Stoicism

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2005

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Stoicism, the third great philosophy of the Ancient World. It was founded by Zeno in the fourth century BC and flourished in Greece and then in Rome. Its ideals of inner solitude, forbearance in adversity and the acceptance of fate won many brilliant adherents and made it the dominant philosophy across the whole of the Ancient World. The ex-slave Epictetus said "Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them". Seneca, the politician, declared that "Life without the courage for death is slavery". The stoic thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor, provided a rallying point for empire builders into the modern age.Stoicism influenced the Christian church, had a big effect on Shakespeare and Renaissance drama and may even have given the British their 'stiff upper lip', but it's a philosophy that was almost forgotten in the 20th century. Does it still have a legacy for us today?With Angie Hobbs, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Warwick; Jonathan Rée, philosopher and historian; David Sedley, Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for down learning the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.0	Hello, the philosophy of Stoicism was founded by Zeno in the 4th century BC and flourished
0:16.9	in Greece and then in Rome. Its ideals of inner solitude, forbearance in adversity, and the acceptance of fate
0:23.8	won many brilliant adherents and made it the dominant philosophy
0:27.3	across the whole of the ancient world. The ex-slave Epictetus said
0:32.1	man is troubled not by events but by the meaning he gives them.
0:36.2	Seneca, the politician philosopher, declared that life without the courage for death is slavery. The Stoic thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher
0:44.8	emperor, provided a rallying point for empire builders into the modern age. But what was
0:49.9	Stoicism? How did its ideas of inner retreat come to influence the most powerful and public
0:55.1	man of the classical era? And does it still have a legacy for us today?
0:59.7	We need to discuss the philosophy of Stoicism is David Sedley, Lawrence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the
1:04.9	University of Cambridge, the philosopher and historian Jonathan Ray, and Anjih Hobbs lecturer in philosophy
1:11.5	at the University of Warwick.
1:13.0	Andji Hobbs, Storysm took its name from the colonnade or Stoa in Athens where
1:17.0	Zeno and his followers discussed their ideas.
1:20.0	Can you give us a brief outline of what those ideas were?
1:23.0	Yes, well above all, Stoicism presents us with a coherent system based on the integrated
1:29.4	three pillars of logic, physics and ethics. They argue for a materialistic and deterministic
1:35.4	Cosmos which at the conceptual level is composed of passive matter in
1:41.4	interpenetrated by active divine reason. At the observable level
1:47.0	this passive matter takes the form of earth and water and the divine reason
	...

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