Massimo Pigliucci: What is Stoicism?
Socrates in the City
Socrates in the City
4.7 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
What is the history of Stoicism and how does one practice it today?
Socrates in the City host Eric Metaxas sits down with professor and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, author of the popular How to be a Stoic and Beyond Stoicism, to discuss the history and development of Stoicism, and the line between emotion, reason, and virtue. They discuss the influence of stoicism in pop culture, from ancient Greek icons to modern-day Star Trek. Throughout Pigliucci’s work, he highlights the balance of skepticism and trust as a road to wisdom, as exemplified by Socrates himself.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another edition of Socrates in the studio, which falls under the rubric and maybe also the Aegis of Socrates in the city. |
| 0:10.9 | Today we find ourselves in the city of New York City. |
| 0:14.8 | And my guest is Massimo Piliucci, which you may be guessing is Italian. That would be correct. He is an eclectic figure. |
| 0:28.7 | Let me tell you about him. He is the K.D. Iranian professor of philosophy at the City College of New York. |
| 0:34.9 | But he has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut. |
| 0:40.2 | He has another PhD in philosophy from the University of Tennessee. |
| 0:45.4 | His books include How to Be a Stoic, using ancient philosophy to live a modern life, |
| 0:51.5 | Nonsense on Stilts, How to sell science from bunk, and a handbook for |
| 0:56.5 | new Stoics, how to thrive in a world out of your control. My guest now, to talk about stoicism and |
| 1:03.1 | truth and all that fun stuff is Massimo Piliucci. Massimo, welcome. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be |
| 1:08.9 | here. Well, it's fun to talk about truth and life. I mean, this is what we do here. But this is something that you have been doing for some time. It's not every day that I bump into somebody who's written a book on stoicism. And so the first question I always want to ask people is, how did you get to be who you are now? In other words, what is your story? |
| 1:28.0 | I know you told me you grew up in Italy. |
| 1:30.2 | Did you ever think you'd come to America? |
| 1:31.9 | When you were a teenager, what were you thinking you would be doing in the future? |
| 1:37.5 | I had no clue about coming to America, but apparently, according to family lore, I decided to be a scientist when I was five, I think. |
| 1:47.1 | And that's because I watched moon landing in 1969. |
| 1:52.0 | And then at the end of that thing, I announced to my family that that was going to be a scientist. |
| 1:56.3 | Okay, don't tell the audience who's listening, but this means we're the same age. |
| 1:59.8 | Yeah, well. |
| 2:00.3 | And we're very young. |
| 2:01.9 | We're very young. |
| 2:02.9 | So they would never know. |
... |
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