#537: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2019

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was one of the last Stoic philosophers and today is arguably the best known. Thanks to his personal writings that eventually became Meditations, Marcus left us with concrete exercises to put Stoicism into action. My guest today explores this Stoic tradition and connects it with modern psychotherapy in his book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. His name is Donald Robertson, and he's a Scottish philosopher and cognitive psychotherapist. We begin our conversation discussing the history of Stoicism and the overlooked beliefs the Stoics had. We then discuss the end goal of Stoicism and how it differed from other ancient philosophies like Aristotelian virtue ethics. Donald then explains the Stoic approach to emotions and the common misconceptions people have about Stoicism in that regard. We then dig into Stoic practices taken from Marcus Aurelius and discuss how modern cognitive psychology backs them up. Donald shares how the Stoics used language and daily meditations to manage their emotional life, and how they went about the psychology of goal-setting and dealing with success and failure. Get the show notes at aom.is/marcus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brat McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast. Roman
0:11.4	Emperor Mark Zerrelius is one of the last Stoke philosophers and today is arguably the
0:15.1	best known. Thanks to his personal writings that eventually became the meditations, Markus
0:19.0	left us with concrete exercises that put stoicism into action. My guest today explores this
0:23.5	Stoke tradition and connects it with modern psychotherapy in his book How to Think
0:27.0	Like a Roman Emperor, Stoke philosophy of Mark Zerrelius. His name is Donald Robertson,
0:30.8	and he's a Scottish philosopher and cognitive psychotherapist. We begin our conversation
0:34.6	discussing the history of stoicism and the overlooked beliefs the Stoics had. We then discuss
0:38.6	the end goal of stoicism and how it differed from other ancient philosophies like Aristilian
0:42.8	Virtue Ethics. Donald then explains the Stoke approach to emotions and the common misconceptions
0:46.9	people have about stoicism in that regard. We then dig into Stoke practices taken from
0:51.0	Mark Zerrelius and discuss how modern cognitive psychology backs them up. Donald then shares
0:55.1	how the Stokes used language and daily meditations to manage their emotional life and how they
0:58.8	went about the psychology of goal setting and dealing with success and failure. Out of
1:02.6	the shows over, check out our show notes at aam.is slash Marcus. Donald joins you now via
1:07.3	clearcast.io.
1:20.6	Donald Robertson, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, Brett. It's a pleasure to be
1:24.3	on. You are a psychologist and a philosopher and the author of the latest book How to Think
1:30.3	Like a Roman Emperor, the Stoke philosophy of Marcus Arrelius. I know our listeners are
1:35.5	familiar with stoicism, but I'm curious how did you discover stoicism? Was your career
1:40.5	as a psychologist? Is that what led you to stoicism or was it something else?
1:44.2	I'm actually a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist. I've got into stoicism around the same
	...

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