Stoicism and the Virtue Proposition

The Radical Assertion Behind Stoic Philosophy

Stoic Philosophy has seen an upsurge in popularity as of late, this is no secret. One simply has to go into any popular bookstore such as Barnes & Nobles, walk over to the philosophy section, and you can find the primary corpus of Stoic works such as; Meditations, Enchiridion, Letters from a Stoic.

And you will also see secondary works based on Stoicism, aimed at re-working and re-thinking Stoicism for the 21st century. This is a good thing and represents an evolving scholarship in both a public setting and academic settings.

The one thing that I have noticed about this new interest in Stoicism is actually not the philosophy of the Stoic system, which I find to be rather nuanced, interesting, and capable of taking up the mantle of philosophical inquiry. The core focus of this new Stoicism focuses on things like waking up early, setting goals for career success, how to be a real man and how to deal with your emotions.

These are not bad things in and of themselves; in fact, I do applaud this kind of practical guidance. But this is not the core of Stoic philosophy at all, nor does it represent what Stoic philosophy is. When we picture a Stoic philosopher of this kind, we think of an unflinching person with no emotions and no true human connection — this kind of Stoic has an icy feel similar to that of Nietzsche’s philosopher but with none of the passion or lust for life.