Below is reading that is to be prepared before "Session 5: Modern Stoicism" for the course Stoic Philosophy for the 21st Century. My recommendation? Pick one or two articles that are most salient for *you* and *your life* and do a bit of choose-your-own-adventure. We will likely get to discuss all articles in class in some form.
Required:
Thermitus, Frank. "A Stoic Approach to Racism" in Philosophy Now: A Magazine of Ideas, Issue 44. 2021. (PDF)
Stockdale, James B. "Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison" in Occasional Papers: Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics. 1995. (PDF)
Becker, Lawrence C. "Happiness" in A New Stoicism, pages 138-149. (PDF)
Optional:
Becker, Lawrence C. "The Ruin of the Doctrine" in A New Stoicism, pages 8-20. (PDF)
Robertson, Donald & Codd, Trent. "Stoic Philosophy as a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy" in The Behavior Therapist, vol 42 n 2, 2019. (PDF)
Sherman, Nancy. "If You're Reading Stoicism for Life Hacks, You're Missing the Point" in The New York Times, 2021. (PDF)
Peruse dailystoic.com
In "A Stoic Approach to Racism," Frank Thermitus offers a timely meditation on how Stoic ethics reasonably calls us to be anti-racist due to our cosmopolitan nature. He also considers the implicit addition of a 5th stoic virtue: resistance. Did you know Toussaint Louverture almost always had a copy of Epictetus' Enchiridion on him? Now you do. PDF attached below.
VADM James B. Stockdale, USN is an impossible figure to circumnavigate in modern Stoicism. Drawing from his own empirical experience in war, Stockdale provides a window into how Stoicism kept him steady in dire circumstances. This particular paper offers a vignette of his time as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. PDF attached below.
Lawrence Becker is widely considered to be the premier academic authority on a modern application of, and approach to, ancient Stoicism. While it was tempting to assign the entire book, I have practiced restraint and limited us to his chapter on "Happiness." PDF of entire book below.
*optional* That said, if you are interested to hear a critique of the ancient cosmology and its significance to modern ethics, hop to an earlier chapter in the Becker called "The Ruins of Doctrine" and check out the subsection called "Science, Logic, and Ethics." (pg 8-14). PDF of the entire book is below.
*optional* Donald Robertson is a practicing cognitive behavioral therapist and philosopher who has done extensive work on the relationship between Stoicism and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). When he isn't publishing, he is blogging here: https://donaldrobertson.name/blog-post-archive/. PDF below.
*optional* Nancy Sherman is a professor of philosophy at Georgetown and scholar of ancient philosophy. In this short NYT op-ed, she briefly considers the "mega-industry" of modern Stoicism and calls us to consider that Stoicism is not simply self-help, but "group help."Article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/opinion/stoics-self-help.html
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