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Artwork for Stoic Meditations
Religion & Spirituality

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

Newest first
  • Sep 23, 2019 · 2 min

    452. The path to a life worth living

    Stoicism leads us to a life of benevolence toward other human beings, in pursuit of a constant refinement of our judgments and understanding of how the world actually works — so that we can more effectively live in it.

  • Sep 20, 2019 · 2 min

    451. The first rule of Stoic Club

    Plato said that "every soul is deprived of the truth against its will." Which means that we need to treat people who make mistakes with sympathy, not criticize and dismiss them.

  • Sep 19, 2019 · 3 min

    450. Stoic epistemology and humility about knowledge

    Cicero's reports a famous metaphor used by Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, to explain the progression from perception to assent to comprehension to knowledge. Which is then used as a reminder about the limits of our own knowledge.

  • Sep 17, 2019 · 3 min

    448. Aristo, the Stoic dissenter

    Aristo of Chios disagreed with the founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, in pretty fundamental ways. A powerful reminder that Stoic philosophy isn't written in stone, and never was.

  • Sep 15, 2019 · 3 min

    447. Always challenge your impressions

    The basic Stoic psychological account of our desires and actions is a powerful guide to willfully change our behavior for the better.

  • Sep 13, 2019 · 3 min

    446. Panaetius, the dissident Stoic

    Let's learn why the middle-Stoic Panaetius disagreed on a major point of "physics" with the early Stoics: he didn't believe in divination!

  • Sep 12, 2019 · 2 min

    445. Skeptics vs Stoics

    The Academic Skeptics were one of the major rival schools to Stoicism. Yet, on the nature of human knowledge, and on what it means in practice, for everyday living, the two philosophies were not very far apart.

  • Sep 11, 2019 · 3 min

    444. Chrysippus and the logic of paradoxes

    If you have some sand and you start adding grains, when do you have a heap? Chrysippus' answer to this sort of paradox will leave logicians frustrated and the rest of us with something to think about.

  • Sep 9, 2019 · 2 min

    442. Stoic materialism

    The Stoics are materialists, in the sense that they believe that anything that has causal powers must be made of stuff, whatever that stuff turns out to be.

  • Sep 6, 2019 · 4 min

    441. Four interesting Stoic doctrines

    Virtue can only be perfected by reason; all virtues are really just one, namely, wisdom; virtue is intrinsically good; and one needs to continuously practice in order to be virtuous.

  • Sep 5, 2019 · 3 min

    440. What Zeno said

    Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic sect, says that there are three sets of things in the world: virtue, things according or contra to nature, and neutral things. From which a solid moral compass for everyday living follows.

  • Sep 4, 2019 · 2 min

    439. The importance of Socrates

    Socrates was the first to draw philosophy away from matters of an abstruse character, in which all the philosophers before his time had been wholly occupied, and to have diverted it to the objects of ordinary life.

  • Sep 2, 2019 · 2 min

    437. Gods or atoms, you should blame no one

    Blame is not a Stoic thing. We bear responsibility for what we do, of course, but to blame people isn’t particularly useful. As Marcus Aurelius says, teach them, if you can, or bear with them.

  • Aug 30, 2019 · 3 min

    436. The problem with Paris (not the city)

    Paris stole Menelaus' wife, Helen, thereby starting the Trojan War. He did that because he assented to the impression that it was good to pursue the wife of his host, and that misjudgment resulted in ten years of misery for so many.