'While you're alive, keep learning how to live': An Introduction to Stoicism
March 24, 2019
Imagine yourself carrying a heavy container, full of liquid, through the middle of a crowd. Suddenly, a man walking in front of you turns around, takes the container from your hands, and throws it to the ground, shattering it into countless pieces. Your reaction might range from confronting the man – perhaps even resorting to violence – to simply walking away, indignant. Let’s suppose that, in fact, you decided to ignore the man and walk in the opposite direction – maybe out of shame – but he follows you and shouts, “Don’t run away, why run, kid? Nothing terrible happened to you.”
This is one of the earliest known anecdotes about a man who would later become known as the founder of the Stoic school of thought: Zeno of Citium. The account, described by Diogenes Laërtius in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, depicts a moment in the relationship between Zeno and his mentor Crates of Thebes, where Crates teaches that we should not feel shame, anger, or anything of the sort over things that are not shameful or worthy of anger (a redundancy more provocative than it seems). What happened to the container (which, in fact, was supposedly full of lentil soup) did not happen to Zeno. It was the container that was broken, and no harm was done to the man himself. It was an event outside his sphere of action. The feeling of shame or anger would only make sense if the event directly involved the philosopher himself, and not merely a vessel he was carrying.
Zeno would go on to learn enough in the following years until he felt confident to start his own school. His students, originally called Zenonians, soon came to be known as “Stoics” thanks to the place where they held their lessons: the Stoa Poikile (or “painted porch,” the covered part at the entrance of a temple).
Stoic thought was heavily influenced by schools such as the Cynics and the followers of Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus. What these schools had in common was a constant pursuit of how to live better (or the pursuit of happiness, referred to as “Eudaimonism”). Some emphasized virtue, others metaphysics, but the goal remained the same.
Among the list of Stoics are people ranging from slaves like Epictetus (55 BC – 135 AD) to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180 AD), including teachers and scholars, Roman senators, and women such as Fannia (Roman, c. 100 BC) and Porcia Catonis (Greek, 70–43 BC). Among these, four stand out for the works they left behind and their relevance to Stoicism: Zeno of Citium, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius.
Moreover, the eventual decline of Stoicism with the rise of Christianity did not prevent the philosophical school from influencing Christianity itself – through figures like Paul of Tarsus and Thomas Aquinas*. Later on, it would also influence thinkers such as Descartes and Baruch Spinoza.
The stoic way of thinking
To understand the structure of Stoic thought, it is necessary to grasp two fundamental pillars: the so-called “cardinal” virtues and the Dichotomy of Control. The first includes Practical Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Temperance. The second teaches us that the world is made up of things that are beyond our control (such as accidents, stochastic events in nature, other people’s decisions, our reputation, our body and its condition, etc.) and things that are within our control (such as our attitude, what and when we choose to act, how motivated we are, how much we desire, etc.).
An example that helps us visualize this dichotomy of control is the metaphor of the archer, described by Cicero (a Roman philosopher and consul) and transcribed by Massimo Pigliucci in his book How to Be a Stoic. Cicero explains that an archer has a number of things under their control: how much and how intensely they train each day; what bow and arrow they use; what kind of target they aim for and what distance they choose before releasing the arrow. The archer has full control over these matters up to the exact moment they shoot. From that point on, they may wish with all their might for the arrow to hit the target dead center — it won’t make much difference. If the wind blows harder at that exact moment, if something deflects the arrow from its path, if the target is mobile and decides to move… these and other variables are no longer within the archer’s power.
A Stoic, when faced with this metaphor, understands that there is little use in placing expectations and hopes on things that do not depend solely on them. In this case, recognizing that there is far more value in doing one’s best while it is still possible to do so — rather than reaching for what is out of reach — is an act of virtue.
Even so, this can lead to a mistaken idea of “detachment” or “indifference” toward everyday matters, and this misunderstanding is often associated with Stoicism — as if it were a philosophy that teaches us that emotions are bad and therefore must be avoided (almost like Spock and his fellow Vulcans, who seem to have been inspired by a poor interpretation of the Stoics). In reality, Stoicism helps in the pursuit of wisdom in the face of emotion, teaching that sometimes following the instinctive path of emotion can lead a person away from virtue.
Seneca, who was advisor to Emperor Nero and eventually forced to commit suicide (a death narrated as a true Stoic treatise), dedicated an entire work to the stance one should take toward anger, entitled De Ira, or On Anger. In it, Seneca argues that he recognizes anger often stems from an internal origin (despite not knowing what we know today about human physiology and neurochemistry) and that such a reaction is hardly controllable. However, what we do with that anger is usually within our reach: we can make an effort to control it.
But how can we control ourselves? To answer this question, we must turn to an important feature of Stoicism, detailed in the numerous arguments of the school’s great thinkers: introspection. In short, Stoicism assumes that if we have any control over what and how we think, then we should direct that control toward the important questions of our lives — especially those that carry ethical implications for ourselves and for others. Introspection helps develop this ability to step back and reflect on the reasons that drive us to act. A Stoic “trains” themselves to understand that there are tendencies both within and beyond their control, embedded in their own patterns of thought — and for that reason, they must be cautious when making decisions.
A historical example of distinctly Stoic conduct is the condemnation of Socrates (even though he was not a representative of this philosophical school). It is thought that Socrates could have escaped the sentence of his trial with the help of close friends and followers. First, it’s important to understand that his trial was heavily motivated by a vendetta on the part of his accusers — and yet Socrates refused to flee. This was not necessarily a disregard for his own life or for the lives of those who cared about him, but rather, in his supposed own words, an understanding that his moral duty was to accept the law even when it was unjustly applied. Socrates’ reasoning was that we do not have the right to change the law simply because it does not please us. Wanting to change the law is a stance we, as individuals or citizens, may take — and often with strong justification — but actually changing it is very likely beyond our individual control.
Another fundamental aspect of Stoicism is the ability to recognize the complexity of the world and its events, as Pigliucci points out:
“Generally speaking, Stoic ethics is not just about what we do — our actions — but about how our character is equipped to navigate real life. We live in intrinsically complex social environments to the point that we cannot always do the right thing, or even do the right thing often enough to know, with confidence, what the right thing even is to begin with.”
— Massimo Pigliucci, in How to Be a Stoic
Stoicism can be interpreted as a pragmatic philosophy — and indeed it is — that helps us understand that the world is not made up of such radical dichotomies (either it’s A or it’s B). Epictetus reminds us that human conflict, both internal and external, does not require perfection in our actions (because perfection isn’t even possible). A world divided into good and evil, black and white, all or nothing, is, in his words, “for fools.”
A valuable reflection that can be drawn from this is that viewing the world in absolute positives or negatives is, at the very least, dangerous. The insights of Stoicism allow us to grasp the world’s complexity and to conduct ourselves accordingly, which helps us avoid unjustified dogmatic or absolutist stances.
The most well-known Stoic texts — written by Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus — deal with topics that have never ceased to be relevant to us over time. Whether it’s the moral issues surrounding the accumulation of wealth, the dilemmas of facing death, or the torment of anxiety, there is a timeless bond between these ideas simply because, more often than not, they are — or will be — part of our lives.
Thus, Stoicism is a philosophy of constant struggle against the most deeply rooted beliefs within us. As Pigliucci writes, Stoicism holds that to live a good life (eudaimonically speaking), we must understand two fundamental things: the nature of the world (and, by extension, our place in it) and the nature of human reason, including when and how it fails — which is more often than we realize.
Massimo Pigliucci’s book How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophies to Live a Modern Life already tells us, in its title, that this philosophy is relevant to our contemporary lives just as it was useful to the generations that lived long before us. And this is possibly the most important characteristic of Stoicism, even though its notions and concepts are spread across various other philosophies and schools of thought: the idea that every life — whether marked by grand ambitions or modest goals — can be well lived through, above all else, honest self-knowledge and reflection on how we function and how we are situated in the world.
Link to original (In Portuguese)
- A 2025 note: If you look closely at the lineage of the seven deadly sins — a concept widely known within the Catholic religion — you’ll find a strong parallel between them and the ideas of vices and virtues first explored by Aristotle in his treatise Rhetoric. The Stoics’ cardinal virtues (Practical Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Temperance) share this lineage as well, e.g. Aristotle’s Justice, Courage, Moderation (or temperance), Magnificence, Magnanimity, and Prudence. Thomas Aquina and Evagrius Ponticus takes on the seven deadly sins (or the eight evil thoughts for Evagrius) are inspired or drawn upon the philosophies from the ancient Roman and Greek, but I digress. I might write more about this later!