Stoic Meditations

Massimo Pigliucci

Occasional reflections on the wisdom of Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers with Prof. Massimo Pigliucci. Complete index by author and source at https://massimopigliucci.org/stoic-podcast/. (cover art by Marek Škrabák; original music by Ian Jolin-Rasmussen).

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1,094 episodes
Updated Aug 23, 2022

Episodes1094

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Aug 5, 2021 · 2 min
894. On gourmet food
How unhappy are they whose appetite can only be aroused by costly food! And the costliness of food depends not upon its delightful flavor and sweetness of taste, but upon its rarity and the difficulty of procuring it.
Aug 4, 2021 · 2 min
893. Two precious things we always carry with us
Whithersoever we betake ourselves two most excellent things will accompany us, namely, a common Nature and our own special virtue.
Aug 3, 2021 · 2 min
892. Don't get cocky with Fortune
No one loses anything by the frowns of Fortune unless they have been deceived by her smiles. The one who has not been puffed up by success, does not collapse after failure.
Aug 2, 2021 · 2 min
891. Look out for Fortune's blows
Always stand as it were on guard, and mark the attacks and charges of Fortune long before she delivers them; she is only terrible to those whom she catches unawares.
Jul 30, 2021 · 2 min
890. Happiness regardless of circumstances
External circumstances have very little importance either for good or for evil: wise persons are neither elated by prosperity nor depressed by adversity.
Jul 29, 2021 · 2 min
889. What really makes us wiser
You have gained nothing by so many misfortunes, if you have not learned how to suffer.
Jul 28, 2021 · 2 min
888. On the last path to freedom
Cicero reminds us that - when life is truly unbearable and we can no longer act virtuously - we have one last escape route, the guarantor of our ultimate freedom: death itself.
Jul 27, 2021 · 2 min
887. What to do if you are deaf
We are all truly deaf with regard to those innumerable languages which we do not understand. Then, as I before referred the blind to the pleasures of hearing, so I may the deaf to the pleasures of sight.
Jul 26, 2021 · 2 min
886. Focus on what you can do, not on what you can't
The reply of Antipater the Cyrenaic to some women who bewailed his being blind, though it is a little too obscene, is not without its significance. “What do you mean?,” said he, “do you think the night can furnish no pleasure?”
Jul 23, 2021 · 3 min
885. On exile and cosmopolitanism
Cicero explains why being sent out of one's country is not a hardship worth worrying about, and tells us that Socrates regarded the whole world as his country.
Jul 22, 2021 · 2 min
884. The time Plato almost lost his life
Cicero tells us about a letter written by Plato during his stint in Syracuse, explaining why temperance is the most fundamental of the four cardinal virtues.
Jul 21, 2021 · 2 min
883. On walking before dinner
They relate, too, of Socrates, that, once when he was walking very fast till the evening, on his being asked why he did so, his reply was that he was purchasing an appetite by walking, that he might sup the better.
Jul 20, 2021 · 2 min
882. Socrates the non-consumerist
Socrates, when on one occasion he saw a great quantity of gold and silver carried in a procession, cried out, “How many things are there which I do not want!”
Jul 19, 2021 · 2 min
881. Three kinds of goods
There are three kinds of goods: the greatest being those of the mind; the next best those of the body; the third are external goods, as the Peripatetics call them, and the Old Academics differ very little from them.
Jul 16, 2021 · 3 min
880. Many schools, many takes
Cicero gives us a rundown of the major Hellenistic schools, which differed in the way they understood eudaimonia, the life worth living.
Jul 15, 2021 · 2 min
879. The philosophical problem with pain
Shall virtue, then, yield to pain? Shall the happy life of a wise person succumb to it? Good Gods! How base would this be! Spartan boys will bear to have their bodies torn by rods without uttering a groan.
Jul 14, 2021 · 3 min
878. Damocles' sword and the nature of happiness
Cicero tells the famous story of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, and one of his flatterers, Damocles, who learns the hard way that what may look like a happy life is actually nothing of the sort.
Jul 13, 2021 · 3 min
877. An argument in favor of virtue as guarantor of a happy life
Cicero makes one of a number of arguments for why virtue is the only guarantor of a happy life. Let's examine the validity of the argument's structure and the soundness of its premises.
Jul 12, 2021 · 2 min
876. How to evaluate philosophical systems
We are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking.
Jul 9, 2021 · 4 min
875. Why virtue is necessary and sufficient for happiness
Cicero makes a strong argument, based on Socratic and Stoic positions, for why virtue is necessary and sufficient for "happiness," if we translate the Greek word eudaimonia as "the life worth living."