mind. Last summer, I couldn't get out of bed for five days straight. I just curled in a ball and cried.

I just didn't "get" it... Until I read Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations." The man's words changed my entire way of thinking. How I saw death, interaction, duty. Courage, honesty. He spouts so much wisdom so plainly--and everything makes so much sense. It makes so much sense and it's all so true and right there in front of you--it's yours to seize. Or ignore, like I did--like I did, and suffered.

This book did more for me than myriad drugs, legitimate and recreational, and any doctor.

"Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future."

"Remember how long you've been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn't use them...there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return."

"Stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable."

"Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others."

"The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose."

"Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see."

Other urls found in this thread:

lmgtfy.com/?q=aurelius opium
youtube.com/watch?v=CNwOJjk1qMs&index=99&list=PL4gvlOxpKKIjwnfPgqLkLJ7cHXAqDHfBA
plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

taste the holy bible and ye shall be under the shadow of the wing of a great king of earth

Are you me? I've been going through a similar process of reflection. It's really good shit and I've been able to heed Aurelius's considerations and apply myself more willfully in day to day life.
>would recommend to depressed and anxious losers

I never really got the charm of the Stoics since their idea of a good life seems so arbitrary or at least painfully commonsensical in a normie pleb way. It's good goy: the philosophy.

Ironic you entrusted your own happiness to this fellow who degrades you for doing so, and for him for giving advice on happiness.

To me it the sound of a death rattle.

This.

funny because aurelius only had to try opium and realise that was the drug for him.

he was a junky ever since with the best stash of the empire

He speaks a lot about living like a man "as nature intended," dropping hints here and there as to what he means, but as far as I can tell it's just

1. Be excellent at what you do
2. Don't do anything unnecessary or rooted in selfishness, or for anyone else's selfishness--and this ends up being a lot of things like honesty, duty, etc.

Definitely not overtly obvious what he means as the whole book is written in reflection style.

The problem is that you lack adequate knowledge of how the Greeks and Romans thought. Modern translations will always be unsatisfactory because no words exist today which do a good job at covering the concepts they had. I have a book which spends about 300 pages explaining how the Greeks meant when they use a specific word that is usually translated as emotion and why any modern conception of that English word is immensely misleading. Another problem is people read only maybe two works of very early stoicism that just covers the ethics.

>their idea of a good life seems so arbitrary or at least painfully commonsensical in a normie pleb way
Have you read any scholarship on the stoics? Have you read anything other than the ethics of a couple of the early Greco-Romans? Because the grounding of stoicism is not mound in Epictetus or Seneca, so to only read them will not give you enough information which is probably why you think it is arbitrary.

I don't think putting a few extra workweeks of effort into the Greeks will suddenly make me realise that their obscure type of virtue ethics turns out to be the only one that isn't nonsense to be honest.

The Meditations is unironically one of the best books in existence. It's funny that Marcus writes a passage about how no one would remember him for his intellect or as a philosopher, and at the time it depressed him.

I mean, writing aside, he was ruler of an absolutely massive empire; surely he understood that people would want to pick at his thoughts in the future. He could have written fart jokes and they would have been endlessly analyzed by academics.

I dont understand how all that applies to my life
It feels like some old guy saying: "hey kid, boys dont cry, now go and be a wagecuck and be happy with it"
or
"just take ssri bruh"
im not saying Aurelius is """wrong""" but i just dont buy it
specially if you add that fag pic you posted

i think you just needed a friend to tell you what you already knew but you wanted your friend to have some kind of authority or whatever because you are somewhat pretentious, lad

It's funny how so many plebs love Meditations when Stoicism is complete nonsense.

Stoicism is based af as an easily digestible, practicable philosophy.

Are Bourdain's books any good?

lol

Kitchen Confidential is wonderful. It's a modern day Down and Out In Paris and London. Medium Raw is for big fans only. The guy writes like he talks and he's fairly smart. He dropped out of Vassar back in the day.

When will stoic-cucks learn?

>mfw normies near me would exit a smoky room but think it'd wrong to kys

>You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference?
>To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders!

They cannot possibly recover.

>t. neet

I'm interested in historical drug use, and I would like to read more about that. Do you recall where you read it?

whats the best version of this book?

dover? penguin? oxford?

porchmonkeys btfo

lmgtfy.com/?q=aurelius opium

Word

I have the Modern Library version, I don't recommend it although I do like the translation.

I think he meant that he didn't think he was profound enough to be remembered specifically as a thinker.

This has been discredited.

try Siddharta too

[citation needed]

I'm not interested in conspiracy theories, mate. Are you saying you didn't read it in a credible source? Are you saying you are perhaps full of shit?

[citation needed]

Reading it for the second time right now, it's a fantastic book.

>tfw I have both these books on my shelf unread yet I'm exactly the type of person who could benefit from reading them

Marcus Aurelius helped me as he has helped you.

Epictetus however has helped me immeasurably more. His Moral Discourses are sure to be of good use to you.

Which translation?

That depends on your personal preference.

Elizabeth Carter made a translation with relatively archaic language, which is the one I prefer. Robert Dobin made a more modern and colloquial translation.

Also, I recommend you reread both works on a regular basis to gain the greatest advantage from them. I read a chapter from one or the other first thing every morning while I have tea, and try to bear it in mind throughout the day.

Freddy's stuff is interesting to read, but he hardly ever makes a coherant point. His own life is a testament to his own beliefs and they didn't help him any. It's very easy to live with indifference because there is very little that humans need to subsist.

Also, Freddy's definition of nature is different to the Stoic one. Nietzche talks about nature as in everything, the stoics are talking about logos, and the nature of a rational creature rather than a base animal. of course N-man would be opposed to it, because he based most of his philosophy on how the animal nature is fantastic.

I respect him, but he's not right.

You should have just hanged yourself.

From a cursory Google....there's a mountain of academia discrediting it and a no name article on Jstor supporting such a claim.

Astonishing body, mediocre face.

So where do I go from Marcus, Seneca, epictetus I am for real interested?

I feel this way

Cicero, then you're pretty much done. Move on to Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, if you haven't already.

Why don't you recommend it?

It's well attested that his reading of the stoics is fundamentally wrong. To be fair though everyone was at the time. It's only in the 20th century that we have managed to more accurately understand them.

To be honest the only reason I can see for reading the ancient stoics is if you want to know what the ancient stoics thought about stuff and even then without modern scholarship you will heavily misunderstand most of what you read. There is a long literary tradition of stoicism that goes well into the 3rd and 4th century that no one ever seems to talk about and I think is much better than the more famous earlier ones but again it won't give you anything that modern scholarship won't do.

A guide to the Good Life by Irvine is a good account of a contemporary philosopher attempting to implement stoicism to better his life. While not directly stoic related MacIntyre's After Virtue helps you to understand what virtue ethics actually is because for most people it's conceptually very difficult to get your head around. Irvine's book A Guide to the Good Life is the account of a contemporary stoic he utilises stoic ideas to live his life. Since only about 10% of doing virtue ethics is actually learning about it the book does a good job at actually giving a good example of what an attempted stoic life looks like. There is also the book A New Stoicism by Becker which asks the question if stoicism was not destroyed by Christianity how would it have developed in light of other philosophic and scientific advances.

This last book is very useful. Stoicism is not a religion. It has no orthodoxy and you can find a great variety of thinkers in the tradition just in ancient times but a big problem I see many people make is they just pursue a purely scholarly vision of stocicism that exists in a 2000 year old vacuum and this book is helpful in removing that mentality in that it makes you think of it as a living, changing set of engaging ideas that are not set in stone.

I think between stoicism and Aristotelianism you have a really solid foundation for a good life. I think the cynics, while not without interest (in that there are some good things in there if you want to isolate them and take them into a different system) is a weak philosophy. Epicureanism is just shit. I find that they can be a useful gateway into the Greeks for modern people (also why I think you see people on lit and his sometimes call them amazing) but they just aren't very good. In After Virtue you can take most of MacIntyre's critiques of the enlightenment project of morality and apply them to Epicureanism.

Cicero is a Platonist and not a stoic. Also there is little point in reading Epicurus or Lucretius since the extant writings are so meager. If you want a good understanding of the philosophy Sadler did a very good set of videos on it. youtube.com/watch?v=CNwOJjk1qMs&index=99&list=PL4gvlOxpKKIjwnfPgqLkLJ7cHXAqDHfBA

I don't know why you chose to include Plato. Plato's dialogues are great and are very good at trying to simulate the way you think and interact in actually debate but you don't read his dialogues to learn about what it is that Plato himself believes. There are far, far better books which can do that. Again with Aristotle you will have the same problems you find with the stoics in that you will massively misunderstand what he is saying without modern scholarship.

Epic answer cheers

>letting your emotions override what your mind tells you

T.Love

Τhe Cynics were Stoics, it's just that they had unorthodox methods for communicating and teaching the doctrine.

Not all love is good.

Not a problem.

They are not. They are a separate tradition which was formed independently from and before stoicism. Read anything by Dudley, Shea, Navia, Sloterdijk or Desmond and you will see how different they are.

He is saying he was just memeing you autistic cunt.

Go back to some shit degenerate board with your drug studies.

I'm just calling bullshit posters our on their not-textually-supported claims. It's a long con, son.

I've almost certainly been on Veeky Forums longer than you have,

why do you think cynicism is weak? i'm most likely a moron but i find it, antinatalism, waterproof

Yup, that's solid advice.

What's the book of translations?

I feel it sidesteps a more pressing existential question. At least for me, I don't care about pleasuring myself or indulging in a hedonistic lifestyle. I see no reason to live or strive for anything considering how inconsequent all life is. I'm sure this book can help a lot of people though and it can inspire hedonists.

Having a good laugh at all the righteous stoics are telling people not to read Epicurus and Lucretius. In my experience stoics think of themselves as super rational and get triggered hard by Epicurean philosophy pointing out their bullshit.
Montesquiue said the best citizens are stoics, and it's pretty obvious why. Stoics are good little worker bees that sacrifice themselves for "honor" that rewards those in power. Homer has Akhilles btfo stoicism in the Iliad long before it even existed as a codified school. Stoicism is motivational poster-tier propaganda to get people to follow the interests of others.

Do yourself a favor and read De Rerum Natura. It's not too long, it's interesting, and a fun read. The main ideas are simple enough, but it's got enough beneath the surface to keep you coming back. It was written to be as entertaining as it is informative, unlike the dry moralism of Aurelius and his ilk. Lucretius, following Epicurus, encourages readers to make up their own minds and not take everything he says as law.

He's such an insufferable pseud. He always complains about lack of authenticity when he himself is a sniveling, pretentious Jersey asshole.

Is there any Anthony Bourdain book I should read?

I don't think there's any you should read but if you were going to read one I would say kitchen confidential.

I just got this in the mail (Penguin edition) and noticed that like half the book is notes about each paragraph.
Am I supposed to read the entire thing to "get" it, or is it more like bonus material?

This is a fundamentally misunderstanding understanding of stoicism. Stoicism has nothing to do about obedience to the state or about the submission to others. To think of stoicism as just a sort of mental therapy to help people cope with the world is misguided. Just as important to a stoic is doing good actions in the world and this would mean disobedience to the state, or your employer, of family or whatever should it mean that in doing so one is doing good. Not that they were but you could be a figure like Gandhi or Martin Luther King and be a stoic. It doesn't even have to be peaceful or that high profile. You could be a one of the Jews that fought back against the Nazis at the end of WW2.

Epicureanism is by contrast an entirely selfish philosophy and is incompatible with any political action. Here when I say political I mean it in the Greek sense which is much broader than the modern. For the Greeks it means something more like action that betters the polis and its citizens so even things like having a job or doing charity work is politcal. If an extermination camp were to be set near one of their communes there is absolutely nothing in their ethics which would compel anyone to do anything about it. In fact it's far more likely they wouldn't because of the withdrawn aspect of its community. They don't give a damn about anyone except in their ability to provide pleasure. Just a side-note, I am fully aware they are negative hedonists, let us avoid a massive digression about talking about what they mean when they say pleasure and I am also aware on their beliefs regarding the intrinsic good of long lasting friendships. You will also notice I said don't read Epicurus or Lucretius because the surviving ethical writings are so meager and only paint the philosophy in extremely broad strokes.

Cynicism has great meme value. The anecdotes of its practitioners are very humorous and memorable which is why I think it has taken off on Veeky Forums. I find cynicism to be a very limiting philosophy. If there are two options you must pick the more frugal one. It isn't a chose they are free to make. So ironically in trying to free themselves from all these things they create a new thing to which they must follow. If we look at the stoics we have gentry, the immensely rich, a slave and an emperor of arguable the most power political force on the planet. It's a philosophy that allows for a great deal of different outer lives. Cynicism only gives you one, and it is a life that is dependent on other people not being cynics so they can provide for you. If you are lucky (which to consider that part of being a cynic is generally to be an asshole to most people probably won't be so) you can earn a few coins by teaching but realistically almost everything you will get will be through begging.

Cont.

What I like about the stoics and Aristotelians is that eudaimonia is the state of being one that practices all the virtues. The important word being practices. For both this traditions it's about how you act. To be fair the early cynics did see themselves as providing a social function except you can provide that same function without being a) an enormous ass and b) being a leech. I find them far to inward looking. Cynicism is sometimes called the shortcut to virtue, that by taking the harder path you get there sooner. While you may develop a very strong and powerful inner-life it seems to be one which is more concerned about yourself than other people. While I do like many parts of it literally everything I like can be found in stoicism which also lacks the things I don't like about cynicism. A last but interesting point is that if through the dictates of practical reasoning a stoic should see the cynic life the best for this time and place they could live a life that is outwardly exactly the same as a cynic where if circumstances change so can the stoic where the cynic is stuck in the exact same life.

Cynicism is an interesting phenomenon, but is decidedly a phenomenon of the Greek polis (I am aware there were Roman cynics). It's a way of life that would only be possible in a marginal amount of societies and it requires others to be non-cynics. I find the philosophy far to small to be a path to the good life except for a very small number of people where stoicism is malleable and can be a path for a great many more people.

I'll need to get back to you on that one. I've forgotten the name and my flatmate (whose book it is) isn't back for a couple of days. I'll make a thread about it when I find out.

how can one truly understand what stoics and Aristotle were getting across then?

Why do you say this? What exactly in the Bible is equivalent to Aurelius?

You continue to talk of the good stoicism does for others. I don't disagree that if you want to help other people, you should be a stoic. But your argument is not a logical one. You call Epicureans "selfish" because their ethics are based on doing what is best for themselves, not "the people."
You criticise the cynics for relying on non-cynics. That's also not an argument. Say x is the best way for a man to live (disregard for a moment the questions of how to measure that, or if it is even possible). There is no reason to believe that x is open to everyone. There is also no reason to believe that x is sustainable if everyone attempts it. If society undergoes a major shift (for example, a philosophical perspective like cynicism, stoicism, or epicureanism suddenly being adopted by the majority) x may no longer be possible. X may no longer be the best.

You are hiding a number of dubious assumptions behind your noble rhetoric. You despise looking inward and judge based on social value. Why?

Jesus christ, learn how to fucking synthesize your verbal diarreah posts, you insufferable asshole.

Because you can read them actually discussing their own philosophy within primary sources. Plato wrote dialogues which are not meant to act anything like a treatise or tractatus. You can learn about some his philosophy from them but why anyone would want to read a thousand pages when it is often unclear which position is actually Platos' much of the time when you could read a much shorter and easier good secondary text is beyond me

I will tackle your points about the cynics first because they are so different from the Epicureans that to try to discuss both at once will lead to complications.

>I don't disagree that if you want to help other people, you should be a stoic
This is the key point here. Eudaimonia (if I am allowed to simply a very difficult term) is the state of expression of all the virtues. Virtues are things that you do and that you do for the right reason with the right mindfulness. The whole idea of virtue as understood by the Greeks makes no sense if you say you don't have to be good to other people because to be bad or indifferent to others is to fail to express key virtues, thus meaning you are not living a life of full flourishing. Doing good here can be said to be something like helping others to flourish. The cynics wouldn't disagree with this. My contention is that the cynics ultimately fail in the way they interact with other people.

>There is no reason to believe that x is open to everyone
The cynics see virtue as the only good and they see their path as the best way to achieve this. To admit that it is not best for everyone (I will get to the case of those too physically weak later) is to admit that either other peoples flourishing is not important which is an attitude incompatible with the full expression of virtue, that the cynic lifestyle is not the best which undoes their whole position or that different people require different paths which also undoes cynicism and leaves you with something that is just stoic like. There will always be people who have had too bad of an upbringing or lack the physical constitution to adequately pursue virtue but this does not effect the universalisation of the pursuit of virtue and as such is not relevant. It also does not matter who you consult, whether it is ancient figures like Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Boethius or modern figures like MacIntyre, Nussbaum there is practically undivided agreement that the virtues must be universalisable if they are to be considered virtues.

>x may no longer be possible. X may no longer be the best.
As I said before you could act outwardly like a cynic while being a stoic if the conditions were right for them to do so. That does not make them cynics, they are still stoics. If you are only choosing the cynic lifestyle because you believe that the specific circumstances make that lifestyle the best you are not a cynic. One of the major aims of cynicism is to remove all possible needs. They did a pretty bad job if that only works in extremely limited instances that is prone to change.

Epicureanism is not a system of virtue. Pleasure is the sole good. Again I will stress I am aware of that they are negative hedonists. This is why they remove themselves from society. They try to remove any ties that have so that don't have to do things they don't want to do. Again if the dictates of practical reason allowed it a stoic could live an outward life exactly the same as an Epicurean. But there will be times they would consider such a life bad where Epicureans have to live that lifestyle of be Epicureans. Since Epicureans don't believe in any other good than pleasure and they are forced to pursue the Epicurean lifestyle if one of them had to get a job incompatible with the lifestyle to stop millions of people dying far enough away it wouldn't effect them they couldn't do it.

>You are hiding a number of dubious assumptions behind your noble rhetoric
Veeky Forums is hardly the place for extremely detailed, fully cited arguments that make constant references to specific pages of long works of scholarship. We have to operate on a level of good faith.

I think that's a mischaracterization of epicureanism. To say that they couldn't do anything to prevent the deaths of millions if it means moving into the city is false. An epicurean in that situation would consider which is preferable and make a decision based on their knowledge of themself.
You talk of everything that isn't stoicism as "limiting." I really don't understand what you're getting at here. A stoic is limited to doing what stoics do in the same way. If you give yourself rules and are dedicated to following them, you will be "limited" to doing what they prescribe. If freedom to you is the freedom to be a stoic, then yes, you will find stoicism to be the freest system. You keep saying how stoicism is different, but not how it is in any way preferable.

>An epicurean in that situation would consider which is preferable and make a decision based on their knowledge of themself.
If they did decide to leave the commune and get a crap job that prevented them from living the Epicurean lifestyle by making as you put it a 'decision based on their knowledge of themself' that implies that if they looked into themselves and didn't see a reason to save those millions they wouldn't. If the choice is between a stoic who happily does what is required (which is the definition of a virtuous disposition) to save millions and an Epicurean who has to ponder whether or not saving millions of people is better for their peace of mind I know which side I would take.

>If you give yourself rules and are dedicated to following them, you will be "limited" to doing what they prescribe
Stoicism is far more broad in the kind of outward lifestyle you can live than either cynicism or Epicureanism. You cannot be a head of state and be either of those things and in the case of Epicureanism you could not successfully live that life as a brutalised slave. I call both traditions limiting because there is only a very specific way to live it. You have stoics that are slaves, emperors, rich, poor, that are teachers etc. who lived in polis', republics and empires. Yes you are limited into being things congruous with stoicism if you are a stoic. This is true of every single possible ethical belief system. But to make the claim that therefore all belief systems allow for the same diversity of manifestation of those ideas is ridiculous.

Generality is irrelevant. We are individuals. I am not a king or a slave, nor do I wish to be, so why should I care if my ethics are available to kings and slaves? How am I, an individual, more free if I believe the same thing as others who are in different situations? It's true that my situation may change, and if so, maybe my beliefs will as well. If I end up a slave (which is very unlikely, but I suppose theoretically possible), I'll worry about what lives slaves can successfully live. It's even less likely that I become a head of state.

The Epicurean, you say is limited, but in the same post say that stoics "happily do what is required" without questioning and you find that vastly preferable. This is a large problem I have with Stoicism: anti intellectualism. Stoics argue that you already know what is good and any further questioning is an attempt to escape responsibility. They do not allow for contemplation of what is good and rely on "common sense." They despise rigorous argument and intellectual honesty. In short, they lack self knowledge. Stoicism commands the following of whatever rules feel the most authoritative, which is why it's so generalizable; different people have different rules embedded.

>without questioning and you find that vastly preferable
>This is a large problem I have with Stoicism: anti intellectualism
>Stoics argue that you already know what is good and any further questioning is an attempt to escape responsibility
>Stoicism commands the following of whatever rules feel the most authoritative
I phrased it the way I did as a shorthand because Veeky Forums does not really allow for nor does it really reward truly expansive posts. There is nothing anti-intellectual about stoicism. No stoic says you already know what is good and no stoic would ever argue against rational analysis of your actions especially when this is what they refer to as the virtue of wisdom i.e. one who just does what one feels to be right lacks a virtue and is therefore doing stoicism badly.

>They despise rigorous argument and intellectual honesty.
I'm guessing you have only read some combination of Epictetus, Seneca and Aurelius. In all of their writings that we possess of them do not cover the metaphysics, or the logic but only the ethics and even then they only act as guidance for those who are already sympathetic to stoicism. If you knew anything about the later stoics you would know how intense the debates were that existed within the school and how diverse the positions many stoics took. What you have said is simply completely wrong. At this point since it will devolve into mere assertions soon I ask for what sources you have for all of your assertions in your post because not only are they not born out of the extant stoic writings but they are also not supported by modern scholars either.

> which is why it's so generalizable; different people have different rules embedded
This is one of the major points of not just stoicism but of all virtue ethics. You cannot remove the individual from ethical considerations which is why virtue ethicists believe things like the deontological or utilitarian approach to ethics is doomed to fail.

Sorry, I forgot to answer your first set of complaints. The virtues as everyone agrees must be universable. Thus to have a unified theory of the virtues is to have a system which can adapt itself to various circumstances. If your system only works for you and cannot be carried onto anyone else you are not pursuing virtue as it is understood in any conventional sense. If you have a good system and your life situation changes all that will happen is the way your system is applied. If your life circumstances change and you have to develop brand new system to cope with the change it's not very good.

You're right. I'm not going to pretend I've studied the later stoics much at all. From what I've read (mostly Aurelius and Epictetus) I have seen opposition to intellectualism; to the act of pondering.
And even in this thread, you (I assume you are the same person I've been talking to, if not feel free to call me an idiot) say things that strike me the same way like
>why anyone would want to read a thousand pages when it is often unclear which position is actually Plato's much of the time even you could read a much shorter and easier good secondary text is beyond me
Without side-tracking the conversation too much (which would just be misdirection from the lack of knowledge I just displayed), I think this statement is antithetical to the field of philosophy. I don't read Plato to learn that he believed x, y and z. I read Plato to learn about myself. And it won't be the same reading a summary, because the conclusions without the build up are meaningless. If you just read a description of Plato's ideas of the forms, you're going to dismiss it as a crazy ancient belief that makes no sense. But if you follow the dialogs through their reasoning and come to the conclusions yourself, it's much harder to dismiss. You have to engage with Plato, or really any philosopher, I'd you want to get anything out of the experience.

>to have a unified theory of the virtues is to have a system which can adapt itself to various circumstances. If your system only works for you and cannot be carried onto anyone else you are not pursuing virtue as it is understood in any conventional sense.
Why is that bad?
>If you have a good system and your life situation changes all that will happen is the way your system is applied. If your life circumstances change and you have to develop brand new system to cope with the change it's not very good.
I disagree. I think a good system is one that fits your situation and satisfies you. As I said, I am not general, so why should my system be? If I have to change it later, I will. Both then and now I will have a better fitting system than if I tried to predict my whole life ahead of time and choose a system that will work acceptably well for all of it.

Again, you are describing stoicism and not saying why it is superior. Your argument, if I am understanding it correctly (if not, please correct me) is:
1. A good system is generalizable
2. Stoicism is generalizable
3. Therefore, stoicism is a good system
This could just as easily be an argument for Buddhism.

>blah blah blah I'm a faggot
you're mom

I think I have pinpointed where this discussion is going awry. I am merely trying to dispel misunderstandings of stoicism and to pit it against both cynicism and Epicureanism as to why it is superior. Since cynicism is also a system of virtue ethics I have assumed virtue ethics to be the correct mode of normative ethics in this instance so that I can show that cynicism fails to do well what it professes to do where stoicism far exceeds it. In the case of Epicureanism, since it does not deal with the virtues (and in avoiding the issue of grounding virtue ethics) I chose instead to point out that it is an utterly selfish philosophy and to believe in it would actively prevent you from doing good to other people should it conflict with the Epicurean lifestyle. After going over my notes on Epicureanism I have to back-pedal when I said it may have been possible for someone to leave the lifestyle to live a hard and difficult life to turn off the genocide machine. Even if the person in question thought that the mental discomfort of letting the genocide happen would exceed their mental balance otherwise it would only be them failing to accurately apply Epicurus' practical wisdom to the way they thought.

This is all I have been trying to do. I have intentionally avoided the issue of grounding virtue ethics because it would be a topic far harder than this one and would completely derail this discussion. Almost all of your disagreements with me in your current post seem to stem from me being a virtue ethicist and you are not being one. I won't address most of your current points just because here we have to get into the grounding of virtue ethics to go further, a topic I have no desire to pursue right now.

As I said a little here about why reading just the ancient stoics without modern scholarship leads to problems. The same thing has happened to you that I have seen happen to others. After reading an ancient stoic the misunderstandings are so great I would say you don't know more about stoicism than someone who didn't read it. plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/
This article does an okay job. It focuses too much on the earlier stoics and ignores the much better, much more nuanced 4/5th century CE thinkers and does not talk about modern stoicism. Because of this I think it paints stoicism as too absolute for modern thinkers when the philosophy does not need to be. But it does a good job at describing the parts of stoicism it talks about.

>1. A good system is generalizable 2. Stoicism is generalizable 3. Therefore, stoicism is a good system This could just as easily be an argument for Buddhism.
I think Buddhism, depending on what kind is pretty damn good and I think that is one of the reasons for it being so. In this case if we wanted to compare stoicism and Buddhism we would need to introduce more elements into play to get anywhere.

In regards to your going back to Plato we are mostly in agreement. I only said what you quoted me as saying as to why I think it odd to read Plato if you wanted to know what he thought of x, y, and z. You said you read Plato to learn about yourself. This is excellent. I also enjoy reading Plato for reasons such as this. But this isn't what I was talking about. I would like to add though that commentaries =/= summaries. Reading a book by a modern Aristotle scholar about Aristotle is not like reading a wikipedia excerpt. This also covers your criticism of the lack of adequate build up of positions if the Plato is not read directly. Veeky Forums overemphasis the need to read primary sources in terms of philosophy (a result I assume of it being a literature board). I would say a sizeable amount of Locke scholars have not read his essay Concerning Human Reasoning from cover to cover for example. Just to preempt any criticisms, this of course does not mean there is no place for primary sources or that there are not thinkers or books which either require of would heavily advise intense familiarity with the source material.

I have a feeling we have reached of where we can take this discussion. I'll come back to see if anything worth commenting on has been said for awhile but if not I'll just say thank you for the civil and well thought out discussion. They are too rare on Veeky Forums.

I agree that we've pretty much reached the end here.

In closing I will just summarize what I have been trying to say: we have fundamentally different premises and values. What makes stoicism "better" to you does not to me.
Making value judgements like that as though they were objective truths is silly in my opinion, and that was the basis of my argument. I clearly know much less about stoicism (and cynicism) than you do, and never claimed otherwise. I just think it's worthwhile to read De Rerum Natura. I wouldn't even call myself an epicurean. It's a fun and interesting poem with a unique voice.
You're right about the literary preference here, and I am guilty of it. Although I will say I think there is a fundamental difference in skipping the primary source when it's Locke compared to when it's Plato. Locke, from the little that I have read of him, strokes me as a much less subtle, less didactic, and frankly less talented writer. That is not a critique of his philosophy. Aristotle, I would say is somewhere in between, but I haven't found any modern commentaries that I really like. MacIntyre is often mentioned, but I was really not impressed by his work. He comes across as shallow and painfully smug. If you have suggestions of engaging and accurate contemporary Aristotelian commentary, I'll check them out.

I actually think Veeky Forums (specifically Veeky Forums) is one of the best places on the internet for arguing. It's the second most common activity here after shitposting, and is encouraged by the format and general culture of the site.

Regardless, thanks for your time and words.

Pretty good show, lads.

And now, back to our regular programme.

What makes Stoicism so misunderstood is that it's very individualistic. The goal is to achieve ataraxia so that you can live solely according to what your rational mind sees as virtuous and correct, but after that it's largely up to you. Similar philosophies like Christianity or even Buddhism have a lot more rules. Epictetus and others do preach against excesses of course but I think it's implied that a purely rational thinker will avoid needless and wasteful things on their own

sounds like religious text for the non-religious.
you require something to live by/for so you follow these made up concepts like honor and courage. in doing so you end up dutifully working for and benefitting those who probably sees past this. if it gives you purpose and therefore makes you happy then good for you but you haven't "figured life out" and you're certainly not some kind of greater human being.

I've never read anything by him. I love No Reservations and Bourdain as a host in general.

Don't have that edition so I don't know. My edition has none of that and during some paragraphs I'm literally thinking "wtf" because they lack any sort of context.