This is philosophy bites.

This is philosophy bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.

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In the third century BC in Athens,

Zeno of Kitium founded a school of philosophy, stoicism.

From 3rd century BC Athens, zip forward in time 23 centuries and travel westwards 5,000 miles.

There, teaching in Dayton, Ohio, you'll find a modern day stoic.

His name is William Irvine.

Bill Irvine, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you, Nigel, for inviting me.

The topic we're going to focus on is living stoically.

Now, before we get onto the living bit, let's talk about stoicism. What is stoicism? Where did it come from?

Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that was adopted and adapted by the Romans.

The most important thing to realize about Stoicism is most people

when they talk about Stoicism don't have the correct idea.

So you've mentioned that it's originally a Greek philosophy with Roman followers later on, but who were the famous Stoics?

Zeno of Citium would have been the first Stoic and he tried different philosophies he decided he wanted to be a different

philosopher and came up with his own philosophy which subsequent Greeks expanded and then

the Romans took it beginning with people like Seneca,

...