Stoicism

The Stoics also believed that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and people should aim to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is "in accordance with nature".

For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logic, monistic physics, and naturalistic ethics.

Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos).

Stoicism's primary aspect involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being: "Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature.

"[5] This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy",[6] and even to accept slaves as equals of others because all are products of nature.

The name Stoicism derives from the Stoa Poikile (Ancient Greek: ἡ ποικίλη στοά), or "painted porch", a colonnade decorated with mythic and historical battle scenes on the north side of the Agora in Athens where Zeno of Citium and his followers gathered to discuss their ideas, near the end of the fourth century BC.

However, this name was soon dropped, likely because the Stoics did not consider their founders to be perfectly wise and to avoid the risk of the philosophy becoming a cult of personality.

[11] Zeno's ideas developed from those of the Cynics (brought to him by Crates of Thebes), whose founding father, Antisthenes, had been a disciple of Socrates.

Zeno's most influential successor was Chrysippus, who followed Cleanthes as leader of the school, and was responsible for molding what is now called Stoicism.

[12] Stoicism became the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire[13] to the point where, in the words of Gilbert Murray, "nearly all the successors of Alexander [...] professed themselves Stoics".

For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.Of all the schools of ancient philosophy, Stoicism made the greatest claim to being utterly systematic.

[18] These three ideals constitute virtue which is necessary for 'living a well reasoned life', seeing as they are all parts of a logos, or philosophical discourse, which includes the mind's rational dialogue with itself.

Stoicism teaches the development of self-control as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos).

Stoicism's primary aspect involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being: "Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature".

Susanne Bobzien wrote, "The many close similarities between Chrysippus's philosophical logic and that of Gottlob Frege are especially striking".

A simple example of the Stoic categories in use is provided by Jacques Brunschwig: I am a certain lump of matter, and thereby a substance, an existent something (and thus far that is all); I am a man, and this individual man that I am, and thereby qualified by a common quality and a peculiar one; I am sitting or standing, disposed in a certain way; I am the father of my children, the fellow citizen of my fellow citizens, disposed in a certain way in relation to something else.

[27] The mind has the ability to judge (συγκατάθεσις, synkatathesis)—approve or reject—an impression, enabling it to distinguish a true representation of reality from one that is false.

Certain and true knowledge (episteme), achievable by the Stoic sage, can be attained only by verifying the conviction with the expertise of one's peers and the collective judgment of humankind.

[50] For example, Plutarch reports that accepting life under tyranny would have compromised Cato's self-consistency (constantia) as a Stoic and impaired his freedom to make the honorable moral choices.

[51] A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism; according to the Stoics, all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should live in brotherly love and readily help one another.

Stoicism became the most influential school of the Greco-Roman world, and produced a number of remarkable writers and personalities, such as Cato the Younger and Epictetus.

Seneca exhorted, "Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies.

Both encourage Ascesis with respect to the passions and inferior emotions, such as lust, and envy, so that the higher possibilities of one's humanity can be awakened and developed.

[58] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Stoicism notes, "the sense of the English adjective 'stoical' is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins".

Stoic philosophy was the original philosophical inspiration for modern cognitive psychotherapy, particularly as mediated by Albert Ellis' Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), the major precursor of CBT.

The question of Stoicism's influence on modern psychotherapy, particularly REBT and CBT, was described in detail in The Philosophy of Cognitive–Behavioural Therapy by Donald Robertson.

[64] Several early 20th-century psychotherapists were influenced by Stoicism, most notably the "rational persuasion" school founded by the Swiss neurologist and psychotherapist Paul Dubois, who drew heavily on Stoicism in his clinical work and encouraged his clients to study passages from Seneca the Younger as homework assignments.

Similarities of modern Stoicism and third-wave CBT have been suggested as well, and individual reports of its potency in treating depression have been published.

[65] There has also been interest in applying the tenets of ancient Stoicism to the human origin story,[66] environmental education,[67] vegetarianism[68] and the modern challenges of sustainable development, material consumption and consumerism.

"[75] Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta is a collection by Hans von Arnim of fragments and testimonia of the earlier Stoics, published in 1903–1905 as part of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana.