Greece & Rome · c. 300 BCE – 3rd c. CE
Stoicism
Virtue is the only good; by living in agreement with nature’s rational order and judging events rightly, we can be free and at peace whatever happens.
How can we be happy in a world we cannot control?
Zeno of Citium, a merchant who by ancient anecdote was shipwrecked near Athens, studied with the Cynic Crates and with Platonists before teaching in the Painted Porch (Stoa Poikilē) around 300 BCE. In the uncertain Hellenistic world, and later in Rome, Stoicism offered a complete system of logic, physics and ethics for living under fortune.
The cosmos is ordered by logos, a divine reason, and we share in that reason. Health, wealth and reputation can be taken away, so they are not truly good; only our own judgements and choices are fully up to us. Passions such as fear and anger are mistaken judgements, so by correcting our judgements we can reach apatheia, freedom from disturbing passion.
- Virtue is the only good; externals are “indifferent”.
- Distinguish what is up to us from what is not.
- All humans share reason and form one world community.
It shaped Roman law, Christian ethics and the ideas of natural law and universal human dignity; today it is revived in cognitive behavioural therapy and popular “Stoic” self-help.
Thinkers
c. 334–262 BCEZeno of CitiumMerchant from Cyprus who founded Stoicism in Athensc. 279–206 BCEChrysippusThird head of the Stoa, its great systematiser and logicianc. 4 BCE – 65 CESenecaRoman statesman, playwright and tutor to Neroc. 50–135EpictetusFreed slave who taught Stoicism at Nicopolis121–180Marcus AureliusRoman emperor who wrote Stoic notes to himselfKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofCynicismZeno studied with the Cynic Crates and kept the Cynic view that virtue alone suffices for happiness, while restoring logic and physics.Grew out of
Socratic philosophyThe Stoics saw themselves as Socratics: virtue is knowledge, and the sage is the person who never assents to a false judgement.
What it led to
Opposed byPyrrhonism & Academic skepticismAcademic skeptics such as Carneades attacked the Stoic claim that some impressions are so clear that they guarantee their own truth.
Its answers to the big questions
EthicsHow should one live?Virtue is the only good. Care only for what is up to you: your judgements and choices.On the record
Zeno of Citium was a merchant shipwrecked near Athens.
The shipwreck is an ancient anecdote with several versions: Diogenes Laertius reports that Zeno was wrecked carrying purple dye to Piraeus, but also that some say he heard of the wreck while already in Athens, or sold his cargo before turning to philosophy. The atlas now presents it as a story.
Sources: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 7.2–5 (trans. R. D. Hicks, LacusCurtius)